Detroit: Become Human
| Genre | Action-adventure |
| Gamming Style | Single-player |
| Platform | Playstation 4 |
| Release Date | May 25 2018 |
| Developer | Quantic Dream |
| Publisher | Sony Interactive Entertainment |
| Website | Detroit: Become Human |
Detroit: Become Human is an action-adventure game developed by Quantic Dream and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Set in futuristic Detroit, the story centers around a handful of android servants who become sentient. The conflict of the game revolves around the revolt of these against their human masters.
Players may play as Kara, who escapes from her creators and explores her identity, Connor, who hunts down nonconformist androids, and Markus, who is fights to release others from bondage. Depending on the actions of the player, the stories of these characters could be tragic or triumphant. The game is set to release in May of 2018.
Contents
Gameplay
Ethical Concerns
The Butterfly Effect
The term "butterfly effect" refers to a concept in chaos theory which states that in a deterministic nonlinear system, a state change at an earlier time will affect all later states. Ergo, we live in a chaotic existence but Fate guides us, and when we do something in the present it will affect all future possibilities for us. The butterfly effect is used in video games a style of gameplay that allows the player to control the game outcome, most often through dialogue choices with other characters. Many games before Detroit: Become Human have incorporated the butterfly effect including horror game Until Dawn and episodic adventure game The Walking Dead.
In Detroit: Become Human, players experience the butterfly effect of the choices they make in relation to the android main characters. For example in Kara's storyline, she works as a servant for a man who is physically abusive to his daughter. The player must make choices to either defend the child or allow the father to hurt her. The choices made will have major consequences for Kara's treatment by other characters later on in the game.
The ethical concerns of the butterfly effect in Detroit: Become Human are clear. Players are given a superficial choice to act benevolently or malevolently in this virtual world. Allowing or participating in in-game violence may not seem that serious but when we consider that some people choose to do this for fun, we may find a problem. There are entire videos made on players making the "bad choices" in video games that use the butterfly effect because they want to explore what it feels like to be the "bad guy."
