Cantina Banter #6 | Quantic Dream, The Studio Behind Star Wars Eclipse - Star Wars Escape Pod

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's a trap!
This is what's wrong!
Come on, let's keep a little optimism.
Subscribe, leave a voicemail, and share the show with a brother.
Chewie, get us out of here!
Time to work on the ship!
It's great to be in the empire today!

(00:22):
Star Wars Escape Pod is the pod for you.
There's the Republic's choice of podcast anywhere in the galaxy.
If you are tuning in right now, don't go anywhere.
Leave a review and make it a good one.
I am higher today.
I am higher today.

(00:43):
I thought that was a pretty good take.
Pray I don't alter my performance any further.
Welcome back to Star Wars Escape Pod.
And another episode of Cantina Banter.
Where we, your hosts of Star Wars Escape Pod, do a bit of a casual chat.

(01:05):
And this week we have your co-host Blake joining us in the Escape Pod this week.
So hello there, Blake.
Hello there.
Hello.
Yeah, don't you love revisiting this theme?
I still like the main theme better.
Yeah, that's fair.
I think, like, it feels, it feels at home to me still because they all come from the same soundtrack.

(01:26):
Right.
Which is the Star Wars Connect game.
Giving away our trade secrets here, but.
Including Empire, Darth Vader singing?
Yeah, so that little clip is from the song, but I also grabbed a snippet from a different, it's like, it's from the song or like a variation of this song where he's just singing alone without the music.

(01:50):
And I just did some re-editing so that it works within the time frame of our, of our show.
So yeah, but, uh, uh, but yeah, I mean, you can find the tracks on Star Wars Connect.
So man, that game is, I'm waiting for that thing to skyrocket on value.
I think you still get it for like $3.
I mean, so like stores, there's random things.
You get a Connect for under 10 bucks.

(02:10):
That's true.
Yeah, you can get that for pretty cheap, which I think, you know, if anyone's ever thought about getting one, you know, good time to jump on it.
Because I feel like it's the kind of.
It's kind of in movie, it's interesting because it's in the direction of like VR, AR.
Yeah.
But way worse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I feel like it was.
2000s technology.
I mean, it was, it was, it was 2010s technology, but it's, it's still like first of its kind.

(02:33):
Um, the same company that developed Connect was, it's been bought and sold a number of times, I think.
And it's just sort of changed direction as to what they're doing with it.
But, uh, I believe it's the same company that ended up working with Apple to give it the, uh, them, the facial.
Oh, really?
Infrared scanner.
That made Connect?
It's the same company that worked with both Microsoft and Apple to, to put infrared facial scanning on the phones.

(02:59):
Okay.
Because I think I won't, uh, I think, I think the Windows phones also did have them for a little while too, um, until those disappeared kind of like BlackBerry.
But, um, but yeah, I mean, it was, uh.
Still get the tablet, I think.
Yeah.
Very innovative company.
And, and, uh, yeah, I feel like Connect is just kind of, kind of a.
It was a niche thing when it was out.
Yeah.
I feel like it's.

(03:19):
There wasn't a lot of games.
And the games that were out were usually dancing games, which definitely is a big following of that.
Like, my wife really likes those games.
I think at the time we couldn't use it because the room was too small.
Yeah.
Right.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
Yeah.
Even with that special lens, you would probably just to, like.
To shorten the length.
Like a fisheye lens on it and bring everything closer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Still didn't work.
Yeah.
Yeah.

(03:39):
You need a bit of space, but, um, it's, it's a cool game.
It's a cool, uh, it's a cool thing that I feel like if it's not kept alive, it's gonna, it's gonna die.
You know what I mean?
So, I was looking for a soundtrack today on Spotify, which, uh, I don't know if you remember the Goofy movie, Legendary.
Which one?
The first one, uh, but.
Is that the one with the Michael Jackson character?
Uh, that's the, yes, that's the first one, yeah.

(04:00):
Okay, I like that one.
Um, yeah, Powerline.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was a, it was actually really good songs.
Yeah.
They did a really good job.
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah, and so.
I used to listen to that just on a, as a soundtrack.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Um, uh, it was, uh, it was, yeah, I've got, I got some stories to tell you after about that, that movie.
But, um, but yeah, the, uh, when I was a kid and I still have it somewhere, um, I have the CD for the Extremely Goofy movie is the second one.

(04:25):
Okay.
And that CD on eBay, someone was trying to sell it for like $180 or something like that.
It's like, or 80, 80 bucks.
It was like some crazy amount of money.
Is it not on Disney Plus?
No, we're talking about the soundtrack, like the audio, like the, just the CD, like for the music, you know?
I mean, people are into collecting CDs and records right now.

(04:45):
Yeah, they are.
And so I guess maybe that's part of the reason why it's gone up.
And I'm like, dang, like I sure hope I have this around somewhere.
Cause I'm, you know, I don't remember getting rid of it, but, uh, but it was one of my favorite CDs growing up.
Cause I loved the song Shaker Groove thing.
And so I loaded up Spotify.
This is from the second movie.
This, this one now is from the second movie I'm talking about.
Cause I was listening to the first soundtrack and I was like, I want to listen to the second one.

(05:06):
And I know I have the CD somewhere, but I just, I didn't want to go rummaging around trying to find it.
So, um, I looked it up on, on our subscription to Spotify and I could not find it.
And I was like, hold on a second.
Maybe that's why the CD is worth so much.
They've got, yeah, they've got the second one.
They've got the first one, sorry, but they don't have the second one.
And that kind of surprised me a little bit.
And it just kind of dawned on me, like, man, I know some games get the attention of republishers and stuff like that.

(05:31):
Like in a, in about, uh, this upcoming weekend on Sunday, we have a special guest recording for, um, uh, Mike from switch to the past.
Uh, we're going to be talking about KOTOR and, uh, that game has had so many republishers over the years from Nintendo switch updates to republishing on steam for PC.
It's had re-releases on pretty much every generation of console.

(05:54):
There's a mobile app for iOS and, you know, Android.
Uh, like you can pretty much play this game on anything.
Like, I mean, part of that, I think on top of it being a really good game and single players, you don't have to worry about multiple people signing in.
It's also from the original Xbox.
So in modern data storage, it's very small.
Yeah.
So it's very portable in that way.

(06:14):
For sure.
And it's turn-based.
You don't have to worry about having really like accurate controls.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, um, I guess that, you know, that being said, like Star Wars connect, I think it's, it's, it fits in this category of media where it's so niche because it was made for the connect.
It's a Star Wars title, so it's got the crowd and the attention that, well, I mean, it's a connect game, so maybe not, but it's got the same fan base behind a title like that as you would expect any other Star Wars title.

(06:41):
And yet it's so niche as far as who can play it and who knows about it.
Just because it's old now, I guess.
And because it's connect and because connect was only ever reprinted once for the first Xbox one gen and then that very quickly died and went away.
Very few people can play it without owning a specific console.
And therefore it's not going to be republished to any other game because the game is made for motion tracking.

(07:03):
Yeah.
So you'll never be able to play the Star Wars title again.
I bet they could port it to VR.
That'd be an interesting, that'd be an interesting port, but it would be pretty jank just as it is only because there's all.
I think you could do it because a lot of it's just like dancing motion tracking.
I think that part would be okay.
But a lot of like the main campaign and stuff like that would be...
The Raincore Rampage.
Yeah.
It would just be weird.

(07:23):
It's, it's, it's, it is.
There is something funny about seeing what is happening in response to you in the third person by acting something out and watching it in front of you.
Like, whereas VR is a very first person narrative experience where you are the person.
There's nothing really comical about that.
It's usually used as a much more like immersive, serious thing.

(07:45):
I feel like the dancing games are the first person.
Yeah.
You can do dancing games in VR, but, but that's just one thing.
Like there's like other aspects of the Star Wars Connect game that are, you know, cool.
And it's because you get to see it from the perspective of a viewer against the TV.
But none of that would work.
The Star Wars dancing one could work for sure.
But, but anyway, all this amazing music.
I guess it'd be more of like an AR thing then?

(08:06):
Like maybe it's more in line with this new Star Wars pod raising game.
There would have to be something that reflects your motion.
But even with VR, unless you have like third party motion trackers that detect your entire
body, like what Connect was doing, the VR headset alone only tracks your head motion and it
only tracks your hands based on the controllers.
Right.
So like, it's still not going to be as good.
Like you need, yeah, you need like, you need like, I mean, back in the early days of PC

(08:30):
VR, when people were like little startups were trying to see like what they could do to
like push it forward.
Oh, right.
People were trying to do like haptic feedback gloves.
Yeah.
There was like weird stuff that came out.
Did that all die off?
I think a lot of it is kind of still out there, but it's like, nobody's buying it.
Like there was one company that was doing that, but I think at the time VR was not popular
enough and I'd argue it's still not quite there.

