Nor does it delve into the interesting social, economic, political, and interpersonal problems of a society no longer centered around productive human labor.

But Detroit doesn’t examine that interesting facet of human psychology very deeply. Advertisementįor sure, there’s some level of existential dread inherent in the idea that we might be surpassed and/or made redundant by our own AI creations. The police mistrust what seems to be the best, most reliable tool ever created for criminal investigations. Street vendors warn androids away for fear of scaring off customers, even though dozens of subservient androids wander every street. Musicians desperately offer “music with soul” as somehow more authentic than the more popular brand of android-produced tunes. The game takes pains to show mass protests over the unemployment rate spiking past 35 percent, never really acknowledging that even unemployed slobs can apparently afford to buy a capable android to cater to their every whim. Though androids have been allowed to integrate into seemingly every facet of Detroit’s society, everyone is somehow also skeptical and distrustful of the ersatz humans that now dominate their ultra-modern lives. Yet none of the humans presented in Detroit seems at all happy to be finally free of menial manual labor. Every facet of human life, from sports to entertainment to sex work, has been revolutionized by the availability of cheap, plentiful, hyper-intelligent superhuman servants. The military uses androids for combat operations, and space agencies use them for exploration. People send their tireless automatons out for errands, ask them to cook and clean, and even take them along as glorified bag-holders on shopping runs. The world has been transformed by the existence of subservient machines that can do anything a human can do and more. The year is 2038, and the city of Detroit is the center of a new manufacturing renaissance thanks to the creation of believable intelligent human-shaped androids. But that underlying story ends up so fragmented, so poorly executed, and so clunkily written that it’s very difficult to appreciate the narrative playspace. Like the world’s most slickly produced choose-your-own-adventure book, the latest David Cage game lets you play with narrative conventions and mess with the inherent connective tissue of the story in some intriguing ways. Links: PlayStation Store | Official websiteįor a game so focused on presenting a seamless interactive cinematic story, the most striking thing about Detroit: Become Human is its exposed seams. Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

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