One of Heavy Rain’s most touted features is its unique interface. Can you tell us a bit more about how Heavy Rain’s control system works and how it sets itself aside from other titles in the genre?
We had a very simple approach to interface: it should participate to immerse the player in the world by asking him to mimic what his character is doing on screen. We experienced that on Fahrenheit with the new control system we proposed for actions (MPAR, using a move on a stick to unfold animations instead of just pressing a button). We continued experimenting with the same philosophy on Heavy Rain. We have also implemented an interface called MPRESS that could be seen in the Games Convention demo when the character needs to hide, for example.

Regarding navigation, we wanted to find a solution to the dependency between controls and cameras. We were looking for a real sense of directing all the time, and not only in cut scenes, which meant having the possibility to place cameras in the set without having constraints based on controls. At the same time, all games that tried that had to face conflicts with the control system, with characters suddenly going left while the player wanted to go right just because the camera changed. We solved this issue with two things: moving forward is [like accelerating] in a racing game by pressing R2 (whatever the position of the camera is), while the left analogue stick controls the head of the character, defining his direction when he walks. We also added a specific system to help navigation in populated environment to offer realistic sets where the player cannot get stuck. These are just some of the new ideas we put in place for Heavy Rain regarding gameplay. Some of them are real changes of paradigms, but we could not make the game we wanted using the same old rules.

It’s been said that QTEs will be commonplace within Heavy Rain. Taking into consideration the amount of criticism that has been levelled at the use of QTEs in the past, how have you gone about making sure that they add something to the experience, rather than detract?
QTEs are a minor part of the gameplay of Heavy Rain. They are used in some action sequences for scenes that would have been impossible to make with any other types of interfaces. If you have a fight for example, you either make a very video game type of sequence (punch/kick/combos, always the same moves, limited in an arena to avoid collision problems and inconsistencies with the environment), or you rethink the interface to support what’s really important in a fight: reflexes, quick decision making, pacing, having spectacular moves and directing, being injured, winning or losing). We entirely redesigned the interface to integrate and animate GUI within the 3D world instead of having it on top of the screen, which is definitely less distracting, and we worked hard on tuning them, timing them right, making sure they reinforce immersion and support the feeling we try to create in the scene. I think people will be quite surprised by what we managed to do in the game. I know many hardcore gamers are by instinct resistant to the concept of QTEs, but we put some serious thought into making it evolve and I hope to convince them that our approach supports the experience.

You’ve previously stated that you felt most video games were “structured like porn movies”, whereby part of the story is told, then there’s some action, and then a bit more story. With Heavy Rain you’re looking for a more consistent “interactive performance”. Can you give us some examples as to how that will work?
The reason why most video games are structured that way is very simple: they are based on repetitive patterns that make it impossible to tell any story, so they have to rely on cut scenes to move the story on until the next action scene. Interactivity is used to trigger adrenaline and stress, but it does not support narrative in any way. What I’m trying to change is to directly use interactivity to tell the story instead of cut scenes.

The player should tell the story directly through his actions instead of watching it. The first way of doing this is to rethink interface and this strange rule saying that a control scheme should be limited to a certain amount of repetitive actions. If you use a contextual interface, you get access to an infinite number of actions, so your characters can at least do things to tell a story and not just jump or use their gun. The other difficult conceptual step to make is to redefine what gameplay is about: an experience may not be based on weapons or cars and still be fun. Interacting does not necessarily mean to destroy, kill, jump or drive. Interactivity can be about changing your environment, changing relationships or making decisions. It doesn’t have to be limited to military conflicts; any kind of situation can become interactive. Fahrenheit started to show that it was possible: the game was not using any gun or vehicle; it had no enemies to fight and no puzzle to solve. It was just about immersion and decision making. I think it is time for our industry to grow up and explore new possibilities instead of redoing the same games with the same old concepts over and over again.

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