(08:52):
It's, it's there, but it's in a, they're in a different capacity.
Like not enough people are doing that type of tracking anymore.
Like even steam is kind of moving on from that and they're doing a all in one self tracking
headset without using base stations.
So the, but the idea of using base stations was that you had a, an ability to track something
in a 3d space in a 3d environment.

(09:13):
And there was this company that was making these trackers that you could strap on your
body and you could put them on your ankles, your knees, your wrists, you know, and, and
that, that, that would full body suit.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
So like in a, something like VR chat, your entire, your entire character would essentially
move correctly like in the world because it's, it's being tracked to your whole body.

(09:34):
Was it good though?
Cause I know they have track suits for film and those are always super jank.
Yeah, it was good.
Like, like it's, it's, uh, backwards and stuff.
Yeah, no, it was, well, I mean, I feel like depending on the character rig that you choose
to play as like, yeah, it's a very community supported game.
So of course there's going to be some jankiness, but the actual technology of this product

(09:54):
was working really well.
So unless you have something like that, I don't think it would just, I don't think it
would work, but, um, but yeah, anyways, um, what were we talking about here?
Uh, the huge tangent we were talking about, um, Oh yeah.
So, so Star Wars Connect.
So yes, Star Wars Connect.
Uh, I feel like the music, the theme is from the soundtrack of this game.
It's a game that's probably going to be really valuable one day because it's super niche.

(10:17):
So you're saying you should all go out to thrift shops and buy it now.
So when it happens, yeah, a hundred percent, I'm calling it, I'm calling it right now.
It's going to be like hundreds of dollars one day.
Do you have a time estimate for this?
How long do I got to keep it in storage?
Five years.
That's not that long.
No, because five years will bring it up to about 15 years worth of time since it was
published.
I think it was a 2012 game.

(10:38):
I don't know, man.
I personally think this is going to go the same value as the, actually might be worth a
lot now, but I was going to say the ET and the super Nintendo game.
Yeah, man.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I feel like it's going to be worth some, but a lot of the music that they made for this,
like for some, I don't know where the digital rights are with that soundtrack, but it's
never dinged on YouTube or anything like that.
Like it's, it's, it's just kind of a ghost, like a floater.

(11:00):
No one knows about it.
And it's kind of like the second goofy movie soundtrack.
Nobody knows about it.
No, nobody knows it exists because it's not available as a digital good for rent anymore
through a subscription service.
It's like what everyone's living their life out of these days.
It's strange to me that, I mean, the movie might be on Disney plus, right?
The movie's on Disney plus, I think, I think, but not the soundtrack.

(11:20):
So like, you know, listen to this gold.
The 70s.
Yeah.
I still like the first one better.
Yeah.
The first one was pretty good.

(11:43):
I like the first one too, but yeah, the second one's got some amazing, amazing disco songs
in there that have been like redone for the movie and they just, they just hit the right
spot.
But okay, so we sort of have like an off topic, this entire episode is like kind of intended
to be off topic, which is why we're doing this as a cantina banter, but it also is very
Star Wars relevant.

(12:04):
It regards.
Yeah.
Like, you know, we shouldn't count our chickens before they hatch these days.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hopefully this is in regards to a conversation that we had a number of weeks ago about several
years before that.
And yeah, and then three years before that, uh, about a video game called Star Wars Eclipse.
Um, and, uh, you know, I feel like people are like rolling their eyes going like, oh,

(12:28):
yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Whatever.
Uh, but yeah, we've actually taken some time to do some deep, deep research of Quantic Dream
and, uh, the games that they have played.
Well, not really the company, just played some of their games.
Uh, yeah.
Well that, yeah.
Like Quantic Dream's products, I should say.
And, uh, the, the most, the, specifically the last two big things that they did, uh,

(12:49):
which two games, the first one being, uh, Beyond Two Souls and the second one being Detroit
Become Human.
And, uh, these games are kind of the, I guess the best idea of what Star Wars Eclipse could
be because a lot of people have questions like, okay, cool.
There's a sweet looking trailer that came out three years ago.
And this company that from what I understand is going to make a telltale style Star Wars

(13:10):
game without really realizing what that's going to be like.
And now we kind of, we have an idea now based on these other games of like what this is going
to be like.
Yeah.
I think we know the gameplay, but I still, I'm going to be honest.
I question how that a Star Wars story will fit with this type of storytelling.
Yeah, and we can kind of get into this in this, in this episode, but, uh, but yeah,

(13:32):
we'll, we'll dive right in here.
I'm just going to play a really funny little Star Wars clip of audio here.
And then, uh, and then we'll just, uh, we'll just power on through.
Let me tell you something, man.
The relationship between Obi-Wan and Luke was heavy, but it wasn't deeper than the relationship

(13:57):
with Han Solo and Luke.
You remember when they was on the ice planet and they, and, and, um, Obi-Wan told Luke
not to take his ass out there.
He did anyway.
And then he got caught by the, by the ice.
Remember that ice snow monster?
And Luke was hanging upside down and he went, he went like this and got his lifesaver.
But just as he got the lifesaver and cut himself down, the ice polar bear was like,

(14:20):
and he went like that.
And then he wasn't coming back.
Princess Leia was fronting on Han Solo.
She ain't want to give him no b****.
He was in, in where the spaceships was.
And, um, three CPO, oh, Han Solo, once the doors closed,
and three PCBO said,
R2 has been known to make mistakes.

(14:41):
And the doors closed.
He said, from time to time.
And that's when, uh, Wookiee, the Wookiee said,
and he cried and I said,
God damn it!
Luke, why'd you do it?
That's when Han Solo went and he got his wak.
And the guy, the soldier said,
but your wak will freeze before you hit the first marker.
And Han Solo was going to get Luke.

(15:03):
He said, well, then I'll see you in hell.
He went, rode off and got Luke.
True story.
When you watch Empire Strikes Back,
he'd cut him open and he'd put Luke in it.
And that's when the spaceship found him the next morning.
He said, shh.
And he said, sir, we found them.
Remember when they took him back?
And then they cut to Luke Skywalker floating in the f***ing water.

(15:23):
Remember?
And then that's when, when he was, uh, when he said,
Ben.
And Ben Kenobi said,
you will go to a place called the Dagobah system.
There you will meet a Jedi master named Yoda.
And that's when he went to the Dagobah system.
Remember?
He said, if not 100 years, you look as good as I.
Restart my stress.

(15:44):
Remember he said that?
That's when Yoda died.
I'm ready.
Sad.
Sci-fi to the rocks.
I'm ready.
All right.
What did we just listen to?
Uh, that's Tracy Morgan on, uh, on Star Wars.
I recognize his voice.
Yeah, yeah.
He's got a pretty recognizable voice.
I, I, I was just, I saw it the other day and I was like,
God, this is funny.
I got to play it at some point.

(16:05):
But so, uh, beyond two souls action adventure game developed by Quantic Dream and published
by Sony computer entertainment.
It's released, uh, on October 8th, 2013 on the PlayStation three and the PlayStation four
on November 24th, 2015, about two years later.
And a port for windows was self-published by Quantic Dream and released July 22nd, 2019.

(16:31):
So this game is progressively with each re-release.
I wouldn't be surprised if they did a little bit of polishing on the visuals and stuff like
that.
Cause I thought this game looked pretty good and he's a special edition.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you could tell beyond two souls is older, but I don't know if it's necessarily PS three
looking, at least on the PC version.

(16:52):
It didn't look like, I mean, if it is still the same, I would be wildly impressed.
But yeah, yeah, yeah.
Kind of.
Yeah.
Uh, but yeah, I thought it was, I thought it was looking pretty good.
Uh, this game received a 70 out of 100 Metacritic score on PS three, 72 out of a hundred for
PS four, and then a 76 out of a hundred for PC.
Uh, these are the existing scores that have been logged for Metacritic on Wikipedia.

(17:16):
Uh, so it's possible that those scores change depending on, I guess, ongoing flexibility
with people being able to edit their scores.
But, uh, the game is extremely cinematic and features, um, Elliot Page as, uh, the main
protagonist.
Then she went as, uh, as Ellen Page plays the, the main character who is essentially, um, the
sister to a brother who is a, essentially a ghost character.

(17:41):
Um, he's kind of like a brother character to her.
He's just kind of always there ever since she was born.
He plays the ghost character.
Uh, yeah.
So, so the ghost character that's kind of tied to her is called Aiden.
Yeah.
And throughout the game, you have the ability to utilize Aiden's, uh, powers of telekinesis.
Uh, it gives her the ability to perform miraculous things like healing people and yeah, just kind

(18:05):
of supernatural things and kind of like think like a psychic, but instead of it being a
mental thing, it's like she has like a secret ghost friend.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Uh, this game is very deep.
It had a lot of emotion to it.
And one of my favorite things about it was cause I've played a telltale game before and
that is very almost mind dullingly simple.

