Sony Computer Entertainment Europe /
Quantic Dream
Game release dates
PC: 2019
PlayStation 3: 26/02/2010
PlayStation 4: 2015
Heavy Rain is an interactive drama action-adventure video game developed by Quantic Dream and published by Sony Computer Entertainment exclusively for the PlayStation 3 in 2010.
The game is a film noir thriller, featuring four diverse protagonists involved with the mystery of the Origami Killer, a serial killer who uses extended periods of rainfall to drown his victims. The player interacts with the game by performing actions highlighted on screen related to motions on the controller, and in some cases, performing a series of quick time events during fast-paced action sequences. The player's decisions and actions during the game will affect the narrative. The main characters can be killed, and certain actions may lead to different scenes and endings.
Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human studio Quantic Dream will no longer develop games exclusively for PlayStation platforms.
It follows a series of controversies for the studio, most notably the allegations of an unhealthy studio culture reported a year ago by a team of French journalists from Le Monde, Canard PC and Mediapart.
For its part, Quantic Dream labelled the extensive reports as a "smear" - and then quietly began suing the journalists who published the story.
Against staff member who quit due to Photoshop montage scandal.
Controversial games studio Quantic Dream, developer of PlayStation exclusives Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human, has lost a court case against a former employee.
Sony's announced the PlayStation Plus titles for July.
From 3rd July, PlayStation 4-owning Plus subscribers can download Absolver, the RPG / fighting game hybrid Edwin recommended in our review: "A one-of-a-kind blend of blood-thumping martial arts, combo curation and grindy multiplayer set in a ravishing wasteland," he wrote.
Plus subs can also download Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain from 3rd July. We gave that one 9/10 in our review.
Says it has been subjected to "unfounded attacks".
Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human developer Quantic Dream has released a new statement in response to allegations which appeared in several French publications last month that spoke of an unhealthy studio culture.
Sega has announced that it will publish the first project from Interior Night, a new studio founded by ex-Quantic Dream lead designer, Caroline Marchal.
UPDATE 15TH JANUARY: This article previously translated a passage of a French report to say Guillaume de Fondaumière was accused of "pushing kisses" on staff at parties, but the translation is incorrect, as de Fondaumière himself later pointed out to me. After further consultation we have a more accurate translation. The accusation revolves around the common French greeting of air-kissing when two people meet. Guillaume de Fondaumière is accused of making more contact with his kisses than is considered appropriate.
One man's struggle with fatherhood. And brushing his teeth.
With both Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls coming to PS4 this week, I thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce Chris to the original PS3 version of Heavy Rain, complete with awkward motion controls and unintentionally creepy children. The result is probably the most ridiculous episode of Late to the Party yet, and that's saying something. Be on full alert for Chris' outrage over Ethan drinking straight from the carton, and his utter discomfort over having to care for a child, even if it's a fictional one.
When is a remaster truly a worthy endeavour? It's a question we've asked ourselves often as countless remakes and remasters continue to stream onto today's consoles. These days, our thoughts on the matter are pretty simple - any game that remains exclusive to a single platform, especially when said game suffers from performance issues, can make a great candidate for a remaster. And this is exactly what makes the proposition of Heavy Rain on PlayStation 4 so intriguing - it's just a shame that some unexpected bugs can spoil the fun.
As developer Quantic Dream's first release on PlayStation 3, Heavy Rain was an interesting take on the modern adventure game formula. Combining cinematic story-telling, light puzzle elements, branching quick-time events, and cutting edge visuals, Quantic's first console exclusive managed to eke out quite a following. As interesting as the game is, the presentation was often let down by lacklustre performance and intrusive screen-tear - areas ripe for improvement on PS4.
The remastered version of Heavy Rain delivers a significant boost in consistency and visual quality across the board. Scenes exhibiting noticeable screen-tear on Sony's last generation platform now play back without a hitch. In fact, throughout our time with the remaster, the frame-rate managed to hold steady at 30fps in each and every situation. For a game with such strong cinematic aspirations, stable performance is crucial in maintaining immersion and in this respect, the remaster delivers a solid upgrade.
But you'll have to wait until March for Heavy Rain.
