Heavy Rain

Heavy Rain is an upcoming PlayStation 3 video game being developed by Quantic Dream.

The game is being directed by Quantic Dream’s founder and CEO David Cage, who also wrote and directed the studio’s two previous games, Omikron: The Nomad Soul and Fahrenheit.

A playable demo has been confirmed and is set for open release on 11 February 2010. The demo has been released to people who took part in the Four Day Challenge.

Plot

Details about the plot of Heavy Rain remain scarce. Director David Cage has stated that Heavy Rain would be “a very dark film noir thriller with mature themes”, without any supernatural elements, and that “the real message [of the game] is about how far you’re willing to go to save someone you love.”

Gameplay

According to a demonstration given to Edge magazine, the game will use a unique control scheme.

A trigger button on the PlayStation 3 controller will move the character forward. It will take advantage of the button’s analogue function, allowing the user to control the speed of the character’s movement by pressing harder or softer on the button.

The left analogue stick will control the movement of the character’s head and the direction the character moves in relation to where the character is looking.

David Cage explains that this frees the movement of the character from the perspective of the camera.

The rest of the game is played using a series of context sensitive actions such as picking up a bottle in a grocery store and hitting a robber on the head with it or pressing the “X” button to call the player character’s son, Jason, and quick time events, normally for chase and combat sequences.

Players are able to bring up a selection of their character’s current thoughts by holding the L2 button and pressing corresponding buttons to say or do what they’re thinking. These thoughts will sometimes blur, and selecting them at the wrong time will affect the character’s reaction, causing them to say or do something in the wrong way.

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