(18:26):
Like you kind of sit there and you read and you read and you read and you press a button
to choose your reply or your response and then you do more reading and there's not a
lot of...
Is this pre-voice acting?
Well, it's just, it's just budget.
It's just budget storytelling, you know?
And cause it's kind of like, this is an interactive book, but choose your own adventure mixed in.

(18:47):
Right.
Like it's, it's like that.
Like the overall narrative doesn't really change, but you can kind of, you have like
a big sandbox to get to the...
Yeah, kind of.
Yeah.
And, uh, some games do it differently.
Like I played a game called, uh, Tron Identity, which was kind of the same idea, but depending
on how you choose to end, cause there's different endings, you just get a steam achievement or

(19:07):
some kind of achievement to unlock that path that you took.
And then you can always replay the game again and choose different, differently and try and
hit all like four to six or whatever it is.
Uh, this game, I don't know the amount of endings.
I do know the amount of endings for Detroit.
Uh, but this game has different ways that you can end the story and by, I guess one
of the main things is kind of who she ends up with the character, et cetera.

(19:30):
Uh, what did you think of, I guess the, the idea of being able to narratively help drive
that character story and choices mixed in with the ability to navigate that character in
the world?
Cause if anyone doesn't know the Telltale games, there's no moving a character around
the room.
Like it's all just reading, clicking a button to choose what they're applying.

(19:51):
That's not this game at all.
Um, this game is, you get to control the character in a RPG like environment, just not quite as
open world as you would expect.
It's very like detail oriented though, in like smaller scaled scenes.
And then also take part in very detailed conversations and choose your replies and stuff like that.
So what did you think of this game and its take on doing that?

(20:12):
It definitely was interesting.
I like the idea of something being very narratively driven, but I will admit at times the, uh,
style of like his game interaction can be a bit tedious.
It's like, if you want to hold up a chain, like fence to crawl under it, you got to like
hold the trigger and then like bash the B button until they get all the way through.
And if you screw up, then she puts it down and you got to try again.

(20:32):
Stuff like that was very tedious and annoying.
Right.
I feel like a lot of those kinks were worked out by the time they got around to Detroit,
but I guess I was just bad at it.
Cause I was in Detroit.
Uh, but yeah, the, I, I, I liked it.
I liked, I liked Detroit better.
Yeah.
Um, but I found beyond, beyond two souls.

(20:53):
I found it.
Part of that for me, there was a concept I thought was more interesting.
Uh, yeah.
Yeah.
Um, beyond two souls also, if anyone doesn't know is getting a TV series.
It's in the works right now.
Oh, interesting.
Uh, from Elliot page.
Like this game was very, very impressively constructed.
And Detroit is a product of, of this being such a feat, but, uh, being the first of its

(21:15):
kind to do such a game.
And, uh, you know, it was approached from like, Hey, let's tell a story.
Let's tell a really good story, but let's also tell it so that the players have the,
the ability to drive the character almost as if they're directing the movie as it goes
along.
And I started to think to myself, like, as I was playing through those, cause the only
reason why we played through these games is that, uh, Star Wars Eclipse is coming.

(21:37):
And this is the studio that's making Star Wars Eclipse, right?
And they're kind of only making this style of game.
Yeah.
And in most of the games, so in Detroit, this is a thing, but in beyond two souls, it
wasn't necessarily, um, was that, uh, Eclipse looks like it'll feature multiple storylines
and multiple characters.
And that's something that the Detroit really like nailed really well.

(21:58):
Yeah.
From the trailer, it looks like, you know, the, the shot of the droid, the shot of the,
the two Jedi facing off in the snow against those creatures coming at them.
It's funny because after playing it, I do feel like the only character that would make
sense of this style of gameplay from these two games would be playing a Jedi.
Okay.
You almost need superhuman abilities for the, the style of mechanics they use.

(22:18):
You can be able to freeze time with Detroit or you need to be able to use like supernatural
out of body control, like using the force.
Yeah.
Like with, with beyond two souls, like you was, you could switch over to Aiden who was able
to telekinetically do things or.
Cause that would transfer to like playing a Jedi character very easily.
It could.
Yeah.
Uh, with Detroit, you played as androids, uh, robotic people.

(22:42):
So I feel like playing as a droid with a lot of personality would actually work incredibly
well.
Um, it would also be the problem though is the droids and Star Wars are all kind of junky
and I feel like the ability that the androids that they, you as a player had the pretty
advanced.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, I guess it depends on what they do.
I, I fully believe that this studio is creative enough to figure that out, but, um, but

(23:05):
yeah, beyond two souls was interesting.
Um, I don't want to get too, too much into the story of that game and review that game
because this, this really isn't about that game, but.
I just have one question in regards to that.
Yeah.
When did it come out?
What year?
Uh, 2013.
Can I get said?
And when did Stranger Things come out?
The beginning of the game, which is just to me, all I could feel about it was just like,

(23:26):
uh, just playing Stranger Things.
2016.
Okay.
So it was three years later.
So it did come first.
Yeah.
So this game came first.
They were so similar in story.
Yeah.
So the, yeah.
So this game came first, but the, yeah, the idea is that there is basically kind of like
an upside down, except it's for.
And you're playing.
What do they call them again?
A girl with super young girls, super abilities who was raised in a lab doing tests and stuff.

(23:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
And, uh, there were these ghosty type things, these entities, they call them entities.
And it was basically just, this is, this is kind of like the, the, I don't know, like
the weird creatures that you would find in the upside down world.
Right.
And the fact that it's like, there's a world.
Demogorgon.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's like another dimension and there was like portals that can access that other

(24:11):
dimension and that there's like a division of this, of the government that's like secretly
working on it and underground bases and stuff like that.
Like it's totally Stranger Things.
But then they mix in coming of age stuff and you have to go like the house party.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
I just, the whole thing just felt to me like I was playing 11 Stranger Things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So if there's any Stranger Things fans out there, I think, you know, this game would

(24:31):
probably, probably blow your mind.
But, uh, but yeah, if there's anything that's, that this studio is definitely known for and
good at David Cage, who's the director and writer of that Quantic Dream, like he is an
impressive storyteller, like a very impressive storyteller.
So this game that got me really excited for, you know, the potential that Star Wars Eclipse
has.
And then, uh, I guess now we can kind of move on to Detroit, which is kind of the more

(24:52):
favored one between the two of us, I think.
Right.
I enjoyed it more.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
So Detroit Become Human, uh, this, this, this story behind this game is crazy.
So this game was announced March 8th, 2012.
This is a year before Beyond Two Souls came out.
So it's kind of overlapping.
It was announced with a demo video on the PS3, and it didn't launch until 2018, six years

(25:15):
later on the PS4.
So this isn't uncommon for Star Wars Eclipse then?
It seems like it's pretty normal within the timeframe for this studio to announce something
with a video and then wait like half a decade to come out.
Yeah.
So six years people had to wait.
And then PS4 rolled around, uh, and also Windows.
And that's only two years before the PS5 launched that this game came out.

(25:37):
And then it was updated and, you know, like, I guess it got, on Steam, I think it got the
Labor of Love award.
So I'm assuming they've kind of gone back in and polished and up-rezzed and this and that.
Uh, Detroit is Quantic Dream's best-selling game at 11 million units sold by the end of
2024.
Based on this timeline, uh, we could see Star Wars Eclipse launch in two more years, assuming

(26:00):
that it has a dedicated team strategy, speeds up the process, you know, that, that really
still feels a long ways away.
It does.
But they recently, and we talked about this in another podcast episode recently in the
past, that the studio has set up dedicated teams now per game.
So I feel like Eclipse is now no longer sharing people's time with other things because they've

(26:22):
been developing other things and, uh, it's going to get the full attention that it deserves.
Uh, I think what people are worried about though, is that one of the writers or one of
the creative leads on that game did leave the studio.
Uh, I think it's just.
Who was on Eclipse?
So just.
Yeah, I think it was one of the people who was leading that project.
So I think there might be some, some worry there, but I don't like, they did confirm

(26:43):
recently, as we discussed in, in the past that they confirmed in October.
I think it was that, uh, they are still hard at work on the game.
Uh, but it seems like based on the timeline for Detroit, it would fit within reason that
within two years we would get news of, of, uh, Eclipse.
And if it is two years, that lines up perfectly with the 50th, the golden anniversary of Star

(27:05):
Wars, 2027.
Oh yeah.
And the golden age of the High Republic, golden anniversary of Star Wars.
I feel like that could be a thing.
Oh, fair enough.
Maybe they're trying to line it up.
Yeah.
I think like between like March and May seems to be the time to release a Star Wars game.
That seems to be the window that a lot of people tend to do it.
I think, I think, I think Battlefront two kind of had that time, really that window.

