Fans of Quantic Dream, the studio behind games like Detroit: Become Human, Beyond: Two Souls, and Heavy Rain, will be glad to know that their goal to go multiplatform is taking a big leap today. For those who might not know, Quantic Dream partnered with NetEase almost a year ago in order to help them achieve this goal.
The Chinese online tech company NetEase acquired a minority stake in Quantic Dream back in January of 2019, helping the publisher break exclusivity with Sony and go multiplatform. Now, Quantic Dream has announced that Detroit: Become Human, Beyond: Two Souls, and Heavy Rain are coming to Steam.
For a long time, Quantic Dream was a studio most known for creating narrative-driven interactive games exclusive to the PlayStation family of systems. The company entered into this exclusivity deal back in 2007 during the development of Heavy Rain. They stayed exclusive to Sony platforms for nearly 12 years, until the company announced it would become a multiplatform publisher in 2019. Shortly after that was announced, the company revealed that those three major releases would be available on PC exclusively through the Epic Games Store.
The titles would remain Epic Games Store exclusives for one year before appearing anywhere else. However, just over a week ago a Steam version of Beyond: Two Souls leaked through a database listing. Now, Quantic Dream announced that all three of its previously PlayStation and Epic Games Store titles would be available on Steam on June 18. The PC versions of those games were released on the Epic Games Store mid-June of last year, meaning that Quantic Dream stuck to their word about a full year of exclusivity through the Epic Games Store.
The studio also seems to be gearing up to promote these titles' availability on Steam by hosting its own live streams. Early last week the company unveiled a Twitch extension app for Detroit: Become Human that lets viewers vote on in-game choices during a stream. One of the avenues that helped games like Heavy Rain and Detroit earn such notoriety were social media platforms like Twitch and YouTube that allowed people to record or stream them. It seems that Quantic Dream aims to capitalize on that aspect of appeal through its own Twitch extension.
It seems things may be looking up for Quantic Dream in the near future with three of its biggest releases now coming to Steam. It’s been almost two years since Quantic Dream lost its court case against a former employee who accused the studio of creating a toxic workplace environment. These new releases will no doubt see some success for the company. With Steam being one of the largest platforms to buy PC games, compounded with the fact that many players are stuck at home during the pandemic, this is sure to boost sales by a noticeable margin.