The game Beyond: Two Souls was released in 2013 on the PlayStation 3 console. The game has a non-chronological narrative, which is one of its "chips". The main theme of the game is centered around the issue of afterlife. The main character is a girl Jody Holmes, who has a mysterious connection with the other world. In the video "Behind the Scenes of Beyond", Quantic Dream showed the creation process, as well as the actors of the game Beyond: Two Souls.
Story line
The plot of the game tells about a girl named Jody Holmes, as well as about her life from 8 to 24 years. The player learns that since childhood, Jody had some kind of connection with a mysterious creature named Aiden. He could influence the real world. After one incident when, trying to protect Jody, Aiden nearly strangled one of the neighboring children. The adoptive parents of the girl were frightened of her abilities and sent her to the department for the study of paranormal phenomena. Under the control of doctors Nathan Dawkins and Cole Freeman, the girl learns to control Aiden and use his abilities. Due to an accident with the Nathan family, Jody finds out that he can interact with the souls of the dead and transmit their messages to the living.
Years pass, and the girl does not want to be constantly controlled in the laboratory, dependent on both doctors and Aiden. She is trying to live like an ordinary person of her age. However, any attempt turns into a failure, forcing Aiden to save Jody.
The girl’s calm life ends when she manages to close the failed portal to Inframir (world of the dead). This event attracts the attention of the CIA, and agent Ryan Clayton comes to Jody, taking her to training. After a couple of years of training, the girl becomes a full-fledged CIA agent and works in tandem with Ryanan, gradually falling in love with him. During one of the missions, when Jody is sent to kill a warlord who is interfering with the operation to end the war, the girl finds out that in reality it was not a warlord, but a legitimate president. Despite Ryan's attempts to stop her, Holmes escapes. For a while, she becomes homeless and joins a group of homeless people, helping them survive on the streets. During a fire organized by hooligans, Jody gets hit on the head and faints.
Wakes up in a hospital, after several months in a coma. She manages to escape at the last moment through the window from the CIA agents who came for her. Jody kills everyone from the squad that tried to grab her, and runs into the desert. There she meets the Indians that live on a farm away from civilization. An evil spirit attacks the farm every night. Holmes helps the Indians get rid of him.
Jody returns to the city and from Nathan learns the truth about his mother, who had similar abilities. A girl comes to her ward, where she lies, entered into a coma. On leaving the hospital, Holmes is captured by a CIA detachment. However, they promise to let her go if she fulfills her last task: disconnects the condenser, which helps to connect the world of the living and the dead, located in an Asian military facility.
After completing the assignment, Jody is issued a new passport, and, it would seem, released. Nathan shows her parting capacitor, which he built to communicate with the deceased family. The girl says that the spirits are tormented by this, but the former doctor does not believe her. At the exit from the building, Jody catches a detachment led by the CIA General - McGrath. She is informed that it is too dangerous to let her go, so Holmes will face the same fate as her mother. Jody also learns that Nathan wants to turn off the protective field of the condenser, which will entail the merger of Inframira with the world of the living. Weakened Aiden manages to break through to Dr. Coles and Ryan, and warn them about the danger. They free Jody and run to the condenser control panel, but it does not work.
Coles says the last way out is to go down to the very heart of the condenser, the Black Sun, and turn it off manually. Coles, Jody and Ryan put on the protective field belts and descend into the condenser. During the journey, the doctor is injured and forced to fall behind. Further, there are three possible scenarios, regardless of which Nathan dies. Jody turns off the condenser and faces a choice: to stay in the world of the living or go to Inframir to Aiden and relatives.
Endings
Depending on the last choice, Jody either dies in the explosion of the coder, or survives.
If you choose Inframir - her body will find a detachment of the CIA (or Ryan and Coles, if they survived). Jody will be connected with the girl Zoe (the daughter of a homeless girl, whom she helped to give birth to), and in the finale shots from the post-apocalyptic future where Zoe confronts him are shown.
If you choose the world of the living, Joey will lose touch with Aiden, but will survive. Depending on the other endings, she can choose where and how to start a new life. Possible options: stay with her homeless friends, with Ryan (if he survived the explosion), with the Indians or alone. If you choose one of the last three options - at the end it will be shown that Aiden is still watching Jody, despite the disconnection, and a frame from the future where the girl is in the world where the apocalypse began due to the invasion of enemies from Inframira. If you choose the homeless, Aiden will not appear, and at the end next to Jody will be Zoe.
There is another version of the ending, and it is possible if you do not defend yourself from enemies along the road to the Black Sun. Then the whole world will collapse, and Jody will be left alone in the void.
Gameplay and Walkthrough
The player controls Jody Holmes with the help of the controller. One of the details of the game is the ability to interact with certain places through communication with Aiden, to obtain additional plot information or to perform any action. In general, the game is a typical “movie” - without any decisions that really affect the plot, with many cutscenes.