Beyond: Two Souls developer Quantic Dream has finally announced a release date for the game's new PlayStation 4 version - it's next week, on 26th November.
Quantic Dreams' narrative duo coming later this year.
Sony has finally confirmed that both Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls are coming to PlayStation 4, though it's still being miserly with the details. They're both confirmed for this year, and will be available individually digitally as well as a bundle that's both physical and digital, but there's little information beyond that.
David Cage has always said that one of the main aims of any given Quantic Dream game is to ellicit an emotional response from its players. If that's the case, does confusion count? Because love them or hate them, David Cage's games, from Omikron: The Nomad Soul to Beyond: Two Souls are certainly... unique.
Quantic Dream, the do-it-differently developer of adult thrillers Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, is "very interested" in the new DualShock 4 PlayStation 4 controller.
"Stop thinking that innovation rhymes with unprofitable."
Quantic Dream's Guillaume de Fondaumiere revealed to a Digital Dragons audience in Poland today that PlayStation 3 exclusive Heavy Rain cost just €16.7 million to make - even with all those emotional polygons stuffed in.
BAFTA award-winning composer Normand Corbeil, who scored Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, has lost his battle with pancreatic cancer and died aged 56.
Can games do nuanced emotion like Brokeback Mountain yet?
2K Games boss Christoph Hartmann has gone and said something controversial. He's declared that only when games approach photorealistic graphics will they be able to broaden their genre-horizon and properly do nuanced emotion like Brokeback Mountain - rather than the Mission Impossible experiences we get today.
See Heavy Rain developer's tech demo on Eurogamer from 10.30pm GMT.
French developer Quantic Dream's latest project, a tech demo that shows the progression the studio has made since 2010's Heavy Rain as well as laying a foundation for its next game, is to be unveiled today - and you'll be able to see it first here on Eurogamer.
Video game marketers in the US are too conservative and often struggle to sell story-driven titles, according to Heavy Rain creator and Quantic Dream boss David Cage.
Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream believes it lost one million customers, and "between €5 and €10 million", to second-hand sales.
"I can take just one example of Heavy Rain," Quantic Dream co-founder Guillaume de Fondaumiere told GamesIndustry.biz. "We basically sold to date approximately two million units. We know from the Trophy system that probably more than three million people bought this game and played it.
"On my small level it's a million people playing my game without giving me one cent. And my calculation is, as Quantic Dream, I lost between €5 and €10 million worth of royalties because of second-hand gaming."
Get your payment method of choice at the ready, for here's another bountiful selection of cheap games that are worth your attention. This week we've got a few of the best games from the last year or so getting their first big discounts, and this week's hot releases at an affordable price.
Video game auteurs who take sole responsibility for shaping all aspects of a title are vital to the continued growth of the industry, so says Heavy Rain creator David Cage.
Heavy Rain developer Quantic Dream is not interested in making a sequel to its multi-BAFTA winning PlayStation 3 crime saga, so says studio boss David Cage.
Speaking to Spong backstage at the BAFTA ceremony in London last night - where the game picked up gongs for technical innovation, story and music - Cage revealed that the developer's next game, while "still very dark", will explore new territory.
"We created the genre," he insisted, referring to Heavy Rain's brand of interactive storytelling. "We own the genre, and we want to show that Heavy Rain was not a coincidence or a lucky shot - that it was really something that makes sense and that we can build on.
Despite the advances of the past decade, from physics engines and motion control to near photo-realistic graphics, there is one area in which games still have huge scope for improvement. Why, after all this time, are so many videogames still so bad at telling stories?
Red Dead Redemption was the most prolific winner at this year's AIAS (Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences) Interactive Achievement Awards - gaming's equivalent of the Oscars.
From the archive: As Quantic Dream's Beyond releases, we look back at David Cage's miserablist marvel.
Sundays are a great day for reflection. They're also a great day for washing down a packet of ginger nuts with a few pints of tea while idly wandering the internet. So we thought we'd start bringing you some selections from Eurogamer's archive for your pleasure, starting with this retrospective look back at Heavy Rain originally published as part of our Games of 2010 series.
