I Was Wrong About Detroit: Become Human

I first played Detroit: Become Human back in February, and it really didn’t captivate me. I thought that the game was really impressive visually, especially when there was some type of falling precipitation. For example, I’ve always been in awe of how this entire sequence of Markus escaping an android junkyard looks. The rain cascading down and puddling around the swaths of forgotten about Androids, the way the water drips off of the leg components after Markus pulls them out of the puddles of water. The weather adds so much to this already intensely disturbing scene for me. I also was interested in seeing a city that I’m familiar with being portrayed in-game, as I’m from Michigan and have visited Detroit a few times.

My biggest issue with this game, at least on my first playthrough, was that I honestly found it hard to care for a lot of the characters. I hated the dynamic between Connor and Hank. To me, it felt like they were trying to get me as Connor to like Hank, but I didn’t even care about Connor as a character honestly. And there were other side characters that I didn’t really care about. I also hated the plot twist in Kara’s story, but I’ll talk about that later.

However, I checked it out one more time, and I have to say that I was way wrong about this game. I absolutely love it. And I wanted to kind of do a thorough analysis into why I love this game now, so maybe other people who are on the fence about this game can see it from the perspective of someone who wasn’t completely on board the first time around and give the game another go. So, without further ado, let’s look at Quantic Dream’s Detroit: Become Human.

Player Agency

I am not one to bang the player agency drum and demand that I have complete control and total control over how a game unfolds. Personally, I’d rather play a game with a gripping narrative that I have no control over than a game with a mediocre narrative that I have complete control over. I am a firm believer that player agency doesn’t automatically make a story or an experience better. Player agency can certainly help in those regards, but I also believe it can be detrimental as well.

The biggest detriment to games like Detroit: Become Human is that often, the choices you make add little to the overall story. And even the ones that do may not have as much weight to them as they probably should have. I love both Life is Strange games. However, I think the first game includes a lot of choices that really matter little in the long run. I think Life is Strange 2 did a lot better job with it. A lot of your choices may seem unimportant, but the ending of that game reflects the morality within Daniel, the little boy who has the power of telekinesis. If you used his power in violent ways, then Daniel keeps that, and his morality will be low by the end of the games, thus changing the ending.

Detroit: Become Human doesn’t suffer from too many irrelevant choices. I just finished my third playthrough, and I was very conscious of the choices I was making, because there were was a set way I wanted to go, so I felt I needed to be extremely careful because one choice could undo all of it for a character.

And much like LiS 2, the choices you make are reflected in the game’s ending. Any of these three characters can die at any point in the story. With Kara and Markus, their deaths are permanent. If Kara and Alice are forced into crossing the busy highway to escape Connor and Hank early in the game, but get hit by a car, they’re out of the story the rest of the way. And that can change everything about how the game unfolds.

However, Connor is a different story, but talking about him I think strays away from player agency, so now I’m going to talk about each of the three characters individually, what I like and don’t like about them, and some other general thoughts.

Connor

When I first played this game, I hated playing Connor. I was so disinterested in his relationship with Hank that I dreaded playing through those sections. However, the mistake I made in February thinking that only one playthrough would suffice. In my subsequent playthroughs, I realized I was wrong about Connor and Hank.

I find the idea of the machine programmed to hunt deviants becoming deviant himself pretty intriguing. And if you go that route, I think it’s handled pretty well. Connor is clearly affected as he is faced with choices he considers irrational, questioning why it is he makes those decisions and contemplating the importance of his mission. And his side of the game also does a marvelous job of questioning the player about whether the actions they’re committing as deviants are completely justifiable. From the moment we meet Connor, we see deviant androids can be dangerous to those that are helpless. And there’s an underlying question of whether violence is a justifiable means to an end in the search for freedom.

I also enjoy when the choices in these types of games make narrative sense. One of my biggest issues with the ending of Ghost of Tsushima is that one of those choices you get at the end makes no sense narratively. In Detroit: Become Human, regardless of whether you keep Connor a machine, make him full deviant, or somewhere in the middle, it still makes sense narratively.

Speaking of him being a machine, one thing I love is how Connor and Hank react each time Connor dies. Unlike Markus and Kara, Connor can die multiple times because each time he dies, a replacement model to the Detroit Police Department courtesy of CyberLife, the company responsible for the existence of androids. And each time he dies, Connor becomes more and more mechanical in the way he navigates the story. In the same vein, Hank becomes more and more desensitized to it. Hell, the final time a replacement android is sent, Hank jokes about Connor getting immortal. And Hank is always hostile towards Connor after he’s resurrected if you will. I think it’s a great way to show not only the rift between Connor and Hank should you go this route, but also show Connor becoming more and more stoic, just as he’s programmed to be.

