Detroit: Become Human: Quiet Contemplation
- Steve Russell
- May 13, 2019
- 9 min read
Updated: May 14, 2019
Please Note: Sweet Story, Bro is a geek critique blog. As such, there will be full spoilers throughout. If you’re okay with that, read on. If not, read on at your peril.
Now Entering Detroit
Science-fiction as a genre, no matter the medium, has extensively explored the relationship that exists between humanity and the technology that surrounds them. Just look at The Jetsons.
Humanity, and the ideals that equate what it means to be human, are thematic concepts that have been explored by some of the best novels, movies, and TV shows for decades.
Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, The Matrix, Battlestar Galactica—these are just a short, exemplary cross section that have wrestled with the subject. There are probably thousands more that will make you reconsider your relationship with your toaster.
David Cage, founder and CEO of Quantic Dream, wanted to dissect this dynamic between A.I., androids and how they fit into humanity, especially as they reach sentience, becoming a new species altogether.
The result is Detroit: Become Human.
What I wanted to explore is the way Cage manages to make you connect with these inherently inhuman machines. The way he, as a writer, can craft an empathetic spark that makes us care about not only Marcus, Connor, and Kara as sentient beings but also their lives and the outcome of their stories.
Choices, Choices
Against a backdrop of androids seeking independence, discovering where they belong now they have become self-aware as they fight for base rights, the story harkens the more obvious parallels in world history: the civil rights movement, continued institutionalised racism, and what it means to live through it.
The video game, however, allows us as a player to experience Cage's version of it. We are not passive viewers to this story by the very nature of video game design.
Cage attempts to contextualise this sobering experience for the gamer in the hopes of triggering a genuine, empathetic understanding for the androids and their plight, leaning into the sci-fi trope of seeing humanity reflected in robotics.
“I don't know if I want to talk about A.I. and androids,” Cage admitted when discussing his teams initial questions regarding Detroit's theme and influence. “I want to talk about human beings. I want to talk about us. And yes, I'm using androids, but actually, it's more about us, about our world, our societies, our relationships."
Despite these grandiose themes—something he oddly denied in the run-up to Detroit’s release—the game does manage to capture something unique in its first act.
"My dream was to put the audience in the shoes of the main protagonists, let them make their own decisions, and, by doing so, let them tell their own stories."
The third act revolution set piece, whether it is peaceful or violent, Kara’s relationship with Alice, and Connor’s decision towards adhering to his programming or rebelling and become deviant—Detroit's term for when androids become naughty— all rely on your choices throughout the game's narrative. This concept (and relative illusion) of choice has been a common motif for all of Quantic Dreams’ catalogue from Heavy Rain to Beyond Two Souls and now Detroit.
Cage said during a TED presentation that “As a storyteller, I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of recreating this notion of choices in fiction. My dream was to put the audience in the shoes of the main protagonists, let them make their own decisions, and, by doing so, let them tell their own stories.”
Some of Detroit: Become Human’s most important moments come less from explosions and the threat of being caught or erased and instead are reflected in the norm, the mundane, the quiet contemplation of what it means to be human and aware. This contemplation acts as the perfect precursor for the storm that inevitably arrives, changing this fictionalised world forever.
Thoughtful Existence
The most effective examples of Detroit’s use of quiet contemplation comes during the games first act. Unsurprising, considering we are still understanding the world and our characters place within it. The subtle ratcheting of tension as people use you as an extension of themselves, either wholly loving or entirely distrustful of the technology at hand, has undeniable parallels with modern society and was a purposeful creative choice by Cage and his team.
It is the quieter moments as we switch between Connor, Marcus, and, in particular, Kara that help to develop their sense of understanding of the world around them and their place within it: subservient tools; there to be used and, in some cases, physically abused.
“I thought taking the point of view of androids was particularly interesting. They would be the victims of persecution, they would be the ones who would want to fight for a better life. And I thought their point of view was by far the most interesting,” Cage said.
The slower, explorative moments allow us as a gamer to not only understand the functions and controls of the game but give the character contextual reason to wander around, picking things up and interacting with their surroundings. Understanding through engagement with long-lasting effects on the narrative as a whole, as well as character comprehension:
“The game listens to what you do and tracks what you do all the time, and we want to give consequences to all of your actions. There are things that you've done in this first hour of gameplay that will have a significant impact later in the story. There are entire scenes that you may see or miss, there are characters that you may see for a couple of minutes or may be with you until the end. […] So we track all of these things and try to give you a satisfying narrative experience based entirely on your choices and your decisions.”
These small, everyday activities—taken entirely for granted by mankind—are imperative in grounding an android.
Picking up objects, whether they are magazines to read or plates to put away, washing up to do, or art supplies to clean up, all helped the protagonists to achieve a higher sense of purpose.
These small, everyday activities—taken entirely for granted by mankind—are imperative in grounding an android. Not only in function and purpose (they have an objective, they complete the objective as we control them in game, making us in turn somewhat robotic in following tunnelled instructions), but it’s the every day that helps a person to embrace life, frustrations and all. Nobody wants to take the trash out, but we do. Nobody wants a never-ending stack of dishes to wash up, but there it is.
