Of Sony’s shooting stars at this year’s E3, Beyond: Two Souls is soaring towards the most ambitious goal: to deliver an emotionally-gripping interactive drama around death. Sony is clearly listening with great intent when Creative Director David Cage says innovation in video game narrative is something “the industry desperately needs.”
Cage has always been a somewhat peerless believer in the narrative power of the medium, but Beyond marks bold territory, even for a guy whose last game featured self-mutilation via quick-time-event. This is a deeply personal project for Cage, sparked by the death of a close family member and a subsequent lack of solace found in traditional religion. The game – centered around 15 years of the life of 'Jodie’ and her relationship with temperamental spirit companion ‘Aiden’ - is a result of his disillusionment and a creative outlet where he could fashion his own ideas about the afterlife.
As one would expect from a central relationship on which to hang such heavy themes, Jodie and Aiden’s relationship is complex and deliberately ambiguous. While we can make assumptions about Aiden’s identity and how he fits into the broader conversation, Cage is not explicit on his character, confirming only that he’s “the person Jodie loves the most and hates the most in the world.”
“He’s much more like a wild animal, you never know what to expect from him. He doesn’t understand the rules in our world. He doesn’t have the same references; he doesn’t understand morals at all. So he’s very possessive with Jodie and wants to keep her for himself, without understanding that this is not what she wants.”
Ethereal link notwithstanding, the pair share an emotional co-dependency.
“Depending on what happens to her in the story, Jodie will sometimes feel really close to Aiden, because he’s the only one who’s always there for her. But at the same time, he’s the only one preventing her from having a normal life.”
Cage has written the entire script himself, and the process took him a year. Like Heavy Rain, Beyond is a rare example of authorship in the blockbuster video game space with very few ‘auteurs.’ With mind to the enormity of the Quantic team, Cage suggests the production cycle would be thrown jarringly out of sync if he were to approach the narrative with more fluidity. The script is the backbone of Beyond, and that backbone was fashioned by Cage.
As one would hope, his vision is shared by many, including actress Ellen Page, whose performance drives Jodie. The demo presented at Sony’s conference, while subdued, was a very pointed example of the power of Quantic’s tech and the power of Page, who spends most of it emoting only through facial expression. Cage is putting a lot of stock in the subtleties of his cast’s performances, going so far as to capture six actors on a sound-stage at once.
Cage is more than confident that this intense focus on performance will deliver the necessary emotional clout. “(Playing it) will be like a punch to the face.”
Taken out of context, Cage’s words could be interpreted as egotistical, his steadfast grip on the project bull-headed. Yet his enthusiasm is anything but; bordering on childlike, his words tend to pour out of him like a shaken bottle of champagne. His utter faith in the video game medium itself is charming.
“In a movie, you’re just passive; you’re just watching a story that is told to you,” says Cage. “But in games, I saw that you could be the main protagonist, you could be in the shoes of the hero, and make the decisions. 15 years ago I saw it had become a very creative medium where you could create experiences like no other medium before.
So I worked on these (sorts of experiences) for 15 years, and I thought the rest of the industry would follow the same path very quickly. But actually, the industry’s stayed focused on shooters and more physical and violent experiences versus what I’d hope for.”
His cinematic approach is not without its detractors. Unapologetically scripted, and with that Heavy Rain-esque quick-time-event-driven control scheme, Beyond raises familiar questions around the shaky balance of power between the player and Cage’s sleight of hand choreography. The E3 behind closed doors demo, though impressive overall, has already brought up concerns over the arbitrary implementation of gameplay mechanics.
Undeniably, Cage is still dancing like a gleeful madman along that line between movie and game. While his ability to present us with captivating and unique scenarios knows no bounds, he is still tied to interactivity and our expectations of it. It could be that those Heavy Rain players who found that critical fourth wall was shattered by the insistence on quick-time-controlled menial tasks, or those who lost interest after the branching narrative grew too convoluted, might have similar issues here. Cage’s interactive dramas are still video games, and by his own admission, the biggest challenge is to make people forget this.
“The second you forget you are sitting on a couch with a controller in your hands watching television, the second you forget about that, means we succeeded in creating this experience,” says Cage. “You just need to forget where you are, and this is a program moving pixels on the screen, you need to see characters and situations on the screen. That’s the biggest challenge.”
But it's difficult to chastise before we're let in on Beyond: Two Souls' grand secrets. It's currently shaping up to be another remarkable experiment in pushing narrative boundaries, and by far one of the most intriguing games to come out of a sequel-studded E3. Cage’s belief in risk-taking should be enough to pay attention to his projects, because he’s making them – not for the fortune or the glory - but for us.
“The thing is about the industry, there are many games that look the same today, if you go on the show floor at E3, you'll see many games about aliens, about monsters, about shooting. Sometimes you’ll even think they have the same art director because they look the same. And that’s fine, there's a market for that.
But at the same time I wish there were more options for gamers. I think it’s a mistake to limit ourselves to a certain audience, when we could reach everybody. Not everybody’s interested in shooting. I wish more people would be allowed to take risks, and try new things and new ideas, because new ideas are what this industry desperately needs. I mean, how many shooters can you make?"
Lucy O'Brien is Assistant Editor at IGN AU. You should talk to her about games, horror movies and the TV show Freaks & Geeks on IGN here or find her and the rest of the Australian team by joining the IGN Australia Facebook community.
Source : ign[dot]com
No comments:
Post a Comment