Heavy Rain

This article is about the video game. For classifications of the quantity of rain, see Rain.

Heavy Rain
European box art
Developer(s)	Quantic Dream
Publisher(s)	Sony Computer Entertainment
Director(s)	David Cage
Engine	Havok (physics,cloth)
Platform(s)	PlayStation 3
Release	UK: 26 February 2010
Genre(s)	Interactive drama
Mode(s)	Single-player

Heavy Rain is an interactive drama video game developed by Quantic Dream exclusively for the PlayStation 3. The game is 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.

Heavy Rain's story is a dramatic thriller, centred around four protagonists involved with the mystery of the Origami Killer, a serial killer who uses extended periods of rainfall to drown her victims. Ethan Mars is a father who is trying to save his son from being the next victim, while investigative journalist Madison Paige, FBI profiler Norman Jayden, and private detective Scott Shelby are each trying to track down clues to the Origami Killer's identity. 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.

A playable demo was released on 11 February 2010. The demo was released prior to this date for people who took part in a Four Day Challenge on 5 February 2010.

Gameplay

Heavy Rain uses 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.

Action sequences, such as when the player is being attacked, will be played out as quick time events. Players will be presented with various symbols, requiring them to either press buttons, move the right analogue stick in a certain way, or shake or tilt the controller. Failure to execute these commands take the story along a different path, and certain mistakes will lead to a character's death. For example, in one scene, Norman Jayden is interrogating a suspect named Mad Jack when he starts to suffer from withdrawal symptoms and button prompts will show up. If he fails to take his drugs, he will be taken to a scenario in which he will have to escape from a car before it is thrown into a crusher, killing him. In scenes like these, a 'timer' scene (a portion of the screen that is devoted to show the player how long he or she has until their time runs out, or another event is scripted to occur, which is shown through several different camera angles) is shown at the bottom of the screen, indicating how long the player has to escape from his/her predicament. If a character dies, the game does not end, and play control switches to another character, with the events of the previous character's death affecting the story. In the event that all four characters die, there is a proper conclusion to the story and the game ends.

Plot

Characters

There are four main playable characters. Except for Madison Paige, their actors contributed both their voices and likeness to the characters.

Ethan Mars is an architect with a wife and two sons. Two years prior to the main story, his eldest son was killed in a car accident that also left Ethan in a coma. He is now stricken with grief and depressed, separated from his wife and distant from his other son, Shaun. Ethan soon discovers that Shaun may become the next victim of the Origami Killer, and is soon forced to go to extreme lengths to save him. He is played by Pascal Langdale.

Madison Paige is a photojournalist living alone in the city. Suffering from chronic insomnia, she occasionally checks into motels, as they are the only place she can properly sleep. She eventually finds herself involved in the latest Origami Killer case, conducting her own investigations. She is voiced by Judi Beecher, though her likeness and motion capture were provided by Jacqui Ainsley.

Norman Jayden is an FBI profiler sent to support the police force with their investigation into the Origami Killer. Jayden possesses a set of experimental augmented reality glasses called an "Added Reality Interface", or ARI. It allows him to rapidly investigate crime scenes and analyze evidence. He is also struggling with an addiction to the drug triptocaine. He is played by Leon Ockenden.

Scott Shelby is a retired police officer, currently working as a private investigator. On behalf of the previous victims' families, he is conducting his own investigation into the Origami Killer. He is played by Sam Douglas.

Synopsis

The game's prologue opens with Ethan Mars, spending his life with his family. He later loses track of one of his sons, Jason, at a busy mall. Jason is soon found, outside on the street, and Ethan jumps to try to save him from an oncoming car. Jason is killed, while Ethan is injured and falls into a coma for six months. Two years after the accident, Ethan is suffering from depression, a fear of crowds, and blackouts that last for several hours. He and his wife have separated, and his remaining son, Shaun, is distant with him. While at a park with Shaun, Ethan has another blackout, and wakes to find Shaun missing.

Shaun's disappearance is soon tied to the serial murders of the Origami Killer. The criminal's modus operandi is to abduct a young boy during the rainy fall season, after which their bodies are found several days later in a remote location, drowning being the cause of death, along with an origami animal figure in their hands. FBI profiler Norman Jayden, having come to assist the police with the Origami Killer, concludes that the child is locked in a location where, after 6 inches of rainfall, their bodies will be completely submerged and die from drowning. They realize that they have less than three days to find Shaun.