(27:28):
I think, I think Star Wars outlaws me.
No, and maybe that was a fall game.
Um, Fallen Order.
Yeah.
I think, I think Fallen Order, maybe survive.
Uh, yeah.
Survivor.
There's been a few games that are learning as EA releases Star Wars games in that window.
I think zero company the next year, next year, Star Wars game.
I think that's coming out in kind of late spring, early summer ish.
Yeah.
I think, I think we're, we're thinking maybe like, I'm thinking a year and a half, man.

(27:52):
Like, I think that's kind of like the timeline that maybe they're, they're aiming for.
My hopes is that because they put out this like small press release, you want to call it that.
Yeah.
That means it's, you know, the year-ish out, you know, plus or minus six months.
Yeah.
Probably plus.
Yeah.
But.
I guess we'll see.
Yeah.
Uh, I have to admit, just, it's been such a sad state of affair for Star Wars games, like the

(28:12):
last decade.
It has.
It definitely, there was a big period of time where it just slowed down way too much.
It's still slow now.
It's still slow.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, Outlaws was the most recent one to come out and then it got a bunch of expansions.
But it seems like it's like about one game per year.
I wish that.
Like there's been years where we haven't had any, anything at all.
Okay.
So more, more recently, I mean, no, but more, more recently, I feel like.

(28:34):
Because right before that was Jedi survivor, right?
No, was that like a year before it?
If you count the VR games, it's, it kind of.
The X-Lab ones?
Yeah.
The X-Lab ones.
Like it kind of works out to maybe once a year, but.
Yeah.
I don't know if those count.
Because those are more like tech.
Yeah.
Like if we're talking.
If we're talking like games released under the Disney banner that are sold to the millions

(28:56):
on mass, mass millions, mainstream on all consoles and et cetera, there's very few.
It's the two Battlefronts, the two Jedi games.
Outlaws.
We have Outlaws and Squadrons and that's it, I think, right?
It's been what, a decade?
And it's been, yeah.
Well, 2013 was when the sale went through and EA got the exclusive license for a while

(29:17):
until that, you know, went away.
But it's been, it's been, it's been a minute.
It's crazy.
It's been over 10 years.
Yeah.
How many, I'm just curious, how many games came out?
In the early 2000s and 90s?
Between like 1999 and like 2006.
So many, man.
And that was back when we had diversification of games being different on each console.
Yeah.

(29:37):
They're all, everything was exclusive because it was such a pain to port anything.
Well, I mean, the power of a handheld like a Game Boy was just not, not up to par with
like an Xbox.
It had like a massive downport, even just for the Wii.
Well, it was not even a downport.
It was just like a totally different game.
Like it was a completely different game.
Like, like, like Revenge of the Sith, the movie video game on my Game Boy.

(29:58):
And it was the same game on the DS, but that game.
That was like 16 bit or something.
Yeah.
Like that game on, you know, like, I don't know, PlayStation or Xbox looked crazy different.
And then there was, there's all these like cool, like cinematic cut scenes from that
game.
And I'm like, I didn't get that in the Game Boy version.
Like I got some-
I just walked around to this guy and made him a few pixels.
Yeah.
I had some, I had some stuff to read.

(30:19):
Like I didn't get any like dialogue.
Yeah.
All right.
We're going to take a listen to a behind the scenes feature from Detroit Become Human.
Just think this is the studio that is making Star Wars Eclipse.
Everything they're applying to Detroit, they're going to probably apply to Star Wars Eclipse.
So let's take a listen.
Game after game, we try to challenge ourselves.

(30:40):
For Detroit, we wanted to, first of all, to write a story that would be incredibly bending,
which means the most non-linear story that we've ever created.
And we wanted really the player to have the possibility to change the story and change his own journey.
When you're writing at Quantic, you're writing for an interactive medium.

(31:01):
You know, when you're working in television, you'll put a character in a difficult situation
and you as a writing team will argue about what would that character do.
But ultimately, you have to decide what happens and you just show the audience.
What's interesting about interactive drama is you bring the player into that conversation
and it changes your job slightly as a writer because your job is to provide a narrative context

(31:24):
in which the player can write his own story.
You're giving him this kind of narrative Lego that he's going to snap together into his own shape.
You also have the ability to make your audience attach themselves to your characters
because the audience is in some sense responsible for what happens to the characters.

(31:44):
It's just a few cans.
Come on, let's go.
We have some cash now.
You used me to steal that money.
How could you do that?
I trusted you.
What's a bit specific about this script is how large they are.
If you take a film script, there are about 100 pages.

(32:05):
But here we have to deal with a script that is between 4,000 and 5,000 pages.
Everything becomes bigger because we don't just tell one story,
but we tell all the possible stories that can be told within this narrative space.
On act three, our final act, we have around 1,000 different scenarios
and every one of those scenarios has to be as interesting, as passionate, as strong and as emotional for the player.

(32:32):
We want every action that the player does, every interaction that is available to serve in telling the story
and help the player understand who his character is and build that character moment to moment.
We started with the intention pretty early on that we would never lie to the player.
So we implemented a visible tree structure in the game that players can consult during a scene or at the end of it,

(32:57):
which shows exactly what they did and what they missed.
There are games out there offering world exploration.
We offer narrative exploration.
You know, keeping control of such a wide and large story is a huge challenge.
So, same thing when you shoot with actors,
because you will need to shoot many different versions of each dialogue, of each scene.

(33:21):
For actors, it's a huge, huge challenge.
Because of the style of the game, you have so many different ways that the character can go.
So, every decision, it's what I call kind of choose your own adventure.
Like, every decision that the player makes, it's going to open up 40 more pages of material and experience that ties in,
which means as a performer, you have to try to continue to make things feel real that the player might not ever see,

(33:45):
but also that in performance, it's not always connected to a previous act.
It's grueling, it's hard work, but it's a great team and I enjoy doing it.
I was really frustrated, I was, until I got to this point where I kind of was able to step outside of my own experience
and even in a lot of ways my own process and be able to step outside of that and, okay, okay, this is something new.

(34:06):
What do you need?
How do I meet you there?
How do I give you what you need and still feel like I'm doing what's right?
And once I did that, then all of a sudden it got really fun.
It was much freer and having to approach it in a new way and think about the player and think about how it serves them
and what I'm doing for them or what I'm letting them into, it's really, I think, helped me grow in general.

(34:30):
Remember, there's nothing on the left, that's all, so it's probably all there.
And then make a come first, close, but I think you would go first to check that it's safe.
Okay, sure.
The most enjoyable thing about working in performance capture on this kind of project is that if I shot a film,

(34:52):
I would get to do one of these endings.
I get to do so many different things as Connor, your head goes all over the place
because you're trying to keep track of basically four different storylines for each different response.
What's the name of my dog?
Buddy?
Scout.
I think it's Jack.
I can't remember.

(35:14):
So I worked with physicality a lot because it was a good way to anchor myself in these different rings of the tree as the story grows out.
I know where that is physically in my body and then I can switch more continually on set
and it'll be entirely up to the player to determine what order those things come out
and what they look like from a distance.

(35:35):
It's like if you're playing through it, the culmination of all of that will be their version of Connor.
I'm faster than you and I don't feel pain.
You don't stand a chance against me.
Listen, asshole.
If it was up to me, I'd throw the lot of you in a dumpster and light a match to it.
Shooting action scenes at Quantic Dream is a real challenge

(35:56):
because these are scenes where the storytelling has to continue.
It's not an action scene just to have a dose of adrenaline.
The stunts have huge consequences on the rest of the story.
It's really a moment where we implicate the player
and tell him that the choices he makes during an action scene
will have a direct impact on the evolution of his story.

(36:18):
My biggest challenge on Detroit has been managing the large number of animations
that we received from motion capture.
Detroit features more than 37,000 animations,
which is a huge amount to handle on a daily basis.
You have to realize that the player, in his first playthrough,
will miss certain scenes.

(36:40):
This also means that we had to think of, conceive,
and produce all the potential story paths.
The characters' costumes, the places, day or night, the weather.
Did the character get shot in the shoulder?
Did he get injured?
All this consistency forced us to produce a lot of graphic assets
in order to, quite simply, allow the player
to have true continuity throughout the story.

(37:02):
Honestly, we were even surprised by the challenges
that come with such a big tree structure.
And we did our best to guarantee quality across all the game
and make sure that whatever path you choose
within this narrative space, you will have an equally good experience.
Detroit, it got 80 out of 100 Metacritic for PC

(37:26):
and 78 out of 100 for PS4.
Very impressive game.
What did you like most about this one?
Honestly, just the level of depth that they put in.
Even at the beginning, the morality you feel was pretty intense,
especially early on with the story with the daughter with her burnout dad.
It was like a drug addict.
Yeah.
That was crazy.
I was so surprised that something like that was in a game.

