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Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls, & Detroit: Become Human Coming To Steam
Developer Quantic Dream's three most recent video games, Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human, are all coming to Steam after being ported to Microsoft Windows last year. Headed by writer and director David Cage, developer Quantic Dream is known for its cinematic titles that focus on advanced motion capture technology to craft emotionally riveting cinematic experiences. Ever since 2010's Heavy Rain, the developer's titles have been PlayStation exclusives, with subsequent titles Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human releasing exclusively on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.
That streak was broken when all three of Quantic Dream's PlayStation games were ported to Microsoft Windows in 2019. After nearly ten years, non-PlayStation owners could finally play Heavy Rain, one of the PS3's most acclaimed games. While Beyond: Two Souls and Detroit: Become Human didn't quite reach the same critical acclaim as Heavy Rain, they were still hailed as technical triumphs and remain prime examples of how Hollywood acting talent can be integrated into a video game framework.
Now, one year after the Windows ports, Quantic Dream's games are finally coming to Steam. In a surprise announcement from the development studio's Twitter account, Quantic Dream revealed Heavy Rain, Beyond Two Souls, and Detroit: Become Human will all release June 18 on Steam. Furthermore, free demos for all three games are out now on Valve's digital distribution storefront.
Historically, video game machines become popular, not by technical specs, but on the strength of their exclusive games. The PlayStation 2 was visibly less powerful than its peers, the Xbox and Gamecube, but nonetheless became the best-selling video game system of all time. Even with all the talk of the capabilities of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, from ray-tracing to the power of Unreal Engine 5, exclusive games will truly determine whether or not video game enthusiasts will rush out to upgrade to either of the newest systems. With that in mind, Sony losing or giving up its exclusivity on Quantic Dream's games are an indication they don't need them to sell PlayStation 4 systems anymore.
Between PC versions of Quantic Dream's recent oeuvre and the surprise announcement of Horizon Zero Dawn PC Port, it seems Sony is easing back a little bit on how it treats its exclusive titles. To this day, titles like Uncharted and Killzone have never been released outside of the PlayStation family of systems. With this sudden change of heart on Heavy Rain and its successors, as well as first-party Horizon Zero Dawn, Sony no longer seems terribly concerned with keeping its games locked to the PlayStation hardware in perpetuity. Of course, this doesn't mean every first-party Sony title will suddenly release on PC or other consoles, but it is an indication that home video game consoles aren't necessarily competing with the home computer market anymore.
