PARIS, Jan 31 — French studio Quantic Dream has been making games for 22 years; over half its output has been exclusive to PlayStation consoles.
Having established itself with 1999’s ambitious adventure The Nomad Soul, a sci-fi story with musician David Bowie in a double role, it followed up with 2005’s The Indigo Prophecy (Fahrenheit outside of North America) which cast the Quantic vision of cinematic, involving, choice and consequence adventures.
Heavy Rain arrived on PlayStation in 2010, and Beyond: Two Souls, with Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe as its motion-captured Hollywood leads, released in 2013.
Most recently, Detroit: Beyond Human launched in May 2018 and was felt to most closely fulfil the Quantic dream of blending high concept themes, advanced visuals, emotional storytelling, and meaningful player decision-making.
Now Chinese internet firm NetEase is taking a minority stake in Quantic Dream and creative director David Cage, so often the studio’s spokesperson, told VentureBeat that the investment would “allow us to invest in future technologies and games in order to prepare for the next generation of platforms, with the same ambition regarding creativity and innovation.”
He also mentioned a future as a “multi-franchise company”, a new direction given that all of its previous games have been standalone.
“Detroit: Become Human shows that we have found a certain maturity with our format, but also that there is a growing demand for the types of games we make,” Quantic Dream co-CEO Guillaume de Fondaumière said.
“Television has begun experimenting with concepts that we’ve focused on for many years,” he continued, bringing to mind Netflix’s interactive Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Tale, Buddy Thunderstruck: The Maybe Pile and edition of Minecraft: Story Mode.
Following several regional publishing deals with Blizzard Entertainment for World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, Diablo III, Overwatch and others, NetEase made a mid-2018 investment into Bungie, the Halo and Destiny studio which had been in a 12-year publishing partnership with Blizzard’s parent company.
It also stumped up US$30 million (RM122 million) for Second Dinner, a smaller indie studio founded by ex-Blizzard developers, as unveiled in early January.
Quantic’s leads did not reveal where their next project would be headed — NetEase, well known for mobile titles Rules of Survival and Knives Out, recently optioned Blizzard’s Diablo franchise for a mobile spin-off — save for underlining its cross-platform, impressive, ambitious and original nature.
In 2018, Quantic Dream came in for criticism after several French journalists described an undesirable company culture. The company continues to refute such allegations. — Relaxnews