As already mentioned, the passage of Beyond: Two Souls includes a non-chronological narrative, that is, the story of Jody will be told in a chaotic order, which somewhat prevents the player from relating himself to the character.
Main characters
Jodie Holmes (Jodie Holmes) - girl, the main character of the game. It has a mysterious connection with a creature named Aiden, due to which it can communicate with the world of the dead.
Aiden is a stillborn twin brother to Jody. The second protagonist.
Nathan Dawkins is a scientist who studied and educated Jody. At the same time, she is a character helping the girl and the main antagonist of the game.
Ryan Clayton (Ryan Clayton) - CIA agent who worked in tandem with Jody, and the subject of her love interest. One of the possible partners in the ending.
Norah Gray is the mother of Jody and Aiden, who is in a coma because of her abilities.
Jay is one of the Indians Jodi falls in love with. One of the possible partners in the ending.
Cole Freeman (Cole Freeman) - the second scientist who studied with Jody in childhood. At the end of the game helps her stop Nathan.
J. Sherman (Lt. J. Sherman) - an officer who found Jody after his escape from the hospital.
Zoey (Zoey) - a girl, the daughter of a vagabond named Saturday, whom Jody helped to be born, so that the main character has a connection with her.
Homeless: Stan, Saturday, Jimmy, Walter
Actors
The main list of actors in Beyond: Two Souls is not very long and this is due to the small number of characters.
- Ellen Page (Ellen Page) - Jody Holmes.
- Willem Dafoe - Nathan Dawkins.
- Eric Winter (Eric Winter) - Ryan Clayton.
- Blair Redford - Jay.
- Kadim Hardison (Kadeem Hardison) - Cole Freeman.
Minor roles and actors in Beyond: Two Souls:
- Nancy Tate - Susan Holmes
- Alex Martin - GIGN Commander / African Soldier.
- Tercelin Kirtley - Jimmy / Frank / Corey / ...
- Nabil Massad (Nabil Massad) - Sheikh Ahmad.
- David Gasman - Officer J. Sherman.
- Barbara Scaff - Nora / Shimasani.
- Andy Chase - Owen / Nick.
- Dominic Gould - Paul / Earl / Mike.
- Patricia Kessler (Patricia Kessler) - Nancy.
- Paul Bandey - Passers-by.
- Peter Thias - Vince.
- Robert Burns - Phillip Holmes / Obsessed Scientist.
Finding on the Internet at least some mention of Beyond: Two Souls dubbing actors is an impossible task. We only know the name of the actress who performed the role of the main character in the Russian version: Tatyana Igorevna Shitova.
Development
The game was developed using motion capture technology. It is known that some actors of Beyond: Two Souls performed their characters not only as voices, but also fully. For example, Ellen Page became the prototype of the main character, Jody.
The game was introduced by its director and screenwriter David Cage during E3. Then the first trailer and a short video from the game were demonstrated.
On April 27, 2013, another trailer and a 35-minute pre-alpha gameplay were released at the Tribeca Film Festival. Beyond: Two Souls is the second game in the world presented at the film exhibition.
Interesting Facts
Almost immediately after the release, curious players found a frank scene in the game Beyond: Two Souls. It was opened using debug mode and allows you to look at naked Jody in the shower.
The game is dominated by a "chronological mess." That is, scenes from the life of Jody appear in random order, except for the last.
Filming mo-cap lasted 12 months. During this time, 300 characters and more than 23 thousand animations were created. The company tried to convey the behavior of the actors, their facial expressions and movements to the smallest detail.
Reviews:
Game reviews were mixed. Some publications admired the work done by the actors and gave high marks, while others criticized Beyond: Two Souls for plot holes, poor elaboration of interactivity, absurdities, etc. For example, the well-known Russian-language website Igromania writes:
Instead of focusing on the key topic of the plot, for some reason David Cage is trying to grasp the immensity (a hefty piece of Jodie Holmes's life), in every possible way avoiding the main question: what is life and what is death? Instead of the philosophical subtext that such a game urgently needs, clichéd cliches ...
... Jody permanently wants to take her own life. Or doesn’t want ... it all depends on you. But in any case, this will not affect anything in the long run.
The reviewer of a major foreign publication, IGN, singles out the play of the actors Beyond: Two Souls, but notes that the game is completely impossible to penetrate because of the direction:
"This flitting back and forth across multiple eras of Jodie's life presents a couple of problems. It gives Beyond a schizophrenic, alienating feeling, and left me constantly trying to catch up with the progression of the narrative ...
... Page is an eminently likeable and capable actress and gamely takes on Cage's crazy twists and turns, delivering her lines with nothing less than utter sincerity ...
... What's missing, then, is the actual game built around this story ... "
“This back and forth movement through several eras of Jodi’s life creates several problems. It gives a schizophrenic, alienating feeling, and makes me constantly try to catch the course of the story ...
... Page is an excellent, pretty and capable actress, and she takes on the execution of Cage’s crazy twists and turns, conveying her line incredibly sincerely ...
... What is missing is a real game built around this story ... "