MOOD / ATTITUDE – SUMMER 2020
At Quantic Dream, we create works with all our heart and know-how, but we also like to plunge into the works of of others; the last few weeks have been rather busy, with a few striking announcements in our sights. It’s true that in the absence of a major pop culture gathering this year, we’ve had to fall back on a handful of online events; there were of course the long presentations by Sony and Microsoft about the next generation of consoles, but even more recently, it was the DC FanDome that caught our attention:
The first trailer for The Batman ❤️ I love this thriller vibe, rather than just action, that the story seems to have. The overall atmosphere is very nice, it brings out the dark and tortured side of Batman and Gotham. We also see a lot of characters, with a nice cast, and the pleasure of seeing the Penguin and Catwoman in the same movie since 1992’s Batman Returns is pretty cool too. It’s gonna be interesting, for sure. // Grégory, Game Logic
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, The Suicide Squad, Gotham Knights… So many cool games and movies that we will keep an eye on in the coming months! And the same energy goes for Denis Villeneuve’s take on Dune, which first trailer should be online on September 9th. With many fans of the original novel of Frank Herbert here, in particular within our artistic team, needless to say we are going to carefully analyse each image of this trailer as soon as it’s available!
Now, on the video game side, what are our teams playing at the moment, between two sessions of coding, filming or writing? Well, just before the summer break, we would have answered “team The Last of Us 2 vs team Animal Crossing: New Horizons“, for sure. But let’s face it: we have two new challengers:
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, I think you could describe its arrival as groundbreaking! // Nicolas, QA
+1 for Fall Guys! // Julie, Production
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020, some ex-colleagues worked on it, so it’s a bit of a victory for us too ? // Julien, Tools
As always, some rebels took a different path:
7 Days To Die, I’m testing it right now in early access on Steam, to have a nice little break (but strangely enough it doesn’t work too much ?) // Grégory, Game Logic
During my summer holiday I took a couple of hours everyday, to finally play a classic: Dark Souls Remastered on Switch. Yes, I like to suffer a bit on vacation; it’s my way to support my colleagues who are still at the office ? – Max, Editorial Manager
This is the right time to ask myself THE question: “do I really need ALL the Euro Truck Simulator DLCs?”. // Julie, Production
Steam’s summer sales, always a moment of intense personal introspection – Jounayd, Game Logic
Did we also follow the beta phase of Marvel’s Avengers closely? Yes, and we can’t wait to dive into it again in September! And until then, what do we do, shall you ask? Well, movie theaters are slowly opening back, so some of us went to see some must-see movies, just to have something to talk about at the coffee machine:
I’ve already seen Tenet, it’s everything you can expect from Christopher Nolan: a messed up timeline of events, frantic editing. I’m not really convinced by the script, though. Which honestly, I understood at 80%; I don’t know yet if I’m going to go back to the cinema for a second screening, or wait for the Blu-ray release to grasp the remaining 20%, ahah! // Clément, Video Manager
August, it’s the release of Akira in 4K, which is a masterpiece // Mike, Artistic Director
Akira, what else?! And it’s the best way to (re)discover the origin story of Art3mis’ motorcycle from Ready Player One ? // Max, Editorial Manager
Otherwise, there are books and series to devour from his couch, nice and warm / cool (cross out the useless mention) :
I loved the High Score documentary on Netflix, which covers a lot of already well-documented stuff about the history of video games, but with a cool art direction and narration… And there’s some nice surprises too! // Clément, Video Manager
I took advantage of a week’s vacation to play Gloomhaven, the heaviest and most cumbersome board game in history, but also one of the most strategic and profound if your thing is scripted campaigns and turn-based skirmishes! Its expansion even holds the record for the biggest Kickstarter campaign in history, and it’s well deserved! // Anthony, International Brand Manager
I played Spiritfarer, a nicely crafted game with a positive design and just the right amount of poetry and emotion, but I also took advantage of the reopening of the museums, which are not very crowded yet! // Stephen, Publishing Producer
I used a relatively unplugged summer vacation to dive into two books that had been on my list for a while – The Song of Achilles, and Circe, both by Madeline Miller. Miller takes age-old tales from The Iliad and The Odyssey, respectively, and adds backstory and a more modern interpretation to the characters from Greek mythology that you may think you know so well already. // Lisa, VP Marketing
We also enjoyed the grand finale of The Rain, Umbrella Academy season 2, Dark season 3, Rick & Morty season 4, and we look forward to each new episode of Lovecraft Country. Aren’t you?
