Quantic Dream’s new PS4 game, ‘Detroit,’ explores what it means to be human

Back in 2012, Quantic Dream (Beyond: Two Souls, Heavy Rain) released a PS3 tech demo called Kara. It was about an android who discovered she could feel emotions and appeared to be sentient.

When it was first released years ago it resonated with viewers, and since then that video has racked up millions of views. It was amazing, in just a brief video Quantic Dream had managed to make people care about this fictional character "who just wanted to live." And after years of asking the question: "what happens to Kara when she leaves the factory?" Quantic Dream is ready to answer.

Revealed today, Quantic Dream's new PS4 exclusive "Detroit" will explore what it means to be human through Kara's story. A trailer for Detroit can be seen above, and below is Quantic Dream director David Cage's summary of the game.

"So we imagined our world in a near future where androids like Kara would look, speak, and move like real human beings. We wondered how we — humans — would react if we were confronted with a new form of intelligence, how androids conceived as machines would be perceived if they started to have emotions.

We didn’t want to do another story on AI (there are already so many great ones), we wanted to talk about what it means to be human and what it would be like to be in the shoes of an android discovering our world and their own emotions…"

Detroit appears to be heavily story-driven, which is standard for Quantic Dream's titles. Gameplay tends to take a backseat in most of their games, as they focus largely on telling impactful, emotional stories.