(37:46):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It took it to a new level.
To be honest, I wish they did it in different orders, just because doing that, which was
really intense, because it's when you break out of your AI loop.
And then the next one was the guy who...
Working for the artist.
Yeah, working for the artist.
It just felt so much less impactful than the previous one.

(38:07):
That one gets really intense later.
Yeah.
So for anyone who doesn't know, Detroit has three storylines, whereas Beyond Two Souls
only had the one storyline with the one character.
With a lot of time jumps.
Yeah.
With a lot of time jumps.
That was kind of...
Oh, yeah.
That was the gimmick of that game, was that you were kind of playing different chapters of
her life and completely not in chronological order.

(38:28):
There was an option I saw in the settings to play the game in chronological order, but I
guess the director's intention was that you didn't.
Yeah.
Probably so you'd get pertinent information as the story progresses.
Exactly, exactly.
But yeah, Detroit had a very cinematic experience about it.
Very chronological.
It felt like you were literally in the director's chair on a immersive movie set and being able

(38:51):
to make decisions for the characters as they did things and react when they had to do things.
And sometimes I just kind of got lost in the story and I put my controller down and then
something happened like just like as a split second.
And if I didn't click a button or respond a certain way and it was like, oh man, like I almost
forgot that I'm playing a game here because like I was watching a cut scene and I was

(39:12):
like, man, this is amazing.
Like it was so, so well done.
And when they shoot these cinematics for the game, they shot them all in motion capture
with the camera, like a camera, a virtual camera being driven by a person, you know,
being able to get those angles and those shots that what you expect.
Basically the same way that they make Avatar is how they made this game.
And, uh, they would film and direct these variations of how that scene would go based

(39:37):
on whatever player choices that you have.
And that was like one of the coolest things I think to me about Detroit, there is 40 possible
different endings to that game.
That's crazy.
Depending on what you do.
And what I liked most about Detroit as well is after every level you get to see on like
a node graph.
Yeah.
How your choices affected that character story and what paths you didn't take.

(39:59):
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
And I was like, oh man, that is so cool.
Like I'm able to see like this pivotal decision that I had at one, cause not every decision
is like pivotal, but like some of them really are.
And, and you get to see like possibly what things I would have missed, but it doesn't
show you what, unless you go back and replay the level and do that over again.
It does say don't replay anything until you've finished the initial story, just so you get

(40:22):
the full cinematic immersion.
But I was just thinking to myself, I was like, man, like just kind of mentally preparing
myself for this chat.
And I was thinking like, how does that work within the Star Wars canon?
Like, cause this game is kind of supposed to be that in the Star Wars canon, right?
Like it to a, to a certain extent, like obviously if I'm playing, it'll be the same as KOTOR
when it was canon, that there is a storyline that's considered canon, but within that window

(40:46):
you can kind of weave however you want.
So like, even if you do something different, there is a specific storyline that's considered
canon.
But like when I'm playing as Cal Kestis or KVest or something in Outlaws or Jedi or whatever,
and I'm doing something with my character, like if I go to this planet and then go to
that planet and then go to that planet again, that's not necessarily the canon story.

(41:08):
It's just how I'm playing the game.
The canon story is really just in the cut scenes that are immersive, right?
And so I guess with a game like that, it's like, okay, these, yeah, and these, but with
a game that's just cut scenes and cut scenes that can change based on your choices, right?
Like that's part of the game.
It takes it to another level of conversation, which is like, what is the, the canon way of

(41:31):
doing it?
Like, what is the real story with, without taking credit away from the gamer themselves
for choosing certain story paths and just kind of telling them, okay, well this, this story
path is we made this for you guys to have as an option, but this is the actual what happened
scenario, right?
Like I'm assuming that probably won't be the case.
They're probably not going to discourage people with that kind of implementation of the story

(41:54):
node graph tree.
But, but my theory is that when, however this game looks, when it's done that maybe they
will very subtly, not maybe not in the game, but very subtly in some other means, like maybe
the Star Wars timeline book republished kind of share a little bit as to, I mean, what
was the real event of what happened.

(42:14):
I wouldn't be surprised with a story of the quality that they put out, there eventually
being a novelization and then that being considered the canon version.
Right.
That's a good point.
Yeah.
That could happen too.
But, uh, I'd probably read it to be honest with you.
I think it'd be pretty good.
I think it would be insanely good.
Yeah.
Like, I mean, but after playing Detroit, that's when I really started to think like, okay,
when I watched this trailer again and it has these like closeups of certain characters,

(42:37):
like, Oh, maybe this means something.
It's not just random shots of like a droid in a desert and like, yeah, some like, did
you watch the Detroit trailer?
Some Duros guy, right?
Like to see in the Detroit trailer, how relevant it was to the game comparatively.
Uh, I watched like one or two trailers.
So I watched the trailer that they introduced the game's premise, like back on the PS3.

(43:00):
That one was kind of interesting.
It's actually a prelude to the story of the game, uh, which was cool, but, uh, and then
I watched one of the trailers for the game and it was very artistically driven.
It wasn't necessarily a cinematic kind of movie trailer, like what Eclipse is.
It was more like the character kind of narrating the scenes of Detroit and then you see a closeup

(43:21):
of them and then they walk away and that was it.
Um, I didn't see any, there might be other trailers out there that exist, but, um, but
yeah, yeah.
I don't know.
What do you think of that?
Like, what do you think of the, um, you know, like there was, there was a Duros closeup,
like that smuggler guy.
Yeah.
There was a droid.
There was the Jedi.
There was the Jedi fighting on the bridge.
So there might be two different Jedi stories that you might play.

(43:42):
Uh, and then there was the villains, which is like the Neymoridians and, and there was
the Neymoridian closeup.
And then there was also those gray creature aliens.
Yeah.
The drummer, little drummer boys.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So how do you think.
The ones I'm most interested, curious about, I should say, because I, they're not a canonical.
I think that's the first time we've ever seen them.
Do you think that maybe it's possible this will be a game in which we have the ability

(44:05):
to play as a villainous character as a, as a possible storyline?
That's kind of, you know, like to say that would be the case, but seeing as the games
we played were so narratively driven, I don't think so.
See, I think, I think, I think it's going to be similar to Detroit boiler.
You're probably going to play the smuggler, the droid and the Jedi.
And it's going to be a story that they probably all link up at some point.

(44:27):
Yeah.
Cause I mean, you know, a little spoiler for, uh, for Detroit is the players all, or the,
the character storylines that you play as, which are three different storylines, three
different characters.
They all exist at the same time in the same city.
And eventually towards the end of the game, they all, they all, they all understand that

(44:47):
each other exists.
Only two of them actually cross over, but, but they all are aware of each other type thing.
Right.
Like one of them, the one that you were talking about with the abusive dad household, like
she's got kind of a, a lone wolf court sort of story where she ends up trying to escape
the city and very much is not necessarily in, in the line of fire of the other two characters

(45:07):
that do cross over.
Right.
Uh, but the one storyline we have mentioned is his job is to track, he's an android that
tracks down androids that are broken there.
Oh, I guess she crosses paths with him.
Yeah, that's true.
So she doesn't meet the other guy, but she crosses.
Yeah.
So one of them is the android that works in a household with, uh, in a broken home with
a girl who is, uh, is being abused by, has an abusive father.

(45:30):
The other, one of the other storylines is an android who is supposed to be the top model
of that, of the time.
And he works for essentially law enforcement and he is a detective that helps law enforcement
track down rogue androids that have like gone nuts or gone crazy or whatever.
And then the third storyline is an android who works, uh, as a kind of like the help in

(45:52):
a home for a very wealthy artist.
And he's in a wheelchair and very, very stand in perfect son looking after.
Yeah.
Cause he's got a son who's like kind of a junkie and you know, he, the, the android,
he kind of treats his android as kind of the son he never had.
Yeah.
And yeah.
And so based on how each of these stories kind of start out, you can kind of, you can

(46:13):
kind of see where it could go, you know, with, with, uh, how their stories all work out towards
the end being this, this event of self-realization across almost every android in the city and
what that means for their story.
I'm probably being almost too vague when I say stuff like that, but, um, but it's really
cool.
It's really cool how they like cross over like that.
I feel like there's a lot of opportunity here for them to do something on the villain

(46:38):
side, you know, like when you watch, when you watch Empire Strikes Back, like you get
a, you have a storyline with Vader, you have a storyline with Luke, you have a storyline
with Han, right?
So you got two different groups of protagonists, like Luke at training with Yoda and R2, you
have 3PO Han, Chewie and Leia and Lando.
And then you have the Vader storyline who he's pursuing Luke.

(47:00):
And then he crosses over with the Han Solo storyline, which kind of brings them all together
in the same place.
Okay.
And then they're, you know, at the end of the movie, um, and they start together at the
beginning of the movie.
Right.
Um, but I feel like Eclipse could do that, you know, like it could, it could have these
different storylines that you play.
It could maybe all start in the same place.
They could all diverge and maybe come back together again.
I feel like the Vader stuff in this case is more of a cut scene.

