Summary: 4.5/5.0
Detroit: Become Human is the highly anticipated game by Quantic Dream, the developer responsible for Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls. This game takes place in a near-future Detroit, where many jobs have been delegated to an android workforce, from construction to household management. In this world, the androids are built to serve without question and provide empathic responses without feeling anything themselves. By design, they have no free will, yet the human population seems to resent the loss of jobs to the androids, and we see verbal and physical abuse directed at androids who are programmed not to fight back.
Mechanics
Like previous games by this developer, Detroit: Become Human strives to produce a narrative driven by player choice, and where death is - in most instances - permanent. Each playable character is an android, but delinquent androids are off the grid, and can't simply be sent for repairs. The game reminds players of the consequences of choice by ending each chapter with a flow chart that details each choice made and the various paths the narrative could have taken, or that the player could have explored. These flow charts create an incentive to replay the game and experience the variations built in to the narrative. A second play-through will be necessary to reveal just how much variation is possible. For the most part, I really enjoyed the use of choice in the game. However, there were instances where I felt that the narrative could have been enhanced by allowing more time to make meaningful decisions, rather than always being subjected to the pressure of a short timer. In most cases, however, the characters are responding to time-sensitive circumstances and the timer makes sense. The only true issue I encountered was when in one scenario, the character was positioned in such a way that the choices were off-screen, and I had no idea what I was instructing Kara to say. Needless to say, that scene ended rather poorly.
The user interface in this game is unobtrusive and true-to-theme. It cleverly takes advantage of the player's position as an android to obscure undeveloped areas without creating a feeling of limitation. It's perfectly logical that I can't stray too far from my programmed objective to buy paint, or that I would literally see information about my environment in a virtual interface. The game uses this especially in instances where androids have the potential to become delinquent. In order to disobey instructions, the androids have to break through a virtual wall in the interface, which serves as a great visual representation of the struggle to overcome their literal wiring and gain free will. This interface also allows the player to pre-calculate platforming paths before executing a series of movements as a whole, which is a feature that was under-utilized in the game and would be worth exploring further.
Beyond choice and interactions with the android interface, the mechanics of the game are pretty close to what you would expect from a human playable character. However, androids have the unique ability to hack screens and "free" other androids from the constraints of their programmed behaviors. Well, Marcus does. It's not clear how this works. We see androids share the location of Jericho with each other, but Marcus can use a similar technique to free other androids. The other androids in his group can presumably do this as well, but we never see Kara do it. And at first, Marcus only does this via direct contact with the androids, but later he just waves his hand and the androids join his march. This ability absolutely needed more explanation, or at least some consistency.
Narrative
Detroit: Become Human follows three androids. The first is Kara, a housekeeper android charged with looking after Todd's daughter Alice and tidying the house. The second is Marcus, the caretaker for a wheelchair-bound artist named Carl. The third is Connor, a special class of android designed to aid the police department in solving android-related crimes and locating delinquent androids. Each android's story is unique, but they do have the potential to cross paths with the other androids.
This game has received a fair amount of criticism in how it treats women and civil rights issues. So let's just get that out of the way. Do I wish that the housekeeper android was not also the only female playable character? Yes. But I get it. I mean, look at Todd. Of course he's going to pick a female android, someone he feels he can push around, someone who's not a threat to his masculinity. When you've chosen a story about a man like Todd, an android like Marcus, for example, wouldn't be true-to-character. You'd have to explain why Todd chose a different kind of android, and it would be some convoluted story about how he inherited it or something. But really, who would give Todd anything?
With regards to civil rights, I have read significant criticism about how the game may be a well-meaning but poorly executed reference to the civil rights movement, with no real regard for the actual history behind it. There are instances where I believe the allusions could have been handled more gracefully, and I believe that discussions about how we represent these issues in video games should absolutely be discussed. However, there is one thing that I have not seen referenced. Most critiques treat this game as a pure allegory for the civil rights movement, but they are neglecting the component of manmade intelligence that is completely unique to the circumstances of this game, and could be a very real issue in our future. Yes, there are many similarities between how the citizens treat androids in this game, and the injustices of our past, but in discussing these parallels we cannot neglect to discuss the other issues raised in this narrative as well.
Conclusion
Detroit: Become Human is a beautiful game with plenty of unexplored potential after a complete first play-through. The attention paid to small details is incredible and extremely effective in building the game world. The characters are distinct and well-developed, with a good balance of inherent personality and that which is driven by player agency. A game of this ambition is bound to fall short in some areas, but it ultimately demonstrates the potential for the medium to engage audiences, explore controversial topics, and promote empathy for those on the other side of a given issue.