Heavy Rain creator to work on 'emotional war game'

Heavy Rain, which immediately catapulted itself to the top tier of my most memorable gaming experiences, was a remarkable cinematic adventure. It didn't just reinvent adventure gaming, it built the foundation for innovative genre-blending interactive storytelling. Now David Cage, the man behind Quantic Dream's masterpiece, speaks to CVG about rocking the boat once again with two very different projects; one of them inspired by Apocalypse Now and Platoon.

"I want to convince more people that [emotional gaming] is a valid direction for the industry; to show them that this was not just one product, one story. It's a format that can be used to tell any kind of story in any genre with any tone. I would really like the opportunity to work on a different type of game."

"A game about war is something I would like to do, just to see if we could get closer to the film side; not gloryfying war, but talking about it from a realistic point of view.

"War is not fun. Talking about what the people involved, what they feel, how horrible it can be. This is something I think could be very exciting and very new for the games industry. When we talk about war, it's always a very 'cool' thing - you have these big guns and you kill loads of people.

"I would really like to take a different approach; to tell a story about politics [with it] or something a little more serious. I would like to use what we discovered in Heavy Rain in this fantastic medium of interactivity to say something meaningful. This is probably one of the next things I'm going to try."

CVG made the point that if successful, it could entirely change people's expectations of a war game and potentially damage the domination of franchises such as Call of Duty. And Cage believes not only might that happen, but it would be an important landmark; "I think it would be an important way to evangelise [to] people. To say, 'Look - if you get with more emotion and storytelling, it leads you to a more interesting experience. There is room for more than just games which get you with adrenalin."

And this isn't just fleeting conversation, Cage wrapped up the interview stating "I'm going to work on it. It's really something I want to do."

Call Of Duty meets Heavy Rain: David Cage to make 'emotional war game' [CVG]