DETROIT: BECOME HUMAN
Detroit: Become Human
My first recollection of seeing Detroit Become Human was during a live stream for new game play back in 2012. It wasn’t until 2016 or so when we got the official launch trailer. This game was on everybody, and I mean everybody’s radar. Is that Jesse Williams?! It was, and he was with a host of other familiar faces like Clancy Brown and Minka Kelly.
One of my favorite gaming series of all time is Grand Theft Auto. Games that are based in actual cities fascinate me, mainly because you can often spot a familiar landmark or something that has significance in real life. Detroit had won me over instantly. I mean who doesn’t love deviant artificial intelligence and familiar faces in a familiar place?
I’m honestly not keen on purchasing games on launch because most of the time if you wait awhile those very games will be free (plus I had a backlog to contend with). Out of my curiosity I’d watched game play from a few other fellow streamers and saw them maneuver through various parts of the story. It honestly didn’t have any significance to me because everyone was at different stages and I hadn’t watched anyone play it from the very beginning. I’d heard many complaints about the plot but I didn’t take time to read much into them because I still wanted to play through it myself. Fast forward to 2020 I’d found some time to stream Detroit: Become Human.
Playlist
Overall thoughts of this game is that although it was fun to play, several things within this game were horribly modeled after prominent things that happened and is currently happening in the US. Now who is to say a developer can’t take inspiration from events that have happened? Not I, but we should take a close look into why it rubbed people (including myself) a particular way. Simply put, their team couldn’t muster up enough originality to figure out a new way in which oppression would work in a futuristic state with a new entity (robots). Similarities include:
Bots on the back of the bus
Going onward to Canada for liberation
The Black Fist of Liberation
Riding a train (reference The Underground Railroad) and the use of symbolism to clue into safe passage
In my play through I laughed heavily at these things as ridiculous as they were but I was curious…. Did the creator(s) of this game do this perhaps to inspire equality for those who are actually oppressed in real life? Did they use bots in places of Black Americans and other People of Color whom make up the most oppressed in this country? It seems like at a macro scale the answer to the aforementioned questions is no but that still did not deter my curiosity.
During my search I was shocked to know that the writer of this game - David Cage - is not American himself. Perhaps he’s writing from his own perspective of what he thinks oppression in America is. Sure… let’s go with this. I watched and read a few interviews that Detroit: Become Human writer David Cage participated in. Not once did he mention his inspiration being American history. In fact he’s held on to the idea that the game was about androids gaining consciousness and their burning desire to be free.
To be frank I can’t accept nor am I willing to get jiggy with that shit.
Obviously one of the ingenious marketing ploys of this game was to push the outspoken Jesse Williams at the center of it. During this time Jesse had been at the forefront as being an activist for racial oppression and police brutality. He even went viral for a brief point of time for his acceptance speech at the 2016 BET awards for Humanitarian Award.
The idea that he would be playing a liberated messiah of sorts didn’t seem strange to me at first. But after playing the game and listening to much of his dialogue has me peering confusingly at all of it. Even in the trailer he said things like “Like you I was a slave. Take back your freedom. Become your own masters.” How on Earth could he record the scenes and dialogue to Detroit: Become Human and be a willing participant knowing the things that real life people are experiencing and have experienced in this country. Again maybe it was to sway those who weren’t on the end of the oppression to be an empathetic human being - but still at the very least it’s unsettling.
Markus descending into Jericho to become his own master.
Decision based games and I do not have an amicable relationship but this one coupled with Heavy Rain always show me in a special light (a diabolical one). You honestly think you’re making the best decisions for your characters. When in fact (as you can see during my play though) that is the opposite of what I did. Be your own ̶m̶a̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ judge, play it and see how it pans out for you. After all I’m just a Black girl that’s trying to play her games.
AL
