14 DAY TRIAL // Quantic Dream, as the developer, and Sony, as the publisher, have confirmed that a demo version of the PlayStation 3 exclusive Heavy Rain will be coming to the PSN on February 11, in order to allow gamers who are still on the fence to form an opinion on the videogame set to be released worldwide on February 23.
The two companies have also confirmed that the title is now gold, which means that no other changes will be made to the experience and that manufacturers are already multiplying the game discs that will be sold in stores.
Heavy Rain is a videogame experience very much in line with the previous titles launched by Quantic Dream, a developer based in Paris, France. Indigo Prophecy, also known as Fahrenheit, was outed in 2005 for the PlayStation 2, the original Xbox and the PC and aimed to create a very cinematic experience, based around multiple characters tackling the same super natural occurrences.
The game was not a commercial success in the United States or in Europe but established Quantic Dream as having the ambition of telling a story through videogames by using very different means from those common in the industry.
Heavy Rain will maintain the idea of multiple perspectives but its characters will all be interested not in the supernatural but in a serial killer nicknamed the Origami Killer. The demo that arrives on February 11 will allow gamers to choose between playing the FBI agent with a drug problem or the private investigator in a scene, which shows off the conversation system of Heavy Rain and the close to natural setting of the scene.
The main release of the game will have more characters involved and Quantic Dream is saying that any of them can actually die at any point, affecting how the rest of the experience plays out.