Ethan retreats to a motel to avoid the media. He receives a letter that directs him to a locker, and finds a shoebox containing a mobile phone, a handgun, and five origami figures. The phone instructs him to complete a set of trials written on each origami figure to display the length he is prepared to go to save Shaun, after which he will receive pieces of a street address. The trials present increasing risk as they proceed, from subjecting himself to physical pain and electrocution, cutting off part of his finger, killing a man, and drinking poison. As he attempts these trials, he meets Madison Paige, who helps him to recover physically and emotionally from the trials. Madison begins her own investigation into who may have arranged the trials.

Jayden, working with lieutenant Carter Blake, investigate two suspects, but come up empty-handed. Ethan's ex-wife visits the police and informs them of Ethan's blackouts, which lead them to Ethan's psychiatrist. Blake affirms that Ethan is the Origami Killer, while Jayden continues to follow the trail of evidence to confirm otherwise.

During these events, private investigator Scott Shelby begins visiting several of the victims' parents for information, and obtains several items that relate to the Origami Killer. One parent, Lauren Winter, insists on helping him, seeking closure on the matter.

Ending

Ultimately, it is revealed that Shelby is the Origami Killer. While a young child, he and his brother John were playing at a construction site, and John became trapped in a pipe filling with stormwater. Shelby tried to get the help of his drunken father, but he refused, and John eventually died. Years later, Shelby created the trials to try to seek out a father that could do what his own father could not. He is presently using the "private detective" cover story to collect the evidence he had sent to these fathers and destroy it.

The outcome of the game's final scenes are dependent on choices and actions the player has made throughout the game; any of the four characters may die at some point, or fail in a way that they do not reach Shaun's location. In the ending where all four characters remain alive and meet in a final confrontation, Madison and Jayden have separately identified Shelby's crimes and Shaun's location, while Ethan figures out the address and manages to find and rescue Shaun. Shelby appears, congratulating him on his success but prepared to kill them both. Jayden arrives and chases Shelby, eventually killing him, while Madison arrives to clear Ethan's name as the Origami Killer.

The details of the epilogue will vary depending on both minor and major events that occur through the game. Generally, a news report giving the status of the Origami Killer case is shown, and the surviving characters' lives beyond the game's events are shown. Other endings vary, and individual fates are crossed referenced accordingly.

Heavy Rain Chronicles

The Chronicles are prequel segments that take place during the initial murders of the Origami Killer. The first one, The Taxidermist, follows Madison as she travels to visit Leland White, a taxidermist, to interview in connection with the Origami Killer.

As with the normal game, the plot can proceed along several paths, and this synopsis reflects "best" ending. Finding his house empty, Madison breaks into the house and discovers an upstairs area containing several female corpses, stuffed and posed in various positions, including a freshly killed cadaver in a bathroom. After collecting information, Madison hears Leland's car return, and hides in various rooms in the house before escaping and reporting the killer to the police, though he is revealed to not be the Origami Killer.

Development

Heavy Rain was announced at E3 2006, where a tech demo entitled The Casting was presented to the media and general public.

The graphical user interface of Heavy Rain was created with the middleware Menus Master by Omegame. The software was also used for Jayden's ARI glasses, placing a 3D interface within the game world.

Game physics, clothing and hair simulation are made available with Havok Physics and Havok Cloth.

Heavy Rain was originally planned to be released also for the PC and to use Ageia, with two separate versions of the game to handle the presence or lack of an appropriate physics processing unit on the computer. However, the game became a PlayStation 3 exclusive and the PhysX engine was replaced by the Havok engine.

Creation

Director David Cage described Heavy Rain as "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."

In an interview with Belgian magazine Chief in 2008, David Cage gave a brief overview of Heavy Rain's narrative and ambitions. A translation was then made on Kotaku, as follows:

"Heavy Rain is about normal people who have landed in extraordinary situations. I wanted a much more personal story. The first thing that came to my mind, as a father of two little boys, was that the main theme should simply be a father's love for his son. This is not a game about saving the princess or the world. Its [sic] purely about a father's love. The main story will revolve around four different characters, and we're putting the spotlight on their perceptions. The question 'what is good and what is evil' is the key here, that will be just a matter of viewpoint...I believe heavily in moral choices, I'm going to use them A LOT. They're not about being good or bad, but about finding the right balance."

In the same interview, Cage commented on the setting by saying "I don't want to do a big free-roaming city like GTA, because the flow of the story will then be hard to control. Nevertheless, I do want to incorporate big sets, with a crowd, heavy populated areas like a mall and a subway are going to be in there. Of course, the gameplay has got to make use of that aspect too." While the city remains nameless within the game, it is strongly influenced by the environs of Philadelphia. Cage cited his like of M. Night Shyamalan movies, several which are situated in Philadelphia. Working with a scouting agent that assisted on the Philadelphia film, Cage and his team visited the city, taking in many of the poorer neighborhoods and meeting with the residents there to capture the despair, poverty, and fear they saw.

