Quantic Dream Games on PC
Quantic Dream is a French video game company founded in 1997 and it is well known for developing interactive titles like Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy), Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human. Apart from Fahrenheit being multiplatform, the other three cinematic products have been Sony exclusive for a few years. However, Quantic has recently announced the detachment from the Japanese Corporation and the intention of publishing their games on the Epic Games Store.
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As you may already know, the Epic Games Store is a PC platform operated by Epic Games (Fortnite, Unreal Engine), available as a web page or standalone program. On the Epic Store, everyone can purchase different titles and run them through the platform, just like we can do with Steam, Origin, Uplay and any other similar application. However, the Epic Store isn’t exactly appreciated by players around the world for different reasons, starting from the exclusives they “snatch” away from Steam forcing people to download an additional program instead of purchasing through Valve as they always did. Players have also complained about their customer support being far from reliable, along with the many technical issues video games on Epic seem to have in most cases.
For this reason, while Quantic Dream fans have expressed an incredible joy for finally being able to play their beloved games on PC, they also have complained about the platform choice, even if these games will most likely appear on Steam as well later on (when though, it is unknown). But let’s jump right into it and check this out properly.
Heavy Rain
Heavy Rain is originally a PlayStation 3 exclusive, published by Sony in 2010. This title is an interactive drama and action-adventure game, featuring four different protagonists involved into a mysterious series of murders caused by the Origami Killer, specifically during extended periods of rainfall to drown his victims.
The game is strongly choice-based and each action will bring the player to different consequences, either positive or horribly tragic. Each main character can die in many ways, or survive through the entire story reaching their own conclusion.
Heavy Rain is now available on the Epic Games Store since June 24. A free demo is still downloadable for anyone who wants to try it out before deciding to purchase the full product, I personally gave it a shot to test the waters and be sure I could run it properly.
The first thing that comes to the eye is undoubtedly the texture quality and its visible improvement from the console version. The colors also seem to be a bit more vivid, although the original dark tones remained along with the game mechanics.
The detail on each character is absolutely stunning (it was already considered a perk back in the days thanks to the motion capture work and photoscans) and the high quality lighting definitely adds more immersion and atmosphere to the playable events and cinematics.
Heavy Rain ran pretty smoothly for me on ultra settings, but the PC controls are absolutely awful and I highly recommend to use a controller instead if you have one.
Heavy Rain costs $19.99 on Epic, but you can still buy the HD Remastered version for PS4.
System requirements:
Minimum:
OS: Windows 7 or later (64 bit)
Processor: i5-4430 @ 3.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 4GB
VRAM: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 with 2GB or AMD Radeon HD 7870 with 2GB
Recommended:
OS: Windows 7 or later (64 bit)
Processor: i5-6600K @ 3.5GHz or equivalent
RAM: 8GB
VRAM: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 with 4GB or AMD Radeon R9 390 with 4GB
Beyond: Two Souls
Beyond: Two Souls came out in 2013 as PlayStation 3 exclusive and it features an incredible cast starting from Ellen Page playing the protagonist Jodie Holmes and Willem Dafoe as the side/supportive character Nathan Dawkins.
The game is once again an interactive story with choices and consequences, but it only gives you two default endings you can choose from. This aspect is, in my opinion, very weak for a game deveoped by Quantic Dream, considering your previous choices don’t seem to matter much in the end apart from some sub-options you can get after the main outcome. Still, the overall experience is certainly worth it thanks to the catchy storyline and action-adventure sequences.
Jodie Holmes is a unique girl leaving with her foster parents in a suburban house, but the days spent with her adoptive family will prove to be particularly difficult due to a strange power she seems to be born with. Jodie has psychic connections with an invisible entity named Aiden, with whom she can perform different telepathic tasks and interact with people or objects out of reach. Aiden can even possess any human body and keep her partner out of danger.
Unfortunately, this incredible capacity is difficult for her to control, causing a major incident that will force her foster parents to bring the little girl to Doctor Dawkings and leave her in his custody. Thanks to the man’s care, Jodie will finally learn how to control Aiden and stay away from troubles most of the time, but things will start to change the day Nathan will lose his wife and daughter in a car accident and Jodie will manage to reach their spirits talking through them.
The demo for Beyond: Two Souls can be downloaded on the Epic Store as well, but this time the game proved to have a few technical difficulties for me when I tried it on a Win 10 system with i7 processor and a GTX 1060. First of all, despite being able to run it on high settings I encountered a lot of stuttering here and there, plus audio jumps and general slow downs. According to other players, the game is also affected by a few bugs that literally prevent you from advancing with the story itself, problematics reported with the demo version already and that apparently weren’t fixed at all.
