Heavy Rain creator Cage: 'sequels kill creativity'

"If you're interested in innovation and believe that games could be more than shooters, then you realise that sequels kill creativity and innovation," Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls creator David Cage has said, exuding as much passion and slightly wonky logic as ever. The problem, see, is that all too often we're simply given what we want.

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"If you're interested in innovation and believe that games could be more than shooters, then you realise that sequels kill creativity and innovation," Beyond: Two Souls and Heavy Rain creator David Cage has said, exuding as much passion and slightly wonky logic as ever. The problem, see, is that all too often we're simply given what we want.

"Many people want the same and if that's what you offer them, they will gladly buy it," Cage told Official PlayStation Magazine UK. "[Gamers] encourage [publishers] to keep making the same game every Christmas, and everybody's happy."

But being happy isn't enough, no, we need new and surprising things so we can be thrilled.

"If you're interested in innovation and believe that games could be more than shooters, then you realise that sequels kill creativity and innovation," Cage said, which Quantic Dream hopes to avoid with Beyond: Two Souls. "We don't give people what they expect. We want to give them something they want without knowing they want it."

Why, just the other day I was conversing about a similar matter concerning Deadly Premonition! As much as I adore the oddball survival horror, I'd much rather mastermind Hidetaka 'SWERY' Suehiro's "surprising and amazing news" for 2013 be that he's let loose to make something new and bizarre rather than simply a sequel. This paragraph is mostly an excuse for me to urge you to play Deadly Premonition. I can salvage it, though. Look at Thirty Flights of Loving and Atom Zombie Smasher developer Blendo Games, who switches genres and styles with gay abandon, making him endlessly exciting to follow. There, pulled it back.

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  • reply
    January 11, 2013 7:00 AM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Heavy Rain creator Cage: 'sequels kill creativity'.

    "If you're interested in innovation and believe that games could be more than shooters, then you realise that sequels kill creativity and innovation," Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls creator David Cage has said, exuding as much passion and slightly wonky logic as ever. The problem, see, is that all too often we're simply given what we want.

    • reply
      January 11, 2013 7:23 AM

      I really wouldn't mind it if Quantic Dream revisited the world of Omikron, tho.

      Actually, that'd make me pretty goddamn happy.

    • reply
      January 11, 2013 8:20 AM

      False.
      It doesn't kill creativity, you just have to be creative around a certain baseline.

      The Half life and Portal Franchises are a good example that it doesn't kill creativity.

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        January 11, 2013 8:22 AM

        I would agree with this. Sequels done "wrong" kill creativity.

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        January 11, 2013 8:37 AM

        I'd disagree about Portal. The second game expands on the first, but it feels like a lot of ground is just being treat upon for a second time.

        HL2, I agree, was a creative sequel that did a lot to differentiate itself from the first.

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          January 11, 2013 9:08 AM

          I dunno, I kind of disagree. Portal 2 added tons of shit to the formula. New mechanical stuff like the gels, waaay expanded narrative, and eventually stuff like the mod tools make Portal 2 about as iterative-ly creative a sequel as I can think of.

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      January 11, 2013 8:34 AM

      One year later...

      Coming soon: Heavy Rain 2.

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      January 11, 2013 9:26 AM

      [deleted]

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      January 11, 2013 12:10 PM

      Agree.

      The incentive of a sequel is overwhelmingly to circle the drain. Honestly how many franchises out there get BETTER as the sequels pile up??

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