Quantic Dream co-founder talks Heavy Rain

  • Posted December 18th, 2007 at 18:50 EDT by Eric Blattberg
  • 3,419 views
  • 21 Comments

We don't know very much about far-off PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain. The first and only piece of media which has been released for the title was "The Casting," an emotionally charged tech demo shown at E3 2006. It was powerful, convincing, but still remained somewhat within the infamous Uncanny Valley.

Apparently, that's all about to change. In an interview with GI.biz, Guillaume de Fondaumière revealed some juicy tidbits regarding Heavy Rain.

"I think when we showed The Casting everyone agreed it was nice and it really showed that there was a potential for creating virtual actors, but we're still at this frontier where we don't totally suspend disbelief. We still have this uncanny valley to bridge. But today, I can officially announce that there is no uncanny valley any more, not in real-time."

He continued, "With our next project we're going to demonstrate with hundreds of characters that we can have extremely realistic characters that not only move like real actors but express themselves through facial animations and speech like real actors, and are extremely accurate to the actors they are portraying."

Speaking of actors, they apparently have some A-listers lined up for Heavy Rain.

"We had a meeting with Leonardo Di Caprio in 2004 and we tried to convince him to play in one of our future games – at the time we had Fahrenheit to show him. He liked it very much, but he politely explained to us that we still were not at the level that he'd expect the technology to be at in order to give us his time and be able to portray his performance."

"Today, it's very different. We're talking with class A actors. These Hollywood actors are asking us about the scenario and the stories as the technical aspects are taken care of. We've been able to demonstrate that we're capable of portraying the performance. They are asking, 'what's the subject matter, what's the role?'"

Finally, Fondaumière spoke regarding the PS3 itself.

"We believe that the PlayStation 3 is going to be extremely successful, as successful as the PlayStation 2. The other point is that when you look at the architecture of the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360 you see huge differences and it's extremely difficult to create games of the same visual quality on both platforms. Even from an economical standpoint, if you really want to give the best shot on both platforms you have to invest far more money than just spending the money on the one platform. Or you have simple ports, which are of less quality.

"At Quantic we have high standards and we really want to give our fans the best possible experience with our creations and we didn't want to downgrade any version by porting a game. It was far more important to chose the right machine where we could express ourselves and give it the best shot."

More on Quantic Dream's upcoming PS3 title as soon as it's available.

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What are your thoughts?

  1. paddyirishman | paddyIRISHman

    • 6:52pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    first!

  2. tom ass

    • 7:08pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    This along with inFamous is imo a potential sleeper. Can't wait to hear more about this one.

  3. Hububla | Hububla

    • 7:34pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    never heard of this one... deffinetaly guna keep my eye on it though it really seems that more and more developers are starting to realize that the ps3 is the better performer and are crossing over!! by next christmas ppl will by saying whats a x-box

  4. D3v1lwqer23 | Hububla

    • 7:42pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    Wow, DiCaprio really acts all high and mighty after all.  I wonder if he understands that technology progresses as fast as it can.  Look here you superficial dirtbag, you arent that great of an actor as it is.  They got other actors everywhere chomping at the bit to be immortalized in an amazing game that people are going to be interacting with rather than just watching.  Leo can die.

  5. ogtripple | nwarelias

    • 7:43pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    same with hububla never heard of it, @ paddyirishman, lol. Third!  

  6. dandad1

    • 7:44pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    I cant wait for this game I hope they have more news soon, I really want to see what it looks like now and how its going to play.

  7. kflashin | KFLASHIN

    • 8:38pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    Wow haven't heard anything about this game in so long I forgot it existed

  8. stennex | stennex

    • 9:11pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    Nice!

  9. Naucious23 | Naucious

    • 10:55pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    this is what i was saying in recent post, innovation is the key and it seems quantic has the right idea. If it's true that they have a huge list of A-list actors then where in for one H&ll of a ride. A casting call with A+ actors hmmmm... very interesting to see them get portrayed in a virtual world. Heavy rain seems to be promising, i need to hear more of this especially saying that the creators has passed that uncanny valley which is believed to be theoritically impossible and only based off myths.

  10. MatrixSixaxis

    • 11:40pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    Just like live action filming...I guess we won't be playing this for another 2-3 years! Concept sounds interesting enough. Imagine Noir with A+ actors!?!

  11. Uncool | Admodistrator

    • 11:43pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    I was wondering when this thing would resurface, I know the Halife 2 series is well known for facial expression. I think they can definitely improve this with better character models from A-list celeb's.

  12. Alpha2

    • 11:47pm GMT - December 18th, 2007

    D3v1l: not that I care about Dicaprio but relax dude, remember they were trying to get him with last generation graphics. While Fahrenheit was good I can understand when there are CG movies out there that really capture an artists performance with a lot more nuance. Also he's not getting paid as much for motion capture acting as he would for say The Blood Diamond so if he's not going to get the benefit of being part of a cutting edge production there's no incentive to spend time doing a video game when he could be working with Martin Scorsesse again or something. Not if he were approached for Heavenly Sword or Uncharted level of Graphics he might have thought about it.

  13. Clarky_psu | clarky-132

    • 5:42am GMT - December 19th, 2007

    Hmm, sounds interesting. But no information on the actuall game itself!

  14. shaka | Shaka

    • 6:22am GMT - December 19th, 2007

    The trailer looks sick. i love it.

  15. scottbof

    • 8:04am GMT - December 19th, 2007

    So is heavy rain a ps3 exclusive?

  16. gingo | gingo

    • 8:15am GMT - December 19th, 2007

    psn id: gingo... the tech demo was good but didnt have anything that would make me do anything to get this game hopefully more media comes soon and we can see what this game is all about

  17. Ferre

    • 8:31am GMT - December 19th, 2007

    @scottbof. Yes he obviously states it so yes its a PS3 exclusive title!

  18. Limanima | Limanima

    • 2:14pm GMT - December 19th, 2007

    They really should make a virtual DiCaprio. One that would be good at acting!!

    I'm starting to get curious about this game...

  19. bazztod

    • 8:15am GMT - December 20th, 2007

    19th !!!!!

  20. Promethius30 | Tealcsg1

    • 11:18am GMT - December 22nd, 2007

    i loved fahrenheit it a cool story and diffrent game play i hope this is the same

  21. ladellb

    • 8:50pm GMT - January 13th, 2008

    For those of you unfamiliar with Quantic, or Heavy Rain, try Indigo Phrophacy. It's a PS2 title, but shows what their game style is.

Related information

  • Related game: Heavy Rain

    Release date (US):
    Q1 2010
    Developer:
    Quantic Dream
    Genre:
    Action - Adventure
    Rank:
    18 of 1,462 Games
    Up 0 places (in last 7 days)

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