The title was also quite hard to download when it came out on July 27, displaying error messages that automatically disappeared after a PC reboot or Epic reload.
Once again, using a mouse and a keyboard to perform specific actions in the gameplay can be nearly impossible, especially if you are accustomed to the way a controller works with this kind of games. Graphic-wise there is nothing to say except that it certainly looks as stunning as ever, Ellen Page’s rendition of Jodie is top notch and the entire game offers different emotional moments that may make you shed a tear or two along the way.
Beyond: Two Souls, just like Heavy Rain, costs $19,99 on Epic Store and is also available as HD Remaster on PlayStation 4.
System requirements
Minimum:
OS: Windows 7 or later (64 bit)
Processor: i5-4430 @ 3.0 GHz or equivalent
RAM: 4GB
VRAM: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 with 2GB or AMD Radeon HD 7870 with 2GB
Recommended:
OS: Windows 7 or later (64 bit)
Processor: Processori5-6600K @ 3.5GHz or equivalent
RAM: 8GB
VRAM: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 with 4GB or AMD Radeon R9 390 with 4GB
Detroit: Become Human
Detroit: Become Human is probably the most successful and anticipated game developed by Quantic Dream. Advertised in the far 2012 with a PS3 tech demo named KARA and officially announced in 2015 during the E3 conference, Detroit managed to tickle our interest with the amazing graphics, character design and sci-fi concept. Released in May 2018, the game has captured the hearts of all players with its deep moments, wonderful characters and the infinite number of possible endings determined by our choices. If Heavy Rain already offered a good variety of possibilities, it is nothing compared to Detroit: Become Human which clearly holds the torch.
For this and many other reasons, Detroit is the title we most want to finally play on PC, although an official release date for the demo and full product is yet to be confirmed. It is, however, available on the store as pre-order for $39,99.
The story is set in a futuristic Detroit, where technology advanced to the point androids have become regular caretakers, housekeepers and even workers, inevitably taking away jobs from humans who in turn are ending up ruined and in despair. Although many people are protesting against these machines that involuntarily destroyed their lives, there is so much more going on in the city causing havoc among the two species; androids are in fact starting to riot against humans, acting as if they were experiencing real emotions and considering themselves alive. Are they really just machines with a corrupted program in need of a permanent termination, or is a second form of life spreading around the world?
The game features three different protagonists, each with their own story and task, but eventually connected in the course of events. Once again, they all can live or die depending on the choices you make in game and their fate can develop in many different ways.
One thing the players requested to Quantic Dream when the game came out on console, was a photo mode addition in order to take breathtaking shots without too many limitations such as a fixed camera, FOV and UI in the middle of the screen. Although they were actually developing a photo mode for the game, the project had to be cancelled because of the PS4 limitations. David Cage, Quantic Dream’s Founder and CEO, explained on Twitter they had to cut it off because of how much they pumped the game in order to make it look as beautiful and seamless as we know it and that sadly left no other space for anything else.
For this reason, fans are wondering if Quantic Dream intends to bring back the Photo Mode with the PC version. No word has been spoken in regard to that, but considering they already had it in the works last year and the Microsoft port wouldn’t have those mentioned problematics anymore, there might be a high probability to finally see it implemented.
System requirements (not officially revealed on Epic)
Minimum:
OS: Windows 7-64 bits
Processor: i5-2400 @ 3.4GHz or equivalent
RAM: 4GB
VRAM: NVIDIA GTX 660 or equivalent
Recommended:
OS: Windows 10-64 bits
Processor: I7-2700K or equivalent
RAM: 12GB
VRAM: NVIDIA GTX 1080 or equivalent
As you can see, the jump between the minimum requirements and the recommended ones is quite noticeable, it reminds me of the ones released for Final Fantasy XV before the final port. In that case, the GTX 1080ti was recommended to play the game in 4K with high definition textures, but the game itself is fully playable on high/ultra settings even with a much older GPU in 1080p. Chances are that Detroit: Become Human will adopt the same method, reason why the recommended requirements sound crazy, even if I wouldn’t be surprised considering how well defined the game looks on PS4 alone.
Different articles state that the PC version of Detroit will be available later this summer as demo, while the final game will come out in September. In the meantime, the game can be purchased for PS4 as standalone game, or through the HD Quantic Dream Collection along with the other two titles all in one pack.
