For almost any developer, making a game as successful and critically acclaimed as Heavy Rain would mean just one thing: time to start on the sequel.
However, Heavy Rain author, and Quantic Dream head, David Cage seems to have gone against the grain - stating that Quantic Dream is not working on a sequel to the hit PS3 title.
Cage is not interested in creating franchises, but is instead more concerned with building the "David Cage brand." This mindset is certainly very different than that of other developers/publishers that put a focus on building franchises and creating sequels - especially with development costs being so high that one commercial flop is sometimes enough to shutter a studio.
It appears then that David Cage is more interested in creating new experiences and marketing his studio than the monetary gain that comes out of multiple sequels.
"David Cage the brand, as you [Develop] call it, is about not having to make sequels. It's about creating a brand that is the name of the creator, not Heavy Rain 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 12. Let me be stupid for one second; I'm not in this business to make money. I wrote Heavy Rain because I was excited about it, because there was something to say. Yeah I could make Heavy Rain 2, but I've said what I've had to say about it. That's the strength of Quantic Dream, to have the capacity to create new ideas, to make something that breaks ground."
Keeping with the trend of new IP's, it is rumored that Quantic Dream's next title will be Fiv5. While Cage is said to have created the "Interactive Drama" genre with Heavy Rain, he is interested in branching out, meaning that even if Fiv5 is the title of his next game, it may not be similar to Heavy Rain.
"I want to create a genre, I want to convince more people that [emotional gaming] is a valid direction for the industry; to show them that this was not just one product, one story. It's a format that can be used to tell any kind of story in any genre with any tone. I would really like the opportunity to work on a different type of game. I would love to see if what we discovered could be applied to a first-person shooter, for example."
Heavy Rain was certainly a very different experience compared to what else was on the market at the time. We at Game Rant absolutely loved it, giving it a stunning review. While the plot did have its flaws, Heavy Rain helped to show that single player titles still have a place in the industry - despite the recent influx of multiplayer focused games.
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