The main characters are looking for a serial killer known as The Origami Killer.

Cage has also stated that “I would like people to play it once…because that’s life. Life you can only play once...I would like people to have this experience that way.” He goes on to say, "I'm fine with [reloading to avoid a bad result], but the right way to enjoy Heavy Rain is really to make one thing because it's going to be your story. It's going to be unique to you. It's really the story you decided to write...I think playing it several times is also a way to kill the magic of it."

The Origami Killer poster

File:Heavy rain.png

Poster of Heavy Rain

Some time in early 2007, a poster of Heavy Rain appeared on Quantic Dream's under-construction website. Shown on the left, it included The Origami Killer as a subtitle to Heavy Rain, which is not present on the game's cover.

The Casting technology demo

The Casting, shown at E3 2006, is a non-playable, real-time 3D prototype technology demo. It was running on a non-final PlayStation 3 console development kit in 720p display resolution. The demo showcased a complex virtual actor (hence the other name, "Virtual Actor Demo"), highlighting numerous expressions and motion-captured animations. It also showed various technical features of the game engine, all embedded in a brief, emotional story. However, the plot of the tech demo has nothing to do with the story of Heavy Rain itself. The story was written and directed by David Cage, and although he chose not to credit himself in the demo, his distinctive voice can be heard playing the scene's director. The virtual actor in the demo is based on French American actress Aurélie Bancilhon, and she was eventually placed in the game as the character Lauren Winter.

File:933123 20060519 screen001.jpg

Aurélie Bancilhon's virtual portrayal as Mary Smith in The Casting demo.

The prototype used not only her likeness, but also her motion captured performance. Quantic Dream highlighted that the technology demo is just a sample of things achievable in a limited amount of time, and that during the making of the prototype, they still were in the middle of research and development efforts for the game itself. A brand new demo featuring the character Madison Paige was showcased at the SCEE Press Conference at the games convention in Leipzig. The demo was titled "The Taxidermist", which showcased the in-game engine and QTE gameplay elements, as found in Quantic Dream's previous title Fahrenheit. The demo also confirmed a 2009 release date. The whole video presentation is now available online.

From a technological standpoint, notable features of The Casting include full body and facial motion capture, real-time tears and wrinkles on the face, advanced skin shaders, and some advanced rendering features, such as depth of field, spherical harmonics, auto exposure and high dynamic range rendering. The technology enables animations of pupil dilation, tongue, eyes, fingers, and dynamic hair with physics. The game engine also supports real-time post-processing, with which E3 attendees could interact at the event. Hair physics is achieved by the use of Havok. Facial motion capture was recorded using Vicon MX40 cameras and system, and was enhanced with a muscle system.

Gamescom 2009

At the 2009 Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, Quantic Dream released a new trailer and introduced two new characters, Scott Shelby, a private detective, and Ethan Mars, an architect. They had also some small playable demos for the audience, which showed Ethan and Scott. For the German television show MTV Game One Co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière gave a twenty-five minute interview, introducing and promoting the game, but also talking about the games industry as a whole.

Release

The special edition of Heavy Rain, released in Europe and Australia, contained a PlayStation Network voucher for the first episode of downloadable content, Chronicle 1 – The Taxidermist, the official soundtrack and a dynamic XMB theme. Though the PlayStation Network voucher was supposed to contain the Heavy Rain official soundtrack it was not available for download on the day of the game's release, but it was added on 4 March 2010. Sony recommended that special edition owners not redeem their voucher code until that date, though HMV have emailed those that bought the special edition from them to give them a code to redeem the soundtrack when it becomes available. HMV has since removed the special edition from their website.

Soundtrack

Untitled

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Ethan Mars' Main Theme"	3:31
2.	"Norman Jayden's Main Theme"	4:42
3.	"Before the Storm"	2:55
4.	"Madison Paige's Main Theme"	3:31
5.	"Scott Shelby's Main Theme"	6:01
6.	"Lauren Winter's Main Theme"	3:07
7.	"Painful Memories"	1:29
8.	"The Chase"	1:25
9.	"Redemption"	1:39
10.	"The Bulldozer"	1:34
11.	"High Tension"	1:16
12.	"The Fight"	1:31
13.	"The Hold Up"	1:28
14.	"Looking for Shaun"	1:36
15.	"Countdown"	1:33
16.	"Last Breath"	2:59

Four Days Challenge

Starting on 26 January 2010, people were able to take part in the Four Days Challenge, which was an online search for the Origami Killer. People had to pool ideas and clues in order to find the Origami Killer. When European players registered, they gained access to an exclusive in-game Playstation Home T-shirt. U.S. players were given the chance to get a shirt during the Four Days Challenge. If Week 2 of the challenge was completed successfully, users received a code to play the demo early.

