As the game went on, Ben gradually got used to switching between the main characters in "Detroit: Become Human."
Just like in "The Last of Us" and "Uncharted," the game showed things through different story chapters.
It also switched between the three main characters to let players know what the other characters were doing at the same time.
Even though there were three main characters and the scenes changed often, it didn't feel jarring to the player. Instead, it made players more involved in the game.
Because, like "The Last of Us," "Detroit: Become Human" is an interactive game.
The difference, though, is that in this game, there isn't a level design like in "The Last of Us." Instead, it's more like the "butterfly effect" choices in "The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt."
But since this is the main way to play, the endings are also different depending on what you do.
And even though it's a game mostly based on making choices, "Detroit: Become Human" delivers just as much emotional connection.
Especially the story of Markus in the game.
After being shot, Markus wasn't completely broken and dead; he was still barely alive.
The junkyard was full of destroyed android bodies and some androids like him, half-dead.
Markus, now an "anomalous android," had a strong will to survive. He didn't want to be scrapped in this hellish place.
So, he wandered through the piles of trash, collecting good parts to replace his damaged ones.
During this part of the story, the player's sight and hearing were also fully simulated to match Markus's damaged state.
He couldn't hear the rain, and the sounds he made when crawling seemed to come from far away, with buzzing noises mixed in, making everything feel unreal.
With damaged vision, the image in front of him was blurry, with strange red light and tearing sensations, and his focus was severely off.
This helped the player better understand Markus's current situation.
When his senses returned, the player naturally felt what Markus was feeling.
Especially after crawling out of the pile of dead androids in the pouring rain, Markus, with arms spread wide looking up at the sky, made many players incredibly excited.
Like being reborn.
He had been in heaven, then fell into hell, and now returned to the living world.
He removed his android identification. At this moment, his thoughts, his soul, his spirit were no longer trapped by his plastic body.
His will had fully awakened. With everything he had seen and felt, Markus slung his trench coat over his shoulder and strode off into the distance, disappearing into the rain.
Ben, playing the game, looked at Markus in the rainy night and only thought one thing: "Cool!"
Even though the trench coat appearing felt a bit coincidental, isn't it normal for a main character to have such coincidences?
He was coincidentally stabbed through the back by an enemy, coincidentally found a Holy Grail that had been asleep for 500 years, coincidentally the Holy Grail looked like the female lead, and coincidentally the female lead was willing to share half her life force.
A successful main character is made of countless coincidences, so is it too much for Markus, the main character, to coincidentally find a trench coat when climbing out of a mountain of garbage?
Of course, as an interactive game, it's not just about how cool the main character is.
What's more important is how the game presents and describes the story.
That's the core of "Detroit: Become Human."
And the player's actions and dialogue choices in the game truly push the butterfly effect to the limit.
The choices each character makes don't just affect their own future.
They can even affect the fates of other characters.
For example, after Kara and Alice left Todd's house, they had to find a place to stay in the pouring rain after getting off the bus.
Here, Kara and Alice accidentally stumbled into the home of another anomalous android, Ralph.
However, he was a bit unstable emotionally, but fortunately, his nature was kind. He was even willing to sacrifice himself to let Kara and Alice escape when the police were chasing them.
Chasing Kara here was Connor, the android.
At the same time, this is where the game's story can go in two directions: one is that Alice and Kara successfully escape and continue the game.
The second is that under Connor's pursuit, Kara and Alice both die on the highway, and the game ends.
However, compared to the mother-daughter warmth between Alice and Kara, what players find more interesting is the interaction between Connor and Hank.
While Connor investigates anomalous androids, he needs to work with a detective named Hank.
Compared to the workaholic Connor, Hank is clearly a master of slacking off.
Captain Hank looks very difficult to get along with in the game, but by investigating some information on his desk, you can discover that something seems to have happened to Hank, which has made him hate androids and work passively.
When players control Connor and talk to Hank, the dialogue and choices test the player's emotional intelligence because one wrong move can lower his relationship with Hank.
And what the player does directly affects Captain Hank's impression of Connor and androids, and it even affects the endings for Markus, Kara, and others.
The story arc of Kara and Alice gives a feeling of warmth and normalcy.
Connor's story arc, on the other hand, brings contemplation. For example, when interrogating the Black android they captured earlier, you can feel his fear and the suffering he endured from human persecution. Similar anomalous android incidents are like this.
But Markus's story is different because this story arc is about the fate of the android species.
Reborn from hell, Markus prepares to go to a place called Jericho.
This place is known as the free land for androids.
On the way there, Markus needs to find clues based on the graffiti in the game's scenery.
Also, when passing through some special terrain, Markus will first use the intelligent system to analyze the safety and feasibility of each route, and then the player will choose a suitable path.
Once chosen, Markus will automatically perform actions, like climbing walls, parkour, and scaling. Especially the "leap of faith" action on the big ship makes the player feel a rush of excitement.
After much effort to reach Jericho, they discover that the so-called free land for androids is not a holy place at all; it's just another hell.
There are no spare parts for survival here, and android companions die all the time.
So Markus makes a decision: to lead everyone out of all this. He suggests they go and take the resources they need.
And in this operation, players will also face some choices.
For example, whether to take the factory's android workers with them, or when facing normal human workers, should they choose to hide and steal the keys to the supply truck, or hold them at gunpoint and then kill them.
Different choices also affect the personalities of the androids later in the story.
Of course, what impressed Ben the most in this part of the story was the sexy android named North.
She refuses to talk about her past, and her likeability drops instantly if you ask.
And she's the "passionate" type. If things are solved peacefully, her likeability will drop, but if she causes destruction, her likeability will rise.
Similar scenarios also appear quite a bit in Kara and Connor's story arcs.
As a result, in the game, players often face all sorts of difficult choices.
It's truly a nightmare for players with decision paralysis.
(End of chapter)
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