If you've been keeping a weather eye on PlayStation Move coverage, you've probably come to the conclusion that Sony's latest foray into motion control is an extremely competent peripheral in search of genuinely good games. Luckily, the PlayStation 3 already had some genuinely good games knocking about, and now some of them have had Move support patched in.
The PlayStation Move-enabled version of thriller Heavy Rain will be released in the UK and Ireland on 8th October, Sony's confirmed via the European PlayStation Blog.
Quantic Dream's David Cage has insisted his critically acclaimed PS3-exclusive Heavy Rain has done the business despite neither he or Sony expecting it to.
Quantic Dreams boss David Cage says a million copies of Heavy Rain have already been shifted - and he reckons that figure will rise by half as much again before the year is out.
Heavy Rain's writer-director David Cage has said he's already written the plot for his next game, and it's going to be "very different" from the dark thriller.
Sony has a patch for Heavy Rain in the final stages of development, and reckons an update will be released "very soon".
That's what the developer wrote on the US PlayStation forum.
"As mentioned previously, this patch is not targeted purely at the issues reported in this thread but does address a range of minor issues which could be contributing factors. Given the small percentage of players affected by these issues and the difficulty that has been had in reproducing them here we're optimistic that this patch resolves your problems but cannot guarantee that this will be the case," wrote the senior community development manager at Sony.
Internet sleuth Superannuation has tuned up a United States Copyright Office filing which appears to suggest that PS3 interactive drama Heavy Rain has been optioned for a film adaptation.
The Taxidermist is the first of the Heavy Rain Chronicles, and comes bundled with the special edition version of Heavy Rain. We've avoided plot spoilers for the main game below, but if you're hyper sensitive to such things we suggest finishing it before proceeding.
The interactive dramatist on reviews, future plans, orange juice and mud.
Quantic Dream's eagerly awaited interactive drama Heavy Rain finally launches next week. We've written quite a few words about the PS3 exclusive already, including Tom's glowing 9/10 review, so we'll assume it needs no introduction other than to say that it's one of the most important, interesting and talked-about releases of 2010.
A demo for Heavy Rain is the biggest attraction on the PlayStation Store today. Sony's huge PS3 exclusive was reviewed earlier and now awaits only its launch on 26th February. But can it do the numbers?
Games typically begin and end with killing. In between, there will be a lot of killing. And if you get bored, you can always go off and do some different killing. Heavy Rain is another game about killing, but the difference is that when you pull the trigger - if you pull the trigger - you're committing to something with consequences. You may die in Heavy Rain, but rather than losing progress you may lose opportunities. In a medium where your existence is now so cheap that most games don't bother to punish you for wasting it, Heavy Rain wants you to respect human life.
Speaking of consequences, Ethan Mars, one of the game's four playable characters, does nothing but live with them. In an extended playable prologue to the main story, Mars suffers through the death of one of his two sons, an accident that also leaves him in a coma. When we return to him two years later he's suffering blackouts and estranged from his wife, blaming himself and weeping behind closed doors as his remaining, increasingly distant son Shaun watches TV downstairs in his ropey bedsit. The "game" is to drag a broken man through the motions of parenthood.
Before long, however, things go from sad to horrible for Mars when Shaun is abducted by the Origami Killer, a serial murderer who kidnaps children and drowns them in rainwater a few days later, leaving the bodies on strips of wasteland. It would be a massive spoiler to explain exactly what else the Killer does, but the kidnap and outside influences set Mars on a brutal journey that will test his mental strength under pressure, his resolve and his commitment to saving his boy.
Retailer HMV has clarified to Eurogamer that Heavy Rain's release date - listed on HMV.com as 26th February - is actually still unconfirmed.
This ties in with Sony's silence on the matter earlier in the day.
"The release date is still TBC as we understand it," an HMV spokesperson told us, "but in order to list items on [our website] and to make them available for pre-order - or to enable customers to register their interest so we can keep them updated - we have to put a release date on the system.
Alex Gambotto-Burke stands up for the Romeros, Molyneuxs and Cages of gaming.
