Heavy Rain, with a chance of spoilers

Right. Here's the warning. There are spoilers in this post. If you haven't finished, or have yet to play, Heavy Rain, stop reading here. There are plenty of other spoiler-free articles on this blog - move along and try one of those.

Really - leave now.

I'm not going to say who did it - that would be pointless. Anyone for whom this would be a spoiler should have stopped reading after the first paragraph. For those of you left, you know who did it, I know who did it, I know that you know and so on - adding the killer's name here isn't news for anyone.

Rather, this is an 'narrative-theme spoiler' - there is a large twist towards the end of the game, relating to the identity of the killer. I didn't read any reviews before playing the game, as I didn't want anything to spoil the experience. I knew that a review wouldn't reveal 'X' as the killer but even knowing something about the narrative path, like that there was a big twist in the story, would have been enough of a spoiler for me. I find that when I know that there is a notable twist in a story, I find myself subconsciously looking out for it as I progress through the narrative, rather than letting the narrative play out, be that in films, books or TV.


That being said, I was clearing out some games magaziness at the weekend and had a look through the 'origami cover' issue of gamesTM, which came out in the autumn and contained a large preview of the game. As I'd already finished the game, I had a flick through the article. There was a massive spoiler contained within it, that, had I read it nearer the release would have spoilt the suspense for me (it is, unwittingly I think, a clue to the identity of the killer, rather than a blatant spoiler). It was only a throwaway line in the article and I doubt, at the stage of development the game was in, that the journalist would have played enough of the game to even know that this piece of his or her article was a clue (you would need to know more of the story to know that this line was a spoiler). It was such a throwaway line (in fact, it was a caption to a screenshot showing the killer) that I'd forgotten about reading it months before, when I played the game.

Having forgotten this article, I did not see the plot twist coming in the slightest - I had no inkling as to the identity of the killer until the big reveal, maybe 20-30 minutes (if that) before the end of the game. I think I was more surprised by this than I would have been if it were a film, as with a film you accept that 'something' (or a succession of 'somethings') is going to happen and be played out in front of you, the passive viewer. This happens far less often with games.


Films, good ones anyway, are rarely a simple journey from A to B, whereas games, even good ones, often are. Gamers are more accepting of this than a film-goer would be, as games, unlike films, are a non-passive medium. A game's narrative may go from A to B but we are given alternatives - formal side-quests or just taking up the option to wander around the game world, tinkering with what the designers have given us - to depart from that path. Without wanting to sound like an English David Cage, we often create our own story. Filmgoers don't have that luxury - they are a passive audience, there to be entertained. A simple traipse from A to B wouldn't work well within that medium.


What Heavy Rain showed me is that, admittedly with sacrifice of some of what makes a game a game, developers can create cinematic storylines that combine the ethos of a videogame with the narrative structures of a film. Whether I will get the same feeling of surprise the next time I play a Quantic Dream game, I doubt. To use a videogame metaphor, after the zombie dog has jumped through breaking glass at you once, you get wary the next time that you walk past a window.