Overall, while I don’t believe Connor is the most interesting of the three playable protagonists, I enjoy his character and his dynamic with Hank a lot more now than I did on my first playthrough. And this appreciation of Connor is a big factor in me changing my mind about this game.

Markus

Markus is the most interesting character in this game. An android who experienced discrimination in society but found a father figure in his owner, his life is turned upside down when he’s left for dead after a confrontation with the police. He searches for Jericho, a place where androids can supposedly be free, but he doesn’t like the idea of hiding in the dark to maintain this freedom. And thus, he takes Jericho’s cause public.

This is a character with the weight of the entire world on his shoulders. He has simultaneously asked for and had given upon him the trust of an entire species. He is trusted to lead a people towards liberation, but that responsibility weighs on him. And he constantly struggles with the approach he takes, whether that be pacifist or revolutionary. He constantly questions whether he’s doing the right thing and I love that.

We can see in the conversation with North right before the Freedom March that Markus is struggling with the weight of his decisions. One of my favorite quotes from him is a dialogue option in this conversation. “They count on me. They count on me to lead them. If only they knew how lost I really am.” We see someone who is being torn in two different directions, and I found that interesting. I never got bored or dreaded playing Markus. He is easily my favorite character in this game.

Each of his choices is incredibly important as well, as they not only affect his relationships with Simon, Josh, and North but also affect how Jericho as a whole view him. His choices sway public opinion. And all of this can drastically change how the game ends depending on where your relationship with Jericho, the public, and your friends stands.

As a side note, before I continue, my two favorite moments in this game occur with Markus. After the Capitol Park demonstration, sparing the two police officers leads to Markus saying, “Eye for an Eye, and the world goes blind.” I love that quote. And then at the end, if you choose the demonstration instead of the revolution, you can choose to sing when the military corners you. The Jericho androids will sing “Hold On Just A Little While Longer” by Cleophus Robinson Jr. And it’s just an incredibly powerful way to end the game. Watch it for yourself.

Kara

Now, I alluded to the plot twist at the beginning of the article, so I’ll address that here. However, I want to start with what I like about her first before I get to that.

What I like

Kara rounds off a bit of a trifecta in terms of perspective. Connor represents the establishment in a way. He works with the police and is backed up by an incredibly powerful corporation in CyberLife. Markus represents the activist perspective. He’s seeking to change the status quo for himself and the people he leads. And Kara represents the common person, for the lack of a better term.

Kara, like most people, isn’t concerned with whether the status quo is bad. Kara, like most people, is aware of what’s going on, but her goal is to protect the ones she loves. Her goal is to be an exemplary mother to a child who has been through some really tough shit in her life. I like how we’re able to see the ramifications of the android uprising through the eyes of someone who’s disconnected from the movement itself. And I have to say that while I feel as if the dynamic between Alice and Kara could’ve been more fleshed out, I think it works well enough for the story being told.

Now, let’s get into what I didn’t like.

What I Didn’t Like

I understand the plot twist of Alice being an android is one of the biggest points of the game. It’s a test for the player. That test aims to see if the player still feels empathy for Alice after she’s revealed as an android. It’s a version of the Kamski Test if you think about it. Instead of shooting an android, you just watch them go through hell.

However, I don’t think they executed this test in the best manner. I get Kara was in denial about Alice being an android. And yet, it seems as if everyone else also sees Alice as a human. While I can understand the writers wanting to obfuscate the plot twist, I think they committed to that a bit too much. The only characters who seem to know that Alice is an android before the twist are Luther and maybe Zlatko.

Other than that, everyone else also sees Alice as human. And I don’t get why. Are they also in denial? Is Kara just hearing what she wants to hear? I feel like I need an explanation for this. I can’t wrap my head around how someone like Rose doesn’t see that Alice is an android. Rose, who’s the only person who we’re shown as knowing where Jericho is and having Markus’ trust, somehow can’t tell that Alice isn’t human. She’s had to have seen the same child android model magazine Kara did. And yet, she still distinguishes between Kara being an android and Alice being a little girl.

If I’m missing something here, by all means, let me know. I’d rather have missed something and be corrected on it than to have missed something and stayed ignorant to what I missed.

Overall, though, while I didn’t like this part of Kara’s story, it didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the game. I sighed and rolled my eyes. And yet, I could still enjoy the game, and that’s what matters most for me.

Conclusion

Detroit: Become Human is one of the best experiences I’ve had playing video games. It might be a top-five favorite of all time, potentially even top three behind the two Last of Us games. However, this wasn’t always the case. Diving back into this game helped me appreciate it a lot more than I originally did, and if anyone else played this game once and stopped, I implore you to give it another go.

This will definitely not be the last time I write about Detroit: Become Human.

Photo Credit: Quantic Dream/Sony Interactive Entertainment