Several months ago, I buried John Romero. I dug a little hole for him in the garden, covered it with dirt, and said a few poignant words over the spiteful-but-soothing strains of Paul McCartney's Too Many People. It was an emotional moment for me, because I really loved the guy. We'd had some great times together: the time, for instance, that his home was destroyed and we went out to get a new one. Or the time he chased his girlfriend around for over an hour, before finally taking a nap in the miniature Taj Mahal nearby. Mostly, though, I just remember him pressing his face up to the water jet, his jet-black, silky, slimy mane billowing out like a raven's wing. He was a spectacular goldfish.
Sony's told Eurogamer that a release date for Heavy Rain remains unconfirmed, despite numerous retailers - including those with Special Edition deals - backing 26th February as the PS3 game's UK arrival.
HMV started the ball rolling, listing a Limited Edition that comes complete with fancy slipcase and vouchers to download a Heavy Rain PS3 Theme and Heavy Rain sountrack - "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head"?
ShopTo, Amazon and Play all also back the 26th February date which, under two months away, now seems undeniable.
Quantic Dream co-boss Guillaume de Fondaumiere has revealed a small but interesting Heavy Rain feature that delays Trophy alerts until there are appropriate breaks in gameplay in which to display them.
How far would I go to save someone I loved? Apparently, I'd start by letting them win. The first thing that happens in Heavy Rain is that you take control of architect Ethan Mars as he wakes up on a beautiful Saturday morning in his lovely modern family home, gets dressed and goes downstairs to wait for his wife and children to come back from the shops. When they do, he helps get stuff ready for lunch and then has a bit of time to kill, so he goes and plays in the garden with sons Shaun and Jason.
Quantic Dream founder David Cage has told Eurogamer he will "definitely" explore using the PS3 wand for "mature" experiences once Heavy Rain is released early next year.
David Cage and Sony could be considered visionaries for what they are attempting with Heavy Rain. Rarely before has so much money been gambled on emotion and story without the safety net of a post-apocalyptic American city full of monsters to shoot in the face.
We were very proud and honoured last week to welcome Quantic Dream's David Cage to the Eurogamer Expo, where, in addition to a playable showfloor demo laid on by publisher Sony Computer Entertainment, he walked attendees through Heavy Rain and took part in an open question-and-answer session.
Quantic Dream's David Cage has spoken up for his right to use sex in his games, pointing out that, "When you are 18... You won't be shocked for the rest of your life because you saw nipples."
For a game closeted in so much mystery and intrigue, Quantic Dream has been surprisingly forthcoming about how Heavy Rain works and what it's about. We know that it sees four playable characters - FBI profiler Norman Jayden, private detective Scott Shelby, architect Ethan Mars and journalist Madison Paige - on the trail of The Origami Killer. We know that Ethan's son, Shaun, is kidnapped part way through the game and that, according to the Killer's MO, the player has four days to save him before he turns up drowned on a stretch of wasteland.
"We don't make Dragon's Lair! This is not Dragon's Lair - do you think I'm crazy? I'm not stupid. Do you think I develop on PlayStation 3 to do Dragon's Lair again? It would be absurd. Of course it's not." David Cage is basically hopping up and down in the middle of a hotel room in Germany. "When there is an action sequence, yes we integrate this quick-time event sequence. We've done it really in a new way, we really started from a blank page again to try to take the best out of this type of interface and find the thrill and excitement and make you feel at the heart of the action."
Quantic Dream's David Cage has defended the scene in Heavy Rain in which player-character Madison Paige strips for a nightclub owner, arguing that during its E3 showing it succeeded in its goal of making the player "uncomfortable".
Heavy Rain man: "This is not Dragon's Lair - do you think I'm crazy?"
Quantic Dream's David Cage pleaded with journalists earlier today to help him shake off the stigma of quick-time events and get the message across that Heavy Rain is properly interactive.
David Cage has made his peace with Sony's Trophy system for PlayStation 3, despite past concerns that it was at odds with the creative goals of his ambitious adventure game Heavy Rain.
Quantic Dream exec Guillaume de Fondaumiere has confirmed Heavy Rain won't be released until 2010.
"Most publishers today realise that it's not ideal to release a new IP or a new genre just before Christmas. It's a very crowded place to be, and certain games need more space to live their life," he told GamesIndustry.biz. "Everybody at working on the project, both at Quantic and Sony, believe this is the right time."