(47:22):
Vader's story?
Vader's not a, what, like in Empire Strikes Back?
I'm saying like if there were a game, I feel like Vader's storyline would be a cut scene.
Like you cut to the villain and then you cut back to the game.
Oh yeah, I know.
But for, for Eclipse, like I feel like a possible storyline could be you're playing as like
maybe a Neimoidian or like one of those gray guys.
Right.
And like, it could be a main part of the story is like understanding how the villains of

(47:44):
the story of this time period are.
It'd be really cool.
Operating and working.
Yeah.
Like, like, would you, would you dig that?
I'd be actually quite interested to follow a Neimoidian storyline.
Okay.
That is, we've only gotten that in one thing from what I could tell, which is that novelization
that came out.
Yeah.
Brotherhood.
Yeah.
Like, I would really dig that because like, I feel like the one kind of drawback from most

(48:05):
Star Wars stories is you never really do get the villain side, you know, like only in
the movies you do, at least for Anakin slash Darth Vader and then later Kylo Ren, but.
Most of the expanded stuff.
Yeah.
Expanded, you'll get more Dooku.
You get more, you get significantly more Darth Maul.
For sure.
Yeah.
And then, and, and, and yeah, and the expanded stuff for sure.

(48:26):
But in his own show now.
In the main stories, in the main movies, it's mostly protagonist based.
Yeah.
It's all about the heroes.
And I feel like this game could open up a window of opportunity here for like a balanced
narrative that then maybe has some sort of effect at the end, like crossing over the
different stories.
I feel like that would be possible.
I'm skeptical that they would go that route, but I would enjoy it.

(48:47):
I would love that.
Yeah.
And I feel like it's the only way that we can really dive deep into the Moidian culture
or I'd, sorry, the trade federation culture, I should say, because that's very different.
The trade federation shouldn't necessarily reflect all the Moidians.
I think that was like a thing that came up in the book.
But, but yeah, I think there's some good opportunity there.
And yeah, that was from the book because they're trying to explain why they're still

(49:08):
part of the Republic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of the conversations are really interesting because in both games, if you wait too long,
your options start to disappear.
Oh, interesting.
And it starts to default to the one that they have picked for the main, probably the main
story.
So just as a heads up, like if you're, if you wait too long and I don't know about you,

(49:30):
but at some point, I think towards the first 30% of the game, once I started playing
each of the characters, I, I, I very, I, I guess I entertainingly found myself, I guess,
believing in that character, you know?
So like, um, the, the detective guy, I, I, I sort of rolled with the fact that he's just
this, this, uh, this character who he's very helpful.

(49:53):
He's not trying to be rebellious.
He's very like, almost like straight arrow, just a straight arrow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I did too.
And so I just played that.
Right.
And there's not that you don't have, you have the options to kind of go against the grain
a bit, but I just kind of rolled with that as like in mind.
Whereas like the artist guy, I kind of went with the more, I went with like the, the, the

(50:15):
more passive, not rebellious, um, the good boy, good sort of, sort of.
Yeah.
Um, his storyline, I don't know where you're at.
I don't really want to spoil it, but there's a more aggressive way to play him.
And there's a more, um, peaceful way to play him.
Yeah.
And I went with the more peaceful side.
That's what I've been doing is that as well.
Okay.
Right.
I think we're playing very similar.

(50:36):
And then it feels natural to that character.
It does.
Yeah.
You, you, you start to kind of find a rhythm with the storyline.
You start to realize, I guess, and you're, you're kind of sub, I guess maybe subconsciously
making those choices for that character.
Right.
But I think it's also because when you're introduced to the character, it kind of gives you a bit
of a flavor.
Yeah.
And, and every time you transition, cause it very cinematically transitions to your

(50:59):
other character in a different storyline when, when that happens, kind of like a movie,
you know, and, and it's almost like you're naturally just shifting gears.
It's like, oh, now I'm, I'm not playing the straight arrow trying to find that other character
that I'm playing as, you know, I'm actually like, cause I'm, anytime I'm playing as that
character, I'm now rooting for that character.
And you, you can kind of feel that transition like mentally in your head.

(51:21):
You're like, okay, now I'm making decisions like this.
Now I'm making decisions like that.
Not one of the, you're playing feels like they're the bad guy.
Yeah.
And as the girl, um, what's her name again?
Kara or Kara.
Yeah.
So when I played as Kara, um, I was playing her very like protective over the kid and
motherly and motherly, but also like kind of aggressive against the, the, the, the father

(51:46):
figure.
Oh, right from the beginning.
Yeah.
Sort of.
Yeah.
Did you shoot him?
Is that an option?
Yeah.
I shot him.
Are you serious?
Yeah.
Oh, dang.
Uh, no, I didn't shoot him.
Oh man.
I thought that was like, um, no, I didn't shoot him.
No, but that's interesting to know because I know something about the game later, which
that, that could be a big difference there.
But, um, yeah, my car is armed.

(52:06):
She has a handgun.
Oh, interesting.
I could have like robbed the convenience store if I chose not to.
Okay.
Yeah.
I didn't, I didn't.
I, I, when I was in the convenience store, I stole one thing and then I got too greedy
and I stole another thing and then I got caught.
Oh no.
And then they didn't let me in again.
So we had to like camp out in the car.
Oh man.
You didn't break into the house.
The car in the back alley.
No, the house was too sketchy.

(52:27):
I stayed in the house.
Dang.
How was it?
Uh, I haven't, I don't know as far as I got.
Okay.
All right.
Okay.
Yeah.
The car was okay.
The car was a safe option.
I felt so bad though.
Cause you go, she's the girl just made me feel so bad while trying to stay in the car.
Yeah.
Initially.
Well, she's, she was freaked out about the house.
So that's why I won't move the car, but I don't know.
I guess you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.

(52:47):
Only all because, uh, and then did you go into the laundry?
I did, but I didn't steal clothes.
No, me neither.
Yeah.
I initially, I was like.
I know I almost did.
I almost, I was going for it.
And then you, I listened to the girl.
Yeah.
I did the same thing.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
We played very similar earlier then.
Uh, cause, but all of these choices that you, we made, but even morals, it's a lot of moral
based decisions.

(53:07):
It's a lot of moral based decisions.
Yeah.
And, um, so that's funny that you actually like pulled the trigger on the guy going full
Punisher.
Well, what happened was she, she pulled out the handgun and was telling him to stop beating
the kid.
Oh man.
I can't even remember the handgun.
And then the dad is in his drawer in the bedroom.
So if you didn't clean everything.

(53:28):
Yeah.
I think I did clean it, but I think I left the handgun.
I didn't take it.
See, I went back and got it cause then he was there.
Oh gosh.
On the way to the girls.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
I think I hit him with a lamp.
The game.
Yeah.
But he, he knocks the gun and then they fight and then she scrabbles and grabs the gun.
And then he like comes at her and he, she shoots him like kind of like as he's going
to grab her.
Interesting.

(53:49):
Yeah.
There's, it's amazing how to me, how they put all these very intense situations in
the game that then can later change something like narratively.
Yeah.
And it's not until kind of later that you realize if I had done something differently,
this thing would have been different.
I kind of know if you look at the graph at the end, you can kind of see if there's multiple
lines or whatever story streams that go all the way to the very end.

(54:11):
And you're just like, Oh, there's like an entirely different way to end this.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
I think that's one of the coolest things literally about the game is like every time
I finish a level, you know, it's just like, here's what, here's the general node path
that you took.
And then here's what you didn't do.
And here's what you missed along your path too.
Like to go back and look back and see like, yeah, it doesn't show you the details, but

(54:32):
yeah, it doesn't show you the details, but like if you, I bet if you play it a second
time, it would.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I actually, I did try playing like the, once I finished the game, I played the first level
again and I just played that first scene over again and tried to make different decisions
to see how it would play out.
Yeah.
And it doesn't save your progress from the first playthrough.
So it just, it just overrides it.

(54:54):
So it doesn't tell you then the other options.
No.
If you haven't done them before.
Yeah.
I thought it would.
I thought it would too.
I think that's kind of a missed opportunity, but I think it, the way it's built with the
node graph thing, I think it's like, it can only do one at a time because that does have
such a massive impact on like the levels later.
Right.
So it can only fit one successful path in its memory for it to kind of keep going in that

(55:15):
trajectory.
But I do wish that there was like a free play option where you could like say, I want to
go back and like redo this decision and then watch it, watch it play out.
Yeah.
I wish that that was like a thing, but it's not.
So, but I don't know with every one of these games that they made or make, cause there's
only been two really.
Which is crazy because the first one was so long ago.
Yeah.
And there is one before beyond two souls, it's called heavy rain.

