Molyneux: ‘Heavy Rain’ is a Glimpse Into The Future

Peter Molyneux: The Man, The Myth, The Legend. A man well-known for blasé and incredibly hyperbolic statements, Molyneux is an interesting man to watch. Now working as the Creative Director of Microsoft Game Studios, Europe, it’s rare to see him talk about games that aren’t made for the Xbox platform, and even rarer to see him mention something that isn’t Fable 3.

Speaking at the current South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, Molyneux offered his opinions on the recently released PS3 exclusive Heavy Rain, a title which we gave 5/5 in our review.

Molyneux couldn’t speak highly enough of Heavy Rain, stating that;

“… There’s no question in my mind that games like Heavy Rain — games that have a new fidelity in the way that they present their experiences; obviously made with cinematography and motion capture in mind — can really show the way forward to a new form of entertainment, which is evolving the story and choices and consequences.”

Molyneux also believes that this is the future of video games – a statement which may be more plausible than his previous “[Fable 2]‘s dog will change video games forever.”

“I recommend anyone who wants to start to see the first glimpses of the future of video games to go out and buy it, but, personally, I could not bring myself to play more than 90 minutes, because the world that was there was so dark and so emotionally involving I felt emotionally beaten up.”

That’s something I agree with entirely – after completing Heavy Rain, I felt completely emotionally drained. The shock impact of my game’s ending left me feeling sick and cheated – an emotion I don’t believe a video game had invoked within me before.

The final aspect that Molyneux praised was the use of Quick Time Events as an integral part of the gameplay, claiming that it;

“… really meant that you had to pay attention all the time because you didn’t know whether these quick-time events were going to come up. I have to take my hat off to [Quantic Dream] … There’s a couple of things they do in that game which were really revolutionary, and what they do with quick-time is fantastic.”

Perhaps it’s the British patriotism within that forces me to, but I agree entirely. Heavy Rain was such a departure from the ‘traditional’ video game that I really believe it has paved a new way for video games to evolve. Much like Facebook online games, that’s not to say that every game in the future will follow Heavy Rain‘s path (although I suspect that Fable 4 may be heavily influenced by Quantic Dream’s title), but to see the gameplay elements taken, adapted, and refined into a title of another genre… well, it fills me with hope as to where gaming is headed.

What did you think of Heavy Rain? Do you agree with Peter Molyneux?

Source: Joystiq