Heavy Rain demo uncertain

Pros and cons make it a hard decision.

Heavy Rain isn't a game that you can play for five minutes and you'll then know what to expect for the rest of the experience; each scene in the game is different and for that reason it makes the decision on whether or not to release a demo a difficult one, Quantic Dream founder David Cage has told VideoGamer.com.

"There are some big debates at the moment within Sony about the proposal and the interest of a demo," Cage told VideoGamer.com at gamescom last week. "Even to make shows like Cologne, it's a real nightmare to pick out one scene and say, look, we're going to choose one scene and people will understand what this game is all about.

"It's very difficult to find one scene like that because each scene in Heavy Rain is different. So when we showed Mad Jackal, people thought, okay this is the game. You are a profiler and you investigate and you fight and we got 20 scenes like this. No, it's the only scene structure like that in the full game. Then we show Madison - they say okay you go with this character and you explore. No, it's the only scene like that. Now we show Shelby, and we're going to show Ethan's scene. All four scenes are different, so it's difficult to say look, this is Heavy Rain."

So does that mean there won't be a demo?

"Honestly I don't know at the moment," said Cage. "There are pros and cons to doing this. If you release a demo some people may think this demo represents the game where it's not the case. Like in a movie, can you imagine I'm going to release two minutes of a movie and you're going to imagine what the movie's about? Not easy. It's the same thing. How can you convey the emotional side of the game just with a scene? But there's also the other counterpoint, which is if you don't release a demo some people may think, oh they don't release a demo because the game is not good. No that's not the case."

Cage concluded: "It's a difficult situation because it's a different type of game and it's difficult just to take a sample and say, look, you understand everything if you play this thing. And there are some examples of very good games in the past who released not that good demo. The game was fantastic, but the demo was kind of okay. So it's still in debate."

Heavy Rain is scheduled for release only on PS3 early in 2010.