My Thoughts on Detroit and Kara [Spoilers]

Detroit: Become Human by Quantic Dream came out recently, and I had the pleasure of experiencing it. While it’s an excellent narrative, I couldn’t help feeling disappointed in the direction that narrative took. First, some background.

For our purposes, Detroit had its genesis as a tech demo for the PS3 appropriately entitled “Kara.”

To summarize: An AX400 domestic android named Kara is assembled and tested, but in the process of that testing she somehow achieves self-awareness. The tester wants deactivate her — to kill her — to figure out what’s wrong, but her emotional plea convinces him to let her go as-is and pretend to be a normal android. We’re left with his vocalized “… my God,” seemingly tinged with horror and wonder in equal measure.

And of course, naturally the viewer wonders what comes next. What happens to Kara once she’s out in the world?

The tech demo was wildly successful, and although it took a full console generation, we got word that Quantic Dream was following up their tech demo with a full game. The first trailer hit, and I was enthralled anew:

This seems to follow directly from the previous tech demo, and in fact, they re-rendered parts of the demo for this trailer. Given the technician’s reaction in the tech demo, it’s reasonable to assume that Kara’s the first android to achieve consciousness — what the game eventually calls a “deviant.” The trailer gives the implication that she’s ready to set the world on fire. She even outright says she very well might change the world. As she passes by in the streets, an android in a window stops to stare. A parked android turns to look in wonder. A service android stops to watch her as the android’s owner yells in frustration in the background. They see her free among the humans, and they’re waking up.

The Kara of this trailer is doubtless going to be the catalyst that spreads consciousness throughout android-kind. While she might not lead the new species, she is at least, in a sense, their founder. Other trailers followed focusing on other androids Markus and Connor. So, cool, other androids also have their stories told alongside Kara’s, but hers is still an important one to tell.

… and then the game came out. Light spoilers below.

The Kara of the tech demo and of the original trailer is gone. The first time we see Kara in the game, she’s waking up after just having had her memory wiped, and perhaps not for the first time. If the original Kara ever even existed within the game’s continuity, she was killed via memory wipe before the game even began. A number of the scenes in the trailer are never seen in the game, or are altered (the one shot from above with Kara walking in the rain surrounded by a sea of black umbrellas appears, but without Kara). Kara’s revolution is dead before it started.

The android revolution in the final game is told from two sides: Markus, who started the revolution and spreads deviancy throughout the population, and Connor, who has been tasked with stopping deviants in general and Markus in specific.

Kara is basically relegated to a side story, where she becomes a deviant (again?) and discovers her maternal instincts. So the two male characters are swinging around both poles of a revolution sweeping android-kind, and Kara is learning how much she loves a little girl.

It’s not just a grossly stereotypically sexist story, it feels like a bait-and-switch after both the tech demo and the first trailer.

The Japanese box art (left) at least shows all three characters, but the box art most Westerners will see (right) is one showing a closeup of Markus’ face. And appropriately so: as the leader of the revolution, if the game could be said to have a single main character, it’s Markus. Kara’s story has been made unimportant and irrelevant.

If you were to edit the game such that all of Kara’s sections were skipped, the overall story would remain the same. You could not achieve the same results if you cut out Connor or Markus’ chapters.

As I said, it’s a wonderful game, and I definitely recommend it. It’s just not the game I thought we’d be getting, and it’s not the game I really wanted.