"We've always known that we had a window to release the game, and it's important for us to finish it the right way. We've got some margin either way, to some degree, but again I think there's a responsibility, and we don't want to deceive - so it's important for the game to be polished up until the last minute."
An exclusive video preview of Sony and Quantic Dream's interactive drama Heavy Rain on the Gametrailers TV show suggests that the game won't be out until next year.
Normally, when presenting their games to the press, game developers try to explain them as fully and as best they can. They choose representative sections to demo and strive to get their vision for the whole project across in interviews. David Cage likes to do things differently.
Before embarking on Heavy Rain, David Cage - adventure-game auteur and chief of the Quantic Dream studio - made Fahrenheit. A similarly daring exercise in interactive narrative, known as Indigo Prophecy in the US, Fahrenheit is remembered with equal amounts of fondness and embarrassment by gamers, sometimes at the same time.
We've had indie and esoterica, sports and music, MMOs and RPGs, and fighting and strategy, which just leaves the glamour girls of action, adventure, shooters and racing to strut their stuff.
Just a quick heads-up - Eurogamer will be bringing you a brand new Heavy Rain preview, along with a whole set of new screenshots, at 4pm today.
Heavy Rain, of course, is a PS3 exclusive from Quantic Dreams, the same people who made Fahrenheit. It's caused quite a stir so far - visit the gamepage to catch up on our all coverage so far and find out why.
Eurogamer will be the only UK site to feature the new stuff, so check back at 4pm if you want to see it.
Sony Worldwide Studios bigwig Michael Denny has described Heavy Rain as an "interactive drama" that will be played in people's heads more than it is on control pads.
One of the fascinating things about Heavy Rain - previewed on Eurogamer today - is its reliance on development studio head David Cage, who wrote the massive script single-handedly, and motion capture. On a recent excursion to see the game in development, we noted down a few of the more interesting stats in its creator's presentation. We thought you might enjoy them, so here they are:
Heavy Rain developer David Cage has described ICO and Shadow of the Colossus director Fumito Ueda as one of "very, very few artists" working in videogames.
There's no rain during our trip to Paris to see Heavy Rain, which is bad news for the photographer travelling in our group, who might have done well out of that. Then again, there's no Heavy Rain on our trip to Paris to see Heavy Rain either. Nor, it turns out, was there any sign of it at Leipzig's Games Convention in August, despite its top billing at Sony's conference and director David Cage's press briefings. When we sit down with Cage three months later to ask whether anything we've seen so far - characters, locations, scenarios - is actually in the game you'll be invited to buy in the second half of 2009, he pauses for a second. "No."
"But I'm sure you want to know about the games." So said David Reeves, about half an hour into Sony's Games Convention press conference. He was right, having spent the last 30 minutes showing off portables and bundles and peripherals and services. And quoting Bob Dylan, perhaps ill-advisedly: for all the talk of selling out, it's unlikely that The Times They Are A' Changin' was about the seventh generation of the console war.
Quantic Dream has confirmed to Eurogamer plans for a pre-release demo of PS3 exclusive-of-the-moment Heavy Rain, while hinting at the potential for downloadable content in the convention-smashing adventure.
At its press conference at the Leipzig Games Convention, Sony lifted the lid on Heavy Rain, a "dark thriller" for PS3 due in 2009.
The game appears to be an extremely cinematic adventure with horror overtones, and a mature, emotionally involving story exploring adult themes not seen in videogames before is promsied.
Live gameplay footage was shown, but aside from very quick button-prompt flashes on-screen, it was virtually indistinguishable from a cut-scene, with fast cutting between static cameras.
Quantic Dream's David Cage has asked that we clarify his comments on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune after we published a story on Friday under the headline "Uncharted is like a porn film - Quantic Dream".
Quantic Dream has opened up about its PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain.
According to a piece in Dutch magazine Chief (translated by Kotaku), the game will focus around four characters who have landed in extraordinary situations.
The main theme will be about a father's love for his son, which ties in with the "much more personal" approach studio boss David Cage is after.