Public demo

On 11 February 2010, a demo with a tutorial, two in-game levels, and a trailer was released internationally. Prior to the release, it was privately available via redemption code to anyone who solved Week 2 of the Four Days Challenge. The demo follows both Private Detective Scott Shelby and FBI Special Agent Norman Jayden as they individually try to track down the Origami Killer through conventional interrogation of witnesses and crime scene investigation. The demo's opening features a tutorial not in the final game to get the player aquainted with the control scheme before starting the first scene. While no plot points are revealed, the demo sees Shelby visit a sleazy hotel to meet and question a call-girl named Lauren Winter, whose son Johnny was a victim of the Origami Killer. Jayden appears at a crime scene in search of clues in his investigation of the killer in a segment of the demo as well. The player is introduced to Lt. Carter Blake. A trailer accompanies the demo, containing some unseen footage from the game, as well as a recap of the four main characters, along with their possible motivations.

Future

Downloadable content

A prequel, Heavy Rain: The Taxidermist, originally planned to be released as downloadable content at the same time as the full game, was re-scheduled to be released on 4 March in North America. In Europe however it was released on the launch date with the Special Edition of the game, but due to issues with the soundtrack on PSN, customers had been advised to wait until 4 March before redeeming their code. It became available for the general public on 1 April 2010.

Film adaptation

New Line Cinema optioned rights for a film adaptation a few days after the technology demo from E3 2006 was shown.

Sequel

Quantic Dream designer David Cage had said in a Gamescom 2009 interview that a sequel would be unlikely:

“I’m not sure there will be a Heavy Rain 2. I’m not a guy who does sequels, because, when you work on a story, you have something to say. It’s a response to a moment of your life and what you want to express.”

“There are so many great stories to tell. That’s why just doing sequels of sequels of sequels doesn’t make any sense.”

Reception

Reception

Aggregate scores

Aggregator	Score
GameRankings	89.87%
Metacritic	87/100

Review scores

Publication	Score
1Up.com	A-
Edge	7/10
Eurogamer	9/10
Famitsu	37/40
G4	4/5
Game Informer	9.5/10
GamePro	5/5
GameSpot	8.5/10
GameSpy
GameTrailers	8.9/10
GameZone	9/10
IGN	9.0/10
PlayStation Official Magazine – UK	9/10
Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine

Heavy Rain has been met with generally favorable reviews. The UK Official PlayStation Magazine scored the game 9 out of 10, with reviewers saying, "I'm convinced it's one of the freshest, most exciting, and even important games on PS3 so far." The magazine praised the effective controls of the game, as well as the pacing of the story, which the reviewer described as key, and perfectly designed to create an "exhausting, exhilarating, and, crucially, involving" experience. He concluded by saying that, "Certainly there's nothing quite like it on PS3, or indeed any other system. Put gaming conventions aside, go in with no expectations other than this is something new and massively good-looking, and you'll be rewarded with a unique experience that lurches between genius and madness, manages to be genuinely emotional, and that you'll be bursting to talk about with your friends." Eurogamer France also gave the game a score of 9 out of 10, saying, "The game from Quantic Dream has touched me, unquestionably, as a player because it symbolizes today the culmination of a genre halfway between cinema and video game that has always seemed interesting in its intentions but rarely conclusive." The reviewer concludes by saying, "A high score, therefore, to welcome risk-taking that represents this type of production today."

British magazine GamesMaster gave the game a score of 91%, complimenting Heavy Rain for being 'incredibly original and compelling.', "The atmosphere is incredible - full of driving rain (which becomes central to the plot), fizzing neon lights, dank apartments and warehouses. It's a dark noir game, not a bright adventure." The title was also given a GamesMaster Gold Award. IGN's Chris Roper scored the game 9.0/10 commenting specifically on the game's "fantastic story that's one of the best in gaming." However, he pointed out that the game's beginning is very slow, and might turn off some players.

GameZone's Michael Lafferty, gave the game a 9.5/10, saying "There are some flaws, but taken as a package, Heavy Rain is a remarkable achievement in gaming that creates an interactive experience that goes beyond the pages of a good novel or film noir. This is a game that needs to be experienced."

Heavy Rain ranked as the tenth best-selling game in North America for February 2010. According to NPD Group sales information, the game sold 219,300 units in the region that month. Heavy Rain entered Japanese sales charts at number six, selling 27,000 units according to Media Create. Heavy Rain debuted at number one on the UK sales charts for the week ending 27 February 2010, beating out all multiplatform and single platform releases.

External links

• Official website
• Quantic Dream website
• Heavy Rain on Facebook