(55:37):
And there, I think there's even another before that, but those ones are really old and like
they're not available on PC.
I don't think possibly I didn't even look, but, um, but those ones are, are also much
more as they get older, much more basic and primitive and less of what star Wars eclipse
could be like.
Right.
So, but seeing as Detroit could be the last best foundation of like what eclipse could be,
I think this no graph thing is a killer idea.

(55:59):
Like I love it.
It just needs to have that one extra little thing, you know, that like, here, let's just
redo this and watch it play out and kind of just keep playing as long as you want from
there.
And just maybe have like an icon above the choices that you have already picked so that
you can kind of know on the next playthrough, like what not to pick if you wanted to do
something different.
Do you think maybe, this maybe is an excuse for why they're taking so long, but do you

(56:21):
think it's possible that they're going to have separate storylines that you can play
that all run simultaneously?
We can only pick one character per time.
No, I think, I think, I think it'll be exactly like Detroit.
I think it's going to be like, you're going to be able to play as possibly like a villainous
character, possibly as two or three other good characters, like maybe a smuggler who's
kind of in the gray area, maybe one or two protagonist Jedi characters and a villain.

(56:43):
I think like, I think that might be like the perfect, I think you're going to get a droid
or a droid.
Yeah.
Because of the Android game.
Yeah.
Maybe like a droid.
I don't want to do that.
It's going to play the same.
It's possible some of the closeups in the trailer could also be very important NPC characters
too.
Yeah, that's true.
Like in Detroit, one of the main cast members is an actress by the name of Minka Kelly.

(57:04):
She played, I think it was Dove on the Titans show.
Do you remember, do you watch Titans?
DC's Titans show by any chance?
The animated one?
No, it was the live action.
Live action one.
I was thinking of Teen Titans.
Okay.
All right.
Um, I don't know if she was in Teen Titans or not, but was she like Raven?
Uh, no, that's the, that's the younger girl.
Uh, I think her name, yeah.

(57:24):
Minka Kelly.
Uh, she played, yeah, sorry, Dawn.
Yeah.
Dove.
Yeah.
Dawn, Dawn Granger, uh, who is, Dove is her alias, her superhero alias.
Uh, for anyone who's seen Euphoria, she played Samantha, not seen that.
Uh, but, uh, but yeah, she was in the Detroit game and I, I kept playing through the different
storylines thinking like, when, when the heck is she going to show up?

(57:45):
Cause that's a face that I've recognized.
And, uh, yeah, it was like, I think it was like halfway through the game or at least what
I felt like halfway through the game, but it was actually like probably closer towards
the beginning, come to think of it.
And I was like, wow, what the heck?
Like that's, that's crazy.
Like that now I'm just kind of getting there.
But, um, uh, but yeah, she was like a, she's like a known actress and she played a character

(58:08):
in the story that you'd never play as.
Okay.
So what I'm saying is NPC character then.
Yeah.
So what I'm saying is like, maybe like, maybe, maybe you're right.
Maybe the droid could be an NPC character.
Maybe it's playable.
Maybe the Duros is NPC, not playable, you know, like, like there's some characters in
the trailer that might be important to the story, but not necessarily a playable character.
Yeah.
I guess the question is if they're based on real people because another character in

(58:31):
the Detroit game, so when you're playing as the cop Android, the, uh, police officer,
he gets assigned like that's a real actor as well.
Yeah.
And played by a Star Wars legend, Clancy Brown.
Who was this character?
Uh, he plays, uh, multiple Star Wars characters actually.
He plays the voice of Savage Opress.
That's him?
Yeah.
I didn't know.
I didn't realize that was him.
Mr. Krabs?

(58:51):
Okay.
I've only, I feel like I only recognize him from like live action.
Uh, he was also in Star Wars Rebels as that general guy from LaFal who then, he reprised
his role in Ahsoka.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Cause he was actually someone modeled after that, his character, him as a person in Rebels.
Yeah.
Ryder Azadi.
Ryder.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's worked as Savage Opress.

(59:12):
I've seen him live action somewhere before too though.
Uh, yeah.
You might be thinking of, um, Highlander.
Probably.
He was the villain in Highlander.
Probably that.
Yeah.
Uh, he's been in John Wick 4 as the, the middleman guy who like works for the table.
Tries to like work out the duel between John Wick and like the, the stuffed up guy.

(59:34):
Um, man, this is like, he's a legend in voice acting.
Like Clancy Brown's been around for a long time.
He was in The Penguin.
He played Salvatore Maroney in DC's The Penguin.
This guy's done a lot of stuff.
Yeah.
Crazy.
He's Surtur in What If.
Oh my gosh.
No, do you want to know where I recognize him from?
What's that?
Shawshank Redemption.
Okay.
Yeah.
There you go.

(59:54):
Shawshank Redemption.
I think that's what it is.
Yep.
He's Colonel Shunover in Daredevil.
Oh, and Starship Troopers.
Of course.
Yeah.
Okay.
Starship Troopers, Starship Troopers is the main reason.
And then, uh, Shawshank Redemption.
Got it.
Yeah.
So yeah, he's, he's, he's had many roles over the years.
So yeah, he was a really cool, another main character that played by a notable actor.

(01:00:15):
Another great example.
I should have brought him up first.
Um, but yeah.
But yeah, uh, notable actor and yet a character that you just don't play as.
It's a character that is, yeah.
Just integral to the story, but non-playable.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Yeah, for sure.
Is there any characters in the trailer for Star Wars Eclipse then that we recognize as
real actors?
Well, Yoda's in the trailer.
He's probably not playing as Yoda.

(01:00:35):
Nope.
Um, I actually see that.
I don't know.
I don't know about any of the, the characters that show up in the trailer and some of the
Jedi are very like faceless or you don't see them close enough to really be able to
tell their face, but.
And this is close to Phantom Menace?
It's, um, they, they say High Republic.
So, I don't know.

(01:00:55):
I don't really know where and when this game takes place, but it's definitely at some point
during the High Republic.
I, my bets are.
I'm just wondering if Mace Windu's there.
My bets is that it's, no, it's, Mace Windu's not High Republic era at all.
Um, my, my bet is that it probably takes place long before the Acolyte show.
Interesting.
That's my, that's my, uh, my, uh, my, my, my role of the dice on that guess.

(01:01:18):
But because, because of the trade federation, that is why I thought it'd be closer to Phantom
Menace.
It would.
Yeah, that's true.
It's just.
So we need to figure out when the trade federation.
It's certainly possible.
It grows to power.
Yeah, it's certainly possible.
I feel like if the trade federation being, well, okay, if a hundred years is not a long
time in the Star Wars gal, in the Star Wars universe, then, and that trade federation has

(01:01:42):
been around for like, it seems like they've been around for a while, like in the prequels,
right?
To pull a stunt that they do, which kind of gets the, the ball rolling with Palpatine
and stuff like that.
Yeah.
I feel like they've been around for a while.
So it's possible that, that this story does tell kind of the rise of them in the early
days of the High Republic.
Wouldn't it be the late days?
Because it probably wouldn't exist before they had all the space lanes figured out.

(01:02:04):
Um, yeah, I, yeah, I don't know.
I mean, maybe, maybe that's what they were integral for, I guess.
I, I haven't really read past phase one and maybe like one thing in phase three, which
I'm listening to an audio book right now, like I haven't really read any of the phase
two stuff, which is like the, the preemptive story.
And so, yeah, I don't really know.
Uh, but I think that's, what's cool about this game is that it might actually tell us

(01:02:27):
that story.
Right.
Uh, so yeah.
I don't know.
Is there anything else you want to bring up about this game before we start to close
here?
I feel like we've talked about all we can until we get more information.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, um, you know, if anyone has any, any questions about the game, I mean, you know,
you can always email in and just kind of write, write to us.
Like we never typically hear from too many people, but, um, but yeah, I also did want

(01:02:48):
to send out a big reminder to everyone.
We did have our episode number 400 recently, only as of this episode dropping two weeks ago.
And there is an ongoing vote happening for the number one team.
It's me.
The number one team that was able to heist Palpatine's vault.
So if you're confused about that, go and listen to our super fun packed game show episode,

(01:03:12):
which was episode number 400.
And, uh, let us know your favorite team.
Shoot us an email, shoot us a tweet.
Uh, if you're on Spotify, I don't know, like respond to the poll, I guess.
Yeah.
Cause we can't announce the winner until people actually vote.
That's right.
Yeah.
We've had some votes rolling in, but we do want some more.
Uh, you can also, if you're listening on YouTube, drop a comment because that's also a really

(01:03:36):
solid way to leave a vote.
Uh, let us know, let us know who you want to vote for.
Thank you for that.
It's a good transition.
All right.
Uh, looking forward to the next episode and, uh, I guess we will see you in the next one.
See you out there.

