Video: Heavy Rain Originally Included Psychic Link With Origami Killer
It's not often we get to see the parts of a game that lie on the cutting room floor. For a game like Heavy Rain, that alternate reality takes on a whole new meaning. For a game as story driven as this one, the idea of leaving something out fundamentally changes what the player experiences, and that's hardly more true than in the above video.
Before we go any further, it's important to note that the above video and some of the text below will contain spoilers for the ending of Heavy Rain. If you want to hold on to your ignorance of who the Origami Killer really is, then you probably shouldn't hit the jump below. Otherwise, go for it! The QTE implores you.
The most interesting reveals from a story perspective include a few "supernatural" sequences that explain the presence of the origami figures--one of the game's little MacGuffins that never sees a full resolution in the retail release.
In the cut cutscenes, however, we see a very confused Ethan blur the line between reality and fiction when he crosses over into a dream sequence, which originally served to fill in the scenarios where he blacked out and awoke with an origami figure in his hand. As the uncut story went, the Origami Killer's presence when Jason died in front of the mall forged a psychic link between he and Ethan, which he then used to connect to Ethan's mind every time he enacted one of his murders. Since they were all water-based, the common theme is water; Ethan originally sees his own house being flooded by unreal amounts of water, which he must swim through during his nightmare, only to find the floating body of the one the Origami Killer's young victims.
According to the game's strange fiction, this psychic link then allows Ethan to make an origami figurine at the same time the killer does; thus explaining why he blacks out and wakes up with it, amidst heavy rain.
The video above also features a few scenes that were cut for being too heavy-handed (such as an extra murder and another father-son sequence), and also contains a few references that would've deepened Madison's involvement with the story through her research. The most interesting reveal is still the Ethan-Origami one, however, as it explains the most bizarre and untold of parts of the game, even if it does resort to metaphysics to do so.
The most interesting part of this trailer is not just the view of bygone stories, but the fact that Quantic Dreams had completely filled out these sequences with motion capture and rendering, but didn't use them. This level of editing makes it seem as though Heavy Rain didn't take as many hours-per-scene as its high production values would imply, which is inspiring for those of us hoping for the next game using this unique storytelling engine.
We've already heard word that Quantic Dreams' next game would be a love story, but it's nice to believe that it'll be out in less time than it took Heavy Rain by virtue of having a premade game engine. Here's hoping!
faePuck
Posted to Video Games on 9 November 2010
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: heavy rain, making of, origami killer, ps3, quantic dream, videos
It's really a technical issue, but the preview has the after the jump part. Just trying to avoid spoilers, we all know the dog dies at the end!
Very interesting read. This makes me want to replay this game.
I'm glad they didn't make him kill his mom. Because it wasn't really obvious that Shelby was the killer (until his mom said his name) and it would have easily gave it all away.
Ohgosh - thanks, theblackgecko! I obviously had a touch of editing to do before being done with this one. Can't believe I missed the spoiler cut before publishing!
And yeah, this does make me want to play the game again... the whole origami connection that played out was a mystery to the end; having a few more details about it and Madison would've been welcome, but I guess in the end there just wasn't the budget or time.