It’s 2026. We’re in a class full of writers. Us seniors are in senior seminar. We all took that job quiz telling us how much ai is going to impact our jobs. Looking at writers, it’s a very threatening line to look at. While ai writing isn’t very good, it’s still intimidating that our passion is constantly threatened by artificial intelligence.
Now it’s 2018. It’s my ninth birthday, and my grandfather just died a month prior. At his funeral I got to speak, and I remember having to pause before speaking to angle the microphone down towards myself. The church filled with laughter, and I think that my grandfather would’ve loved that even at his funeral people were able to find something to laugh about. Anyway, it’s my ninth birthday and my brother’s fifteenth. As a present to the both of us, we got a Playstation 4 for the two of us to share. Currently, that Playstation sits in my dorm next to a monitor that I need a speaker for. I promise this is relevant.
The ps4 that my parents purchased came with a few games on disc. Must’ve been some deal they were running. While me and my brother both played around with the Star Wars game that came with it, there was another game that started to collect a little dust. That game was Detroit Become Human.
If you have never heard of this game, I will gladly gladly GLADLY tell you all about it. As the name suggests, the game takes place in Detroit Michigan. It’s set surprisingly close to present day, the year in game being 2038. The contents in game seem impossible to set in place in reality because the androids would already be in early stages right now, but with the current state of technological advancement and the push of AI I wouldn’t be surprised to see a prototype similar to the Cyberlife androids in the near future.
The way the game works is you play three characters all in a story where they intersect at small sections. You make the decisions for them, leading to many many many different ending and possibilities. You don’t really get to choose who you play next. The whole game is kinda like a tv show where you have to decide where the plot goes and also sometimes shoot someone at the exact right time. If you don’t shoot at the right time, that character just dies and doesn’t come back. Except for Connor. That chud. Look, I’ve been playing this game since I was nine years old and I’ve played it at LEAST twice a year (three times in one weekend this summer) and I still am nowhere near getting all of the endings. Maybe that’s a failure on my part, but I’m a sucker for accidentally playing the same route over and over again.
My favorite storyline is Markus’ (the bald dude). The base story is an android that cared for an old man gets thrown away and starts a revolution for android rights. I should say now that the whole story is an allegory for racial movements against injustice. It kinda falls short a little though because it’s a bit base level, but I think it’s good if you’re a nine year old just starting to actually understand these concepts. With Markus you can choose to be neutral (stupid decision, nothing cool happens), pacifistic (really cool), or violent (also really cool). Your actions as Markus affect society like crazy so if you’re trying to be like a chill Kara and Connor do NOT like kill everyone and threaten the president. Will not go well. At all.
I also really reallly realllllyyy like Kara. I do have a little bit of an issue with her character being boiled down to a mother, but also it’s really freaking beautiful that she’d sacrifice herself the way she does so many times in game. She just wants to care for her baby and would literally let a polar bear out of a cage to do that???? Peak I say. PEAK! Also, her relationships with the characters she meets are sosooooso awesome. Her guard is rarely ever down (especially if you play the “I hate Alice and she hates me” route, but there’s so many things that are like mandatory for every story that make her like you) so the moments she can breathe with Alice (her daughter) and Luther (her kinda mutual protection partner). Even if Kara is a little nothing burger, she’s like the whole reason we have the game so SAY THANK YOU. The short that started the whole game is sooo cool to look back on.
I guess I should also talk about Connor. The fan favorite. The pretty boy. He’s an assistant detective for the Detroit police. The main endings you can get with Connor are “he joins the resistance (yay)” and “I’m evil I killed Hank (noo).” My favorite way to play Conner personally is the “Connor sucks at his job and can’t do anything right” route where you die at any opportunity possible and lose all leads. There’s a lot of fans that treat Connor as the main character because like he’s got the biggest opportunity for change and like he’s the demo character blah blah blah MARKUS IS THE MAIN CHARACTER YOU FOOLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t mind that. Anyway. What I think the game is missing are androids that don’t want to unionize. That’s like all they’re missing because SOME people in groups are NOT the most aware. Like Connor’s the only one that does that. Like it makes sense why he doesn’t immediately because he IS a cop betraying his own people, but like what about a dude that just really really likes handing over paint. I wish there was some main story interaction where Markus converts someone and then is really confused when they don’t follow him. “I have it good here!” “They’re gonna put you in a trash compactor???” That’s one of my biggest issues I am biased though.
The creators do sadly make their female characters one note. Markus gets to Jericho where all androids are free where there’s ONE lady to go out on missions with? She’s one of the sex androids and escaped because she was being sexually abused there? Great! Put her in a relationship with Markus!! Like I think they were going for North finding solace in Markus and no longer being afraid of close relationships with men. But like. They did it so poorly and, with the way most routes go, it’s such an undeserved ending for her character. At least they covered abuse and like how sex work would change. That was really interesting to see. Kinda radicalized me at a young age lowkey.
WOAH MAMA!!!! Even with the new word limit I went over…. Whoopsie! Well, I guess I have to cut myself off. Next month I’ll relate this post back to AI and talk about the dreams we had for something that ended up being so dire. Well, that’s enough for now. ByeBye!!
DETROIT BECOME HUMAN MENTION HOLY PEAK. Honestly one of my favorite games, it goes into a topic many are too scared to. It was way before its time and yet has some of the most thought provoking questions/ideas I’ve ever seen.
RIGHT!! I’m honestly so glad it came out when it did.
You know, I never actually watched the gameplay of Detroit Become Human, but I think I will, Nick. You seem very passionate about this topic.
You absolutely should! It covers topics that I didn’t mention in the post that I think you would be interested in.
You’ve been talking about detroit become human for years (woah) but you’ve never actually talked about in in depth like this. i feel a little cheated. Am i not good enough? Shame on you. (All of the above is a joke)
I, honestly, had no idea that there were more than one playable character. I thought it was like A Way Out or something im gonna be soooo honest, but this may actually be like a pretty alright game. like its not terrible or like whatever (immm gonna watch someone play it in the dorm, dont let me fool you)
OHHHHHH Daniel. Oh Daniel. Tippity top of the freaking iceberg brotato chip. You will watch me play it this weekend…. I will restart my current run…..