“Heavy Rain,” is an an interactive drama for PlayStation 3 with nearly photo-realistic graphics. It’s also an emotional mystery about four people trying to find a boy who’s been kidnapped by a serial murderer called the Origami Killer that asks the player: “How far are you prepared to go to save someone you love?” I talked with Quantic Dream CEO David Cage, the game’s creator, to find out more.

Kevin Ohannessian: How did the game come together?

David Cage: When Fahrenheit was finished we wanted to continue to explore this approach based on interactive storytelling and emotions, and we wanted to continue to explore how also to tell a story through your actions and not through cut scenes. With Heavy Rain we wanted to build on what worked well in Fahrenheit, and improve what didn’t really work. We spent a lot of time reading reviews, talking to gamers, going on forums, and we had our short list of things we wanted to change after the game was delivered. Basically, we wanted to have a very fun story from the first second to the very last, and we wanted real characters in real life situations, with no supernatural elements. We thought the media was now complex enough and detailed enough to tell very subtle things. Most of all, we wanted to write a better story, trigger more complex emotions.

Read the full article at Co.Create.

For more on Heavy Rain, read the second interview with David Cage.