As promised by Quantic Dream, their previous PlayStation exclusives like Heavy Rain, Beyond: Two Souls & last year’s Detroit: Become Human are on their way to the PC platform, to be distributed via Epic Games Store. The developer had previously stated that demos of these games would be available on the store roughly a month from release. And with that, the demo for Heavy Rain, the developers’ first PlayStation exclusive is finally out on PC.
The demo is a small one though, covering the first chapter of the game, with gameplay lasting around 40 minutes. This is plenty for performance testing, as a game as old as this uses a lot of older assets. The PC version has upgraded visuals, with support for higher resolutions but the graphics options leave a lot to be desired.
Getting right into the options menu, the game offers minimal adjustments in terms of graphics. This is to be expected, considering the game was ported over to the PC platform. While it does miss a lot of options that many modern AAA games boast, it does make up for it in optimization. I ran the game at its highest settings (at 1080p) on a GTX 1050 Ti and achieved a constant 60fps. Now, you can run the game past its base 60fps lock by editing the in-game files, should you choose to. The game also supports the use of an Xbox controller, so if you prefer that method, it’s available.
Considering the game came out all the way back in 2010, don’t expect much in the visual department. Instead, this demo serves as a guiding light for the upcoming PC release of Detroit, as that game makes use of the systems present in this game to a much fuller extent.
Quantic Dream is a developer which is infamous for marrying cinematic storytelling and gameplay into a weird hybrid. Well, weird to some anyway. Their latest, Detroit: Become Human released to positive reviews and found a new audience in players who owned a PS4. The company’s decision to release these games on PC will surely attract a lot of new players on the platform, although whether they should’ve chosen Steam is another question.
While Sony continues to push for console exclusives, it seems like the industry is at odds regarding that business model. We’ve seen in recent times the rise of crossplay, with more titles making the jump from one platform to multiple others. This doesn’t mean that you can expect first party exclusives like God of War to make the jump. However, the case for third-party platform exclusives does seem to be changing, with rumors of titles like Red Dead Redemption II coming to PC.
You can download the Heavy Rain demo for PC from the Epic Games Store.