An eclipse. This explains the current silence of Quantic Dream. If the Parisian study has put itself out of the lights in recent years, it will soon come out of the shadows and finally talk about this. Star Wars Eclipsepresented at the end of 2021 before being more discreet.
However, very close to the Parisian Ring, we are busy preparing something big. “I have nothing right to say, except that, obviously, we work on it with even more passion and determination than if it were one of our original games,” says David Cage with a smile at Tech & Co. “This is the first time we have been working on a franchise. We have never worked in a sequel and we want to create something special. We put all our hearts.”
We will not know anything else about what is happening behind the few images seen of what will be the next game that Quantic Dream is preparing in the biggest secret. The first trailer put fans of the saga in motion, but will remain a bit patient. Information about the future title of the developer to which we owe Heavy rains, Detroit: Becoming a human either Beyond two souls They are as rare as the founder of the study in the press. But when we talk to him about technology and passion that has encouraged him for almost 30 years, David Cage has the same stars in his eyes as those promised by his Star Wars Eclipse.
A study that owes everything to “a small gray box”
“Quantic Dream is a work of words about quantum physics. Both mathematical, technological equations, somewhat intangible, elusive, mixed with imagination. From the beginning, we saw the study on these two feet, creation and technology,” slides this former musician who became a magician of video games.
It was when he saw the first playstation he wants and the idea of creating his own study. David Cage after wandering through the halls of the CES Salon in Las Vegas in 1995. “In the curve of a alley, I find a demonstration of a small gray box, PlayStation wrote in him. He still did not throw himself out of Japan. And I see a 3D game for the first time,” he recalls. “Until then, the games were in 2D, flat. And suddenly, the power of the console allowed us to have the third dimension. We have a camera that can turn, really see things, explore. I tell myself that we can finally tell three dimensional stories with characters. It’s incredible, that’s what I want to do!”
This meeting marks the starting point of Quantic Dream. But not everything is easy. “I am starting to talk to friends. They told me that I did not exist and it probably was not without reason that if I wanted to do it, it was necessary to invent technology to invent their own games,” says David Cage. He took them to the word and set up their own study in 1997 with this creed: always develop technology that serves vision and creative envy. “This is the study brand of the study today,” he says.
Consequently, Quantic Dream wants to be a pioneer in technology in video games, while he is a narrator narrator. And from the first game Omikron: The nomadic soul (1999), the tone is established. The “total unconsciousness” game has fun summarizing the creative director.
And Quantic Dream will not return to anything. Do not even ask David Bowie to lend their characteristics to one of the characters. But it is also the game that invents a lot: a very alive futuristic world in 3D. And above all, the capture of movements will become the other registered trademark of the ILE -FOnce study. “A natural approach” in the conviction that technology can help and, above all, make the characters more real in their animation. Quantic Dream then uses a medicine technique to study the human approach, the capture movement and adapts it to video games, refining over time to lead to capture performance, capture the body and face of the actors to create more possible interactions.
Dream Quantic, pioneer of movement capture
“We wanted to create the first virtual actors. It meant having a single person who creates performance and not having a mosaic of several people whose combined work will create a performance,” he said. A single actor that will be the image, the movements, the voice, the face, all in the smallest details of the game, or rather as many scenes as possible to respond to all the possibilities of writing of scripts. From the capture movement, Quantic Dream becomes the specialist in action captures that not only capture the body, but the face, voice and all the work of the actor.
Of The nomadic soul And above all Fahrenheit, What establishes the work bases with more than 12 hours of capture and 60 actors, the study is considered one of the pioneers of the capture of movement aimed at making the game realistic and even more immersive. Recognized actors lend their characteristics and voices: Ellen Page, Willem Dafoe, Jesse Williams – Gray’s Anatomy – or value curry, Kara interpreter in Detroit The latter will be the first real actress in the capture of acting for a demonstration short film directed by David Cage.
Today, the new movement capture study has around fifty high -definition cameras extended around an area that borders 100 m2. Adapted outfits, objects to symbolize sets, capture HD movements … Quantic Dream has one of the most efficient places in the world, but also an advanced ultra -photrametry study. And to perfect the technological panoply applied to the games, the last study has also been based since its beginnings in a 3D engine of the house that has allowed us to advance to its own rhythm, according to its needs. Seven years after its launch, beauty and realism of the graphics of Detroit: Becoming a human Designed for the PS4, certain games designed for PS5 continue to exceed.
David Cage says of his study that he is still promoted “for the desires to explore new things”, but always as a priority to tell stories and share everything in a very cinematographic way in its staging and light.
Financial solidity and solid trust
Because for 28 years, there has been a matter of making a technical demonstration. It is the technology that must be at the service of narration and emotion. “We are always going for the Quantic artistic envy, the creative desire to conclude what to do in terms of technology,” says David Cage. “Our narrative experiences are based on history and emotions. And the emotional vehicle is the characters.”
However, this does not prevent the innovations of the narrative generated by players players, shown by Nvidia or Ubisoft. “I am a screenwriter above all, what interests me is to write, imagine. To say that tomorrow I will not tell stories, but perhaps rather establish rules and let an algorithm tell a story about these bases, it is an evolution of my work what he wonders,” admits David Cage.
Despite the acquisition of Netease in 2022, David Cage ensures that this does not change the way of studying. “The immense possibility that we have had for 28 years that we have always managed to have the confidence of our partners whom we explain that we were doing something atypical, crafts. We do not play every year, it is true. We do not want to industrialize, but build on time,” he analyzes. “All our games have always been profitable, which is quite rare in our industry. It means that it is not just a creative delirium to spend money and failure in the end. We have always managed to maintain an economic logic and a profitable study.”
Source: BFM TV
