Hello everyone! Welcome to BirthMay 2020! Today, I want to review the video game Detroit: Become Human.
I played this game a few months ago, and had such a blast playing it! It had been on my “to play” list forever and so finally getting to experience it myself was so much fun. I really do recommend it. Now, this game is from 2018 so I’m not going to shy away from spoilers for it, but there’s also another reason for that. This game is one where the story plays out very differently depending on the choices you make, so even if I give details on what my play through was like, it could end up being very different for someone else. I, of course, won’t go super into detail on everything but I do think I’ll give some “spoilers” so just be warned!
In case you’re new, BirthMay is my annual birthday celebration where I blog every day for the month of May. This is the fourth annual BirthMay and no matter how many BirthMays you’ve been here for, thank you for your support!
Detroit: Become Human was developed by Quantic Dream for the Playstation 4 console. It is rated M so only 17+ gamers can play this one. It’s a one player adventure game, set in Detroit, 2038. The player controls three main characters, all androids, throughout the story. The first character is Connor, an “android sent by CyberLife” (he’ll literally tell anyone who will listen and even a few that won’t), to investigate police cases involving “deviants”, or androids who have started to show faulty programming and involved in crimes. The next character is Kara, a housekeeping android, who becomes deviant after she is attacked by her owner and goes on the run with a little girl she rescues from the house she was meant to serve. The final character is Markus, a caretaker android, who becomes deviant trying to defend himself from an attack by his owner’s son, and then goes on to lead other deviants in demanding their freedom and equal rights.
The beginning of the story is similar for each play through. Connor meets the alcoholic Lieutenant Hank Anderson, who is his assigned partner in all cases involving androids. Kara has to escape her abusive owner Todd and rescue Alice before going on the run. Markus is taking care of his elderly owner, Carl, but quickly has to go on the run himself to end up at Jericho, a safe place for deviant androids. For the most part, at the start the decisions you make are mostly small, such as choosing dialogue, with a few important decisions scattered along the way.
Once you get to about the middle of the game that’s where things can end up being very different depending on the decisions you make and it seems like most decisions start to have more and more of an impact on the story. For example, at the start Markus has to break his programming, but then you can pick if you want to fight back or not during the attack and that will lead to different scenes further down the story line, although every time Markus will still be the assumed perpetrator and shot at by the police. Kara will also always end up running away with Alice, but then has to decide where to spend the night and eventually how she will plan to escape with Alice to Canada. Connor will retain his programming through most of the game and in the meantime the decisions made with Connor will either increase the strength of his programming, or weaken it towards becoming more, well, human. Markus will also make decisions along the way to decide if he wants to lead a peaceful demonstration or violent revolution when leading the androids. All these big decisions, as well as plenty of smaller ones, will shape the story. I believe there are over 40 different endings as there’s just so many things that you can do throughout the story.
Overall the story is really powerful and thought provoking. The story itself warns you at the start that every decision has a consequence and that the story isn’t just a story, but the future we face as well. The themes of android freedom also relate strongly to the fights for equal rights in our past and current events, and it’s frustrating to see androids that you get to know and clearly see have feelings be treated as “other”. Once you get through enough of the story and exit to the main menu, you’re prompted to do a survey, which gauges your thoughts on androids and compares them to the rest of the players. Towards the end, the android host on the main menu, Chloe, eventually asks for her freedom, putting the player in charge of making a decision that doesn’t impact the story, but really shows how connected you are to the game at that point.
As for my play through, I had clear goals in mind as I’ve seen many play through videos on YouTube while waiting to play it myself. I had Markus lead a peaceful revolution, Kara escaped with Alice and Luther to make it to Canada, and Connor broke his programming twice to side with the deviants and stop himself from attacking Markus later on. Markus reunited with Carl during the story, Kara did steal the bus tickets, and Connor and Hank reunited at the end. I do have to say that I was annoyed Kara, the only playable female character of the three, chose to escape rather than join Markus as Connor did. It seemed so annoying that only the boys stayed to fight while she ran, but she did have Alice to keep safe, so I got over it in the end. I also noticed that it’s pretty much a given that North will end up with Markus in the end, as I didn’t really care for her character much during the story and hardly ever sided with her, but her attachment to Markus kept going up. Connor’s story was probably the most interesting to me though. Since I knew Connor eventually could have the choice to become deviant or not, if given enough destabilization in his program during the rest of the story, I actively chose to make Connor more human, although it was tricky trying to make sure he didn’t make Amanda, his superior at CyberLife, too suspicious at the same time. Getting to see Hank and Connor’s interactions, and participate in their investigations, was a ton of fun though!
Oh, and I, of course, saved the fish.
I really, really enjoyed Detroit: Become Human! It was such a great game and while I don’t think I want to completely replay it to get more endings or to try to get 100% completion (which would be very time consuming given how many decisions are available, it was still really fun and I had a great time playing it! Let me know if you’ve played the game and, if so, what you thought of it along with the ending you got.
Thanks for reading!
Pamela
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