Sony Wanted Beyond: Two Souls Instead of Heavy Rain 2

Marshall Honorof

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Feb 16, 2011
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Sony Wanted Beyond: Two Souls Instead of Heavy Rain 2


Sony gave David Cage a lot of creative freedom in planning out his new game.

One of the general laws of the gaming industry is that a critically acclaimed game that sells well is just begging for a sequel. Like any other game, sequels can range from the sublime to the ridiculous, but it's clear that some games don't really need a follow-up. Beyond: Two Souls [http://www.amazon.com/Heavy-Rain-Directors-Cut-sony-playstation3/dp/B005YR308S] came to be.

"Many publishers, after the success of Heavy Rain, would have said, 'Well, you need to do Heavy Rain 2,'" says Cage. "And we never had this conversation with Sony. They just asked me, 'What's next? What do you want to do?'" Unlike most creators working with AAA resources, Cage celebrates the fact that his patron has given him essentially no restrictions on Beyond: Two Souls. "I think this kind of project can only be made in complete freedom, because otherwise it's not the same experience at all."

At the same time, Cage acknowledges that he occupies a fairly unique position in game development. "Very few developers are in my position, so I feel incredibly fortunate to be here," he affirms. "Usually, you make indie development, and you have limited resources, but you have freedom, or you work on a triple-A and you have the resources, but limited or no creative freedom. And I'm in the strange position where I have both." Like Heavy Rain and Indigo Prophecy before it, Cage wants to give the gaming world something a little different and more mature than its everyday fare, so Sony's support has been invaluable to him.

Letting an auteur work without creative constraints can easily go one of two ways: an unbridled masterpiece, or a pretentious train wreck. Of course, Beyond: Two Souls could defy both expectations and end up occupying the same middle-of-the-road inoffensiveness as many projects before it, but Cage has never really made a game like that before. Good or bad, Beyond: Two Souls should be interesting - at the very least, Sony thinks it will be.

Source: Gamasutra [http://gamasutra.com/view/feature/176557/big_ideas_video_games_according_.php?page=1]

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Hattingston

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Jan 22, 2012
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Wow, major props to Sony for doing for a new IP instead of a sequel. Seems pretty rare nowadays.
 

Baldry

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This is one of the things I like about Sony, they tend to go for new IP's and not try and milk something for all it's worth and then try milk it some more.
 

weirdee

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Apr 11, 2011
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ofc, given that it's a struggle to fill out their fighter game with enough characters, it could also be that there's nothing that they could really milk for longer than a fortnight

besides ratchet and clank and god of war lol
 

BehattedWanderer

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Jun 24, 2009
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Really great idea. Heavy Rain didn't need a sequel, as there really isn't room for one. Taking a different route, with a new IP, is a great idea. Not every title needs to be a franchise, especially when the creator of that project has finished that story, and wants to tell another. New IP from a known director is usually reliably fun.

weirdguy said:
ofc, given that it's a struggle to fill out their fighter game with enough characters, it could also be that there's nothing that they could really milk for longer than a fortnight

besides ratchet and clank and god of war lol
I'd love to see Ethan Mars in that game. Press X to "JASON!" as an attack? Ha!
 

ReinWeisserRitter

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Nice to know that not everything has to be a fricking trilogy these days (just 95% of everything, apparently) and that some games are actually given the decency to just end on their own merits, although I'm certainly in no hurry to see anything from the same guy who made Heavy Rain.
 

ReinWeisserRitter

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Sober Thal said:
ReinWeisserRitter said:
Nice to know that not everything has to be a fricking trilogy these days (just 95% of everything, apparently) and that some games are actually given the decency to just end on their own merits, although I'm certainly in no hurry to see anything from the same guy who made Heavy Rain.
Isn't it nice to know that great games can continue tho? I don't get why people ***** about games having sequels, when the games that get sequels are good games. Or do you think that shit games are the ones that get sequels? If that's true, then I can understand your reservations.
Too many things get beaten into the ground because they did okay in sales, things that never needed a sequel and never really benefited from one; they just got it, either because the people who made it wanted to milk it, or because the company didn't want to put all of their effort into something before they knew it would sell. This industry is a business, and I'm not unaware of that, but there can be no truly great games when business is all it's about, and we're getting more and more to the point where there's no actual heart behind... anything, where everything is a wholly shallow attempt to get your money, and nothing more. Someone in creative control making a decision based on whether they think it's right for the would-be franchise or its consumers, not whether it's right for their wallets, is something to be appreciated these days.
 

Warachia

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While I hated heavy rain, it is nice to see a company giving a developer free reign on what they want to do, I hope Cage plans out this game from start to finish though, unlike what happened with heavy rain and indigo prophecy.