Throughout the past few days, several video game sites and newspapers have posted their impressions of their hands on preview of Quantum Break. I've made a list of those I could find and will be adding to it over the next few days.
Some of the extracts have been translated using Google Translate, and very slightly modified purely for clarity.
Below are a selection of articles from Remedy's recent press demo:
Quantum Break Interview, PC Release Date and New Trailer
The Telegraph (English)
Interviews with Mikko Rautalahti (Story Team Manager), Sam Lake (Creative Director),Kyle Rowley (Lead Game Designer), Thomas Puha (Head of PR) and Greg Louden (Narrative Designer)
Remedy has a history of toying with other mediums in their previous games Max Payne and Alan Wake, so it will be interesting to see how Quantum Break's dabble with telly plays out. We had the chance to talk to the team behind Quantum Break about both sides of the project, how they equate the two and their hopes for success.Link to the article.
Quantum Break is a Shooter with Brains
IGN (English)
Combat is empowering – you’re effectively a superhero after all – but throughout the first four acts of the game you rarely feel overpowered, as groups of enemies work together to take you down. Furthermore, enemies who have some time-based abilities of their own are hinted at for later on in the game and so you’re encouraged to make canny use of your powers in combination with one another to get up close to enemies, rather than become over reliant on sticking to cover and taking pot-shots from afar.
Link to article and video.
(Additional articles from IGN: Quantum Break is Coming to PC - IGN News)
Quantum Break: Nine Minutes of Gameplay / Exclusive to XBOX One
XBOX FR (French)
Link to the video on YouTube.
Quantum Break: Games Meet TV in the Year's Most Experimental Blockbuster
The Guardian (English)
Interview with Sam Lake (Creative Director)
“We never wanted to create a flat, two-dimensional villain,” says creative director Sam Lake. “Thinking about the best modern TV, the bar is really high, many of the characters we love to follow are not heroes, they’re really flawed, they’re borderline bad guys. That was the inspiration for making the show about the enemy camp and what’s happening behind the scenes.
Link to the article.
‘Quantum Break’ Looks Like the Superhero Gaming Surprise of 2016
Vice (English)
Interviews with Sam Lake (Creative Director), Kyle Rowley (Lead Game Designer)
As electric as the action becomes, though – and it does, only escalating the further you get, with enemies beginning to use time-shifting gear of their own – this wouldn't be a Remedy Game without a solid story behind the spectacular scenes. The TV side of Quantum Break shows that Remedy are taking the narrative aspect of their latest venture more seriously than anything they've done before
Link to the article.
Killing Time in Quantum Break
Gamespot (English)
Quantum Break forces you to understand and optimise abilities in the face of aggressive, intelligent enemy behaviour. Monarch soldiers constantly did their best to trap us by approaching from all directions. When in cover, they showered us with a hail of bullets to make us dig in, then followed up with flank attacks. When we retreated into rooms to try and limit approaches, they turned to grenades to flush us out into the open. At times it verged on overwhelming, but that pressure is by design. It’s Remedy turning otherwise overpowered skills into tools for survival.
Link to article and video.
Quantum Break: Remedy Studio Tour and Snowball Fight
XBOX On (English)
Link to the video on YouTube.
Quantum Break Hands On
Gamer.nl (Dutch)
(Translated using Google Translate) Remedy played previously with a separate TV series and TV-like format with Alan Wake, but for the first time the studio [has the] two seamlessly intertwined. You play the game [as] Jack Joyce, trying to solve the [end] of time, while Monarch is hunting him. At the end of each episode you stand in the shoes of Paul Serene. He is in a small level, aimed at a specific goal: to create an influential choice on the rest of the story and thus your own game experience.
Link to the article.
Updated: 12th February 2016
Preview: Domestic Quantum Break Realizes it's Ambitious Goals
Konsolifin (Finnsh)
(Translated using Google Translate)Junction-scenes key is also aimed at paving the way between that of the TV episodes, where the player's decisions impact greatly. There are four of about 25 minutes each snippet, which is acted by the terms of the stars. In addition to Jack Ashmore actress is accompanied by a number of familiar faces from The Wire , Game of Thrones and the Lost series like viewers.
Link to the article.
Quantum Break, Twisting Time
Meristation XBOX One (Spanish)
If anything has characterized Remedy, that has always been the extreme importance they have both the story and the characters, the dialogues and background. Noir contemporary odyssey that was Max Payne; nightmare as dark and psychosis who pursued Alan Wake at the Twin Peaks meets Stephen King was Bright Falls. In Quantum Break, Lake and his family have sought to flee once again that comfort zone where others are anchored radically changing the narrative style and a daring urban epic Sci Fi could well be another season of Fringe series JJ Abrams, and that we are going to have the absolute minimum, because Quantum Break is one of those titles that the less we know about it in terms of its history, the more we will be surprised.
Link to the article.
.@remedygames Suomalaispeli Quantum Break vilisee tähtinäyttelijöitä https://t.co/YUh3CF2YXZ pic.twitter.com/2Foy85wJHH— YLE Puhe (@ylepuhe) February 12, 2016
Suomalaisen Remedyn uutuuspelissä mukana Hollywood-näyttelijöitä – milloin peleistä aletaan puhua kulttuurialana?
yle (Finnish)
(Translated using Google Translate) Games and gaming houses is not accustomed to speak in the same way as a culture as movies, music and the visual arts. Coverage of Finnish game hits usually takes place in the financial section, and gaming houses are often analyzed from the perspective of the generated jobs and tax revenue. It's quite a narrow perspective. Finnish game studio Remedy's game director Mikael "Mixu" Kasurinen says that the game industry is at heart above all showbiz, not the technology area.
Link to the article.
Updated: 13th February 2016
Quantum Break Interview: "It's the Most Ambitious Game We've Worked On"
Gamespot (English)
Interview with Sam Lake (Creative Director) Mikael Kasurinen (Game Director), and Greg Louden (Narrative Director)
The hurdles the Quantum Break team must overcome are numerous: deploying vast amounts of content over the internet, ensuring the episodes supplement the game in a valuable way, making it so those that choose to bypass it entirely still have a complete experience, to name a few. We sat down with Quantum Break creative director Sam Lake, game director Mikael Kasurinen, and narrative designer Greg Louden, to discuss the various challenges it faces, how the studio has matured to rise to them, and the impact it believes Quantum Break will have.
Link to the article.
Updated: 18th February 2016
Time is On My Side: Hands-on with Remedy’s Quantum Break
XBOX Wire (English)
While the gunplay was fine and dandy on its own, the addition of Jack’s rapid manifesting ability to control elements of time itself made each subsequent encounter that much more exciting. After quickly learning how to highlight enemies and points of interest using his Time Vision, Jack learned that he could use Time Stop to trap enemies in a bubble of broken time, stopping them in place and allowing him to unload an entire clip into them before it wore off.
Read the full interview.
More will be added as they are posted/found!
