I don't want to do a big free-roaming city like GTA, because the flow of the story will then be hard to control. Nevertheless, I do want to incorporate big sets, with a crowd, heavy populated areas like a mall and a subway are going to be in there. Of course, the gameplay has got to make use of that aspect too.

People will be surprised. Internal (Sony's) feedback on graphics has been great. This is going to be a truly next-gen game. But still, we want to do something unique with the graphics, going beyond just making the most photorealistic world we can.

With the release of Fahrenheit, we gave the adventure genre a new grammar. We brought new ways into the genre, new words if you want to see it like that, a new vocabulaire. With Heavy Rain, where going to expand on that same grammar.

Heavy Rain is about normal people that have landed in extraordinary situations. I wanted a much more personal story. The first thing that came to my mind, as a father of two little boys, was that the main theme should simply be a father's love for his son. This is not a game about saving the princess or the world. Its purely about a father's love.

The main story will revolve around 4 different characters, and we're putting the spotlight on their perceptions. The question 'what is good and what is evil' is the key here, that will be just a matter of viewpoint...I believe heavily in moral choices, I'm going to use them A LOT. They're not about being good or bad, but about finding the right balance.

Of course, the gamers and video games journalists attending the event expected to get some exclusive info on the so-far mysterious Heavy Rain, and entreated Cage to offer new details. The designer noted he couldn't speak in detail on the game, but he did indicate that the game follows in the footsteps of Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy.

Though Cage is intrigued by the possibility of real-time player-to-NPC conversation, the current impracticality of such technology means the game will, like its predecessor, use traditional dialogue trees.

It will be a heavily author-controlled story, eschewing the open world trend in favor of delivering a fuller, more directed, emotional experience.