In the world Detroit presents, that is no longer the case—supposedly allowing humans the opportunity to strive for their next evolutionary peak. Instead, the rich do less and the poor are out of jobs, creating an even wider divide between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots.’
Conscious Of Consciousness
Becoming self-aware, 'waking up,’ was always par for the course with this kind of narrative, but the way Cage decides to cultivate player agency through decision making with an unknown world, imbuing the experience with tendrils of empathetic understanding as they do, allows us to discover at the same rate as the character. We are learning with them, growing with them, understanding and fearful with them as they experience emotions that, by their very nature, they shouldn’t have.
Looking at the photos that Alice has hidden in her lockbox as Kara, seeing the pictures of her dad abusing Kara, breaking her, has more impact because you took the time out to embrace what comprises Kara’s entire world: the house.
Cleaning the plates, taking the trash out, cleaning the bathroom, all whilst Alice’s drug addicted, drunkard of a father sits on the couch highlights how little he ‘thinks’ about his tech or his daughter.
Kara’s experience of that house, however, is different: she follows her initial directives (to clean, etc.) but in doing so is engaging with a life she didn’t know she wanted. The small details, the little things, the maternal instincts that will later come to define her storyline—all these elements are heightened because of the time taken to have her participate and engage with innocuous activities. It deepens her own understanding of self, want and, inevitably, agency.
The same can be said for Marcus.
One of Marcus’ first scenes in the game sees him running an errand for Carl, an ageing artist whom Marcus cares for. He is tasked with picking up an order from an art supply store. That’s it.
However, guiding him through a park, I witnessed a jogger aggressively demanding water from his android running partner, an anti-android demonstration, a guitarist busking, and other androids waiting for their humans to collect them, waiting patiently at drop-offs that look like small shelters.
The pick-up and payment Marcus makes is conducted entirely with another android—he doesn’t speak to or interact directly with any human. His purpose is direct, but my path to that goal saw him traversing the area experiencing life. That was my decision, but the small details infused into this version of Detroit helped to immerse me all the more. It was Cage’s full intention to make the city itself feel vibrant and alive, with the team trying to “deal with it like it [Detroit] was the fourth main character in the story.”
[...] the existential question becomes: who’s really pulling the strings? The android avatar being led by the gamer’s joystick, or the player being told what to do and then executing it without deviation?
Quieter moments such as these allow the player a second to reflect on what they’re doing, where they’re going, and, importantly, why they’re doing it.
Quantic Dream is already giving the player an existential understanding regarding the androids actions because they are in control of them. So the existential question becomes: who’s really pulling the strings? The android avatar being led by the gamer’s joystick, or the player being told what to do and then executing it without deviation?
Choosing to wrestle this concept directly, Cage has said that he wanted to know if androids would “[…] develop consciousness also because they will have the power to do so? Or is consciousness something else that doesn't depend just on connections in your brain and is more spiritual. And that's a very interesting question, and I feel this is a question that androids will answer for us. If they develop self-consciousness, it'll just mean we are just sophisticated machines. If they don't, it'll mean we're something more than that.”
Connor’s story is the only one that really deviates from this mould. Sure, there’s the relationship with Hank that I fostered, eventually winning his trust before losing him in the bowels of CyberLife (RIP Hank), but we aren’t treated to any grounded social scenario for him. He’s either at crime scenes, locked inside a virtual prison with an obvious A.I. character, or trying to either piss off or win Hank’s affection. He doesn’t wash dishes or wheel around a sick old man. That’s not to say his story and character lack resonance—the moment he finally turned deviant and freed himself from the shackles of his programming was a satisfying beat during one of the game's later chapters, but it doesn’t change that his story misses these slower paced, thoughtful moments compared to Marcus and Kara.
Couple this with the human relationships that help to define them and their ‘wants,’ and suddenly the smaller moments organically create a deeper sense of gamer connection. Checking in on Alice to make sure she feels safe, or preparing Carl’s breakfast and ensuring he has taken his medicine, develops a bond between android and human that extends beyond person and machine just as much as it does between player and character.
Welcome To The Real
By examining the world through the eyes of an android, like with most great sci-fi tackling similar ideas, the story holds a mirror to humanity forcing us to assess (or reassess) what it means to be human.
One of the composers for the game, Nima Fakhrara, puts it well when he addresses the grounded nature of the world and its technologically integrated denizens:
“I think the reason this game does such a successful job of creating an emotional experience for players and has resulted in lots of people talking about it is because it’s not too farfetched. […] We’re already living with a lot of androids. We’re also so lost in our own thoughts that we’re not able to open and look at other people’s struggles. We’re sheltered in that way. In this game, what’s very relevant is that androids matter. That’s what we’re talking about. Androids are beings that we need to take care of. We have to feel for them, and it comes back to humanity.”
In a Behind The Scenes video, Cage explains that, in the game world, “[…] maybe mankind had lost that sense of what it really means to be human. Having androids that are maybe more human than we are was something that was intriguing to me.”
Cage’s depiction of mankind in Detroit shows them either struggling and furious or lavishly luxurious and enjoying life, but one thing unites them: nobody is pumping the brakes to look around, to soak in the atmosphere and the tiny moments that make a memory. They don’t attempt to embrace the little things that remind you that you’re alive.
But the androids are.
They have learned to appreciate the little things. They stop and smell the roses.
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