(01:03:56):
Keep flying.
All right.
Thank you all to our lovely audience out there.
If you listened all the way through, uh, these Cantina Banter episodes are really just a casual
off topic chat.
A lot of the time, usually we just haven't pre-planned anything at all.

(01:04:18):
Uh, this was kind of a weird week where we did some kind of pre-planning by playing two
video games in order to get a good idea for, for what this studio is building, which is
the next biggest Star Wars game, arguably other than the third Jedi game in the series.

(01:04:39):
Uh, I think this one is kind of blow everyone's minds as to just how, how amazing it could
be.
So if you're, if you're curious, if you have more questions about this game, I mean, I
also recommend just playing it for yourself.
That's honestly the best way to do it.
Look for those black Friday sales and you know, it's probably a great time to buy it.
Uh, Detroit is our number one pick, uh, from today and, uh, probably the best idea that

(01:05:04):
you're going to get, uh, to, in order to hype you up for Star Wars Eclipse.
And even if you're not hyped for Star Wars Eclipse, it's just a solid game.
So go and check it out.
May the force be with you guys.
And we'll see you in the next episode of Star Wars Escape Pod.

(01:05:25):
Tell that to Kanji Club.
Detroit Become Human was produced over a period of four years.
Here in Paris, we have a team of about 180 people, and to that, we need to add also the
outsourcing with our partners in the Philippines, in China, Vietnam, and in India.
So when we started working on this story, I had to, um, imagine where Kara was built.

(01:05:49):
And, um, for whatever reason, the city of Detroit came very quickly to our mind because it had
already an incredible story by itself of, uh, history and themes.
So we traveled there with a team and we were really moved by what we saw and we could really,
um, feel the desire to fight and, and really, uh, be born again.

(01:06:09):
And we just continued this curve, this growth, and just imagine what Detroit would be like
if the Android industry was, um, you know, using these huge factories to build androids there.
A very strong element in Detroit is that there's a lot of industrial wasteland, and a lot of
nature too.
And for us, the graphic designers, it was an incredible playground.

(01:06:30):
The destroyed zones which we wanted to preserve, we appropriated them to turn into something else.
Then in the areas that needed to be rebuilt, we were able to imagine our Detroit of the future.
We didn't want to make a science fiction universe, but a world of anticipation.
If we chose science fiction, we could have imagined flying cars, extraterrestrials, but

(01:06:52):
those things are very far from our current everyday life.
Anticipation is more about gleaning from our contemporary reality, the one we know, because
Detroit is set in 2038, and 2038 is tomorrow.
The difficulty we had was sticking to reality, that is to say, technology becoming more and
more invisible, a lot more elegant, and at the same time, making it visual.

(01:07:18):
So all the computer equipment, autonomous cars, we simply had to invent.
They are in fact very technological objects, but at the same time remain very credible and
ingrained in reality.
To create a cohesive universe in the fashion and clothing of the human characters in 2038,
I didn't want to put an accent on strange shapes, or really vibrant colors, and things

(01:07:40):
we wouldn't know.
That, I wanted to keep for the androids.
The goal was to create something familiar which we can identify with in this future setting.
Working on the artistic direction for the androids was a bit special, because this is a project
about the place they could occupy in the human world.

(01:08:01):
It was out of the question for them to be too beautiful or too perfect.
They had to correspond to every social class, rich and poor.
Inspired by everyday utilitarian clothes, I brought a modern touch by adding dynamic display surfaces,
the armband we can see on the side, the triangle on the front and back, an LED.
Like that, there's no confusion.

(01:08:23):
Oi!
You said...
It's alright now.
You need to go.
You can't do that!
You...
Why aren't you sending a real person?
Once we cast the actors, we travel to meet them in order to scan their faces.
We record the structure of their face with the scan.
And we record the colors and patches of skin with photography.

(01:08:47):
Once we have this information, we will use this as a basis for modeling and creating the characters.
The artist will make it more realistic but will also enrich it.
He will propose ideas which we will develop together.
Finally, we will have a character with character, who corresponds to the project and the world.
When the actors come to Quantic Dream, we show them the design, what their image will be, and what they will look like in the game.

(01:09:11):
This extra information gives them another dimension and color to connect with emotionally.
It helps them think about how to play their character.
Your mission.
That's all you care about, huh?
You should consult a professional who can help you.
Man, do you hear me?
Get the hell out of here!
So there are three types of shoots at Quantic Dream.

(01:09:32):
Shooting and performance capture, where you capture the whole actor, his voice, his face, and his body.
These shoots are obviously done with American actors because the game's original version is in American English.
After that, there are the body-only shoots, representing around 250 days of filming, while the performance capture is 100 days of filming.
Now, body-only shoots, there are two types.

(01:09:55):
There are the action shoots and the technical shoots, which are mo-kit shoots.
Mo-kit is when the player controls a character on the screen, and he moves in an environment to explore it.
To prepare a motion capture shoot, we first get together to look at the sets we need, the animations that we want to shoot, which ones need to be grouped together, or which ones need to be cut and shot at another time, so that we get the most out of the shooting day.

(01:10:33):
This often means shooting scenes out of order, especially those with big props or accessories, like a big car, for example.
So we shoot all the animations related to that particular prop first.
The biggest challenge for the mo-cap team was shooting a Spider-Man mo-kit.

(01:11:00):
We had to build a wall and attach an actor to a harness with cables, so we could pull him up and render him climbing.
The shooting on this game total took about, I would say, more than a year, between one or two years, with about 300 actors on set.
So we would say it's quite a massive production.
But so much happened on this set, between the stunts and the shootings with a little girl, and all these great actors that we had.

(01:11:29):
And it was really a very, very memorable journey for the team and for myself.
Today, Detroit has over 37,000 animations.
When we retrieve the motion capture data, it's just a cloud of points, which represent all the markers worn by the actors.

(01:11:49):
From this cloud of points, we have a phase called retargeting, which gives us a skeleton.
This skeleton will be applied to the characters of the game.
There is still work to be done, but this gives us the main movements.
Since we are working on something very realistic, we must recognize the actor and also recover all the emotion he expresses in his performance.

(01:12:13):
We use a system of facts, an identity card for each actor.
We make the actor do a whole range of facial expressions.
Then we recover all the expressions and paste the animations on a puppet that Jan has prepared.
I then recover and refine these poses.
I might stretch the lip, reinflate a cheek, tiny details that make the finished product really capture the actor.

(01:12:38):
Because of the nature of our mocap system today, when we receive the animations, we're missing eye movements.
And so the character has that dead look.
He really has no eyes.
So then it's a big part of the work for the animators to find the regard of the actor in relation to his position, in relation to the body, etc.

(01:12:59):
It was crazy when I saw the newest model of the car, because they've been working on it and working on it.
And this was the first time I literally jumped in my seat.
It not only looked so much like me, it was the fact that it looked so lifelike.
It wasn't that it looked just like it was a camera, it was something else, you know, but it looked alive.

(01:13:23):
It's exciting and it's kind of terrifying.
Game after game, we learned the rules of optics and filming.
And our goal with Detroit Become Human was to have cameras that would actually emulate the optics of a real physical camera.

(01:13:44):
So basically dealing with real-world imperfections was our main task, and just to make cameras look as real as we can.
Once the animations are shot and processed by the animation department, integrated and polished, we film them.
That is to say, we really do a mise-en-scene, as in cinema.

(01:14:06):
The real difficulty of our job is to know if these cameras are telling us something.
Are they in the emotion of the scene?
Do they describe exactly what the action must convey, what must be felt?
The most important challenge for me was one of the final scenes where Marcus decides to start the revolution and go to the battlefield.
Very quickly, we imagined this to be a huge sequence shot.

(01:14:28):
We wanted the feeling of a cameraman running behind us while showing Marcus, the androids who help him, the person shooting at us, etc.
Above all, it was necessary to say to oneself, this scene is very violent but does not glorify war.
On the contrary, that war is something improbable and absurd.
It was really a fun challenge.

(01:14:48):
The idea was to say we have three characters who would like each of them to have a specific cinematography.
We wanted Cara to be much more filmed with some kind of handheld camera, to have something very living, very breathing.
For Connor, we wanted something very cold and very perfect.

(01:15:08):
And for Marcus, we wanted something epic and spectacular.
So it was about the filming, but it was also about the photography.
So we worked with the director of photography to give each character a different lighting, different key colors.
Each of them would have their own worlds.
And finally, we worked with the composers.

(01:15:28):
So they would create a specific sound for each character.
So each would have his own world and his own style.
So each of them would have their own world and their own world and their own world.

All Episodes

Cantina Banter #6 | Quantic Dream, The Studio Behind Star Wars Eclipse

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

The Bobby Bones Show

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Cantina Banter #6 | Quantic Dream, The Studio Behind Star Wars Eclipse