Remedy Entertainment’s “Quantum Break”, one of the big teases from E3 that is to be an exclusive for Xbox One, has finally received a confirmed release year. Now slated for 2015, Quantum Break will combine both a full-scale game alongside a TV series in which feeds off of your in-game experience and, to some unknown extend, your choices. Little else is known, but as you’ll see from the teaser trailer below we will be getting a bigger dose of Quantum Break in August at Gamescom, which also means this game will likely be scarce (if present at all) at the June E3 event.
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What Is Quantum Break?
Microsoft is betting bigger than ever on games with its new Xbox One console as the delivery system. We’ve gotten a little taste of the exclusives via Forza, Ryse and Dead Rising 3 at launch. Soon, we’ll have TitanFall, Halo, Project Spark and eventually Gears of War. Other games have yet to be announced as new franchise opportunities under Microsoft Studios, but there is one we have been teased on and it stands to deliver perhaps the most unique gaming experience to date. Quantum Break is a sci-fi thriller that will bend the laws of entertainment, crossing the boundaries of game and television to deliver one cohesive entertainment experience. Behind the new title is Remedy Entertainment, who is best known for their previous work on Max Payne, Max Payne 2, and the Xbox 360-exclusive Alan Wake. Though the actual effort of blending TV and gaming together has been tried before with the game Defiance, the outcome was nothing close to sung praises but merely applause for the “idea”. Now Remedy Entertainment stands to properly bridge the two mediums of entertainment in what could be the dark horse of next-gen gaming.
The premise for Quantum Break almost sounds like a season of Fringe, where certain characters gain the ability to control or manipulate time after a time-traveling experiment conducted at a Riverport University goes wrong. The result fragments time and seems to potentially play with alternate universe themes, likely parallel realities that would exist had certain decisions been made different throughout pivotal points of history (very much a part of what Fringe played off of), and it seems only a few main characters have any ability to work in or around these time “skips” that are so beginning to destroy time as we know it. Not a whole lot is really known about the characters and plot outside of this and a seemingly-bad corporate entity known as Monarch, but time is now broken and you are going to perhaps play an important role in mankind’s survival in what we’d assume is putting time back together. This is where the TV aspect comes into play – in an interview with Oskari Hakkinen, Head of Franchise Development:
“You’ll unlock the live-action episode at the end of the gameplay episode, but you can choose when you jump into that. The best experience would be to play the game, watch the live action, then play the game some more, but if you’ve chosen to dedicate your two-hour slot to gaming and you don’t want to watch live action straight away, you can continue on with the game and pick up on the live action from your iPad or phone at a later date”.
It’s interesting to see Remedy and Microsoft Studios working to find seamless ways to integrate these two forms of entertainment consumption without forcing the television aspect on the player. For the gaming-only crowd, you’ll be somewhat free to progress without having to constantly stop to watch an episode of Quantum Break, the TV show. It’s important to note that, while the details of the story are entirely custom to your experience and decisions in-game, the overall plot and ending doesn’t seem to be totally changeable. All roads will eventually lead to the same, or at least similar, outcomes. But just as interesting as the protagonist’s side of the story is the villain’s side.
“At the end of the episode, you get to play the bad guy, who has the most powerful time-manipulation powers of all. So he gets to choose which future comes to pass. You play that bad guy – you choose the moment. Then, once you’ve made your choice, you can enjoy a high-quality TV episode where you’ll see how your choices impacted certain things”.
Phil Spencer of Microsoft Studios made a short comment on Quantum Break’s progress, saying Remedy Entertainment is doing a “great job” with the game, the story and its characters. Spencer seems to think that the time control mechanic you’ll have access to within Quantum Break will be something special and iconic, like Bullet Time was within the Max Payne series. With any luck, we’ll have some more information to comb through come E3 2014 which is set for June 10-12, 2014. Until then it stands to reason that this is perhaps the most interesting game on anyone’s radar when considering the question “will it, or will it not?” Remedy have an outstanding story and plot history. Quantum Break looks to stand on that pillar, but this third person shooter has a lot going for it that no other game has. There will be other franchises launching in 2014 and early 2015 that are sure to be excellent titles, but Quantum Break quite remains a mystery that will intrigue adventurous gamers heavily. It’s possible that Quantum Break will drop late 2014, but don’t be too surprised if this game is staggered back to early 2015. Microsoft have a road map for games and there’s no real gains to be had in releasing a game like this when the holiday season will likely face a new iterations of Battlefield and Call of Duty on top of several other multiplatform titles like Metal Gear Solid 5 and The Division.
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