Beyond Two Souls: Interactivity is 'more than shooting guns' - Cage

David Cage believes player interaction in video games should consist of more than just shooting a gun, and this philosophy is something he's striving to instill with Quantic Dream's latest, Beyond: Two Souls.

Speaking with VG247's Dave Cook during gamescom, Cage is hoping people "get" Beyond: Two Souls, as it brings more to the gaming table than just 'being interactive with a gun' - something he tried to convey with the release of Heavy Rain.

"The games industry is very conservative," said Cage. "Each time you try something different you need to explain, evangelise and give a lot of effort just to get people to go past their current expectations.

"There will still be people who haven't played Heavy Rain who think it's a long movie with a couple of prompts, like Dragon's Lair. I did promotion of Heavy Rain for two years and I tried to explain Heavy Rain, I showed it and I made demos.

"I said, 'Look, you are in control all the time. It's not Dragon's Lair, you're in control.' But people didn't get it, or they thought, 'Oh, my character doesn't have a gun so I don't know how I can interact.'"

Cage said the problem, is the industry "defines interactivity by shooting," - if the player isn't shooting anything, they aren't being interactive.

"What we tried to say with Heavy Rain is, 'You can be interactive without a gun,'" he said. "There are many other ways of interacting that are not through committing violent actions."

"With Beyond we are going to change many things. You have direct control over Aiden, and this entity is something that will sound familiar to more people, and will attract them to the game and make them realise it's not Dragon's Lair-esque in any way.

"It's fully interactive, we have less cutscenes than many first-person shooters that I can see, and it's just about interacting in a different way. It's a different experience and I hope that people will be open-minded and open to trying something different."

You can read VG247's full interview with David Cage tomorrow.

Beyond: Two Souls is a PS3-exclusive without an announced release date; however, the general consensus is to expect it sometime in 2013.