D4 is the weird Xbox One adventure you'd expect from Deadly Premonition's creator
Stop making sense
Xbox One has a number of big exclusives coming, but likely none are as odd as D4. Short for "Dark Dreams Don't Die," the Xbox One-exclusive is the next game from Hidetaka "Swery" Suehiro, the creator of Deadly Premonition. We finally saw the episodic game in action--or maybe we just dreamed it. It's hard to keep track in a game like this.
The Kinect 2.0 fueled title has you play as David, an amnesiac the can "dive" into powerful memories in search of his wife's killer. The killer goes by "D," and in the first demo ever shown, Swery took us through a memory on a commercial airliner. Using the touch controls, the player had David touch numerous things in search of clues or food to deal with his slowly lowering stamina. Then, after searching the plane, Swery cut to a fight later in the episode, which is where things get really weird in a drawn-out fight scene.
The cinematic battle played out like Heavy Rain. Players wave their hands and replicate actions on screen to pull off an attack. The battle on a cramped airplane mid-flight only got weirder as the battle would come to include hitting a baseball with a wooden leg and ballroom dancing a woman safely out of harms way. The battle ended in a stalemate, as David lands a knockout blow but then gets kicked in the crotch.
The release date of the first episode, nor the total number of episodes planned, but murky non-answers are par for the course with Swery. On the plus side, Kinect-haters should be pleased to know Swery confirmed the game can be played entirely with a controller. Other than that, the title is still a mystery to us, which is likely how Swery wants it to remain.
Early on David runs into a woman that looks like his dead wife
This sleepy fellow was the bad guy for this scene
The game strikes a number of clever camera angles during comat
Swery wants to put his own stamp on motion controls
Not picture: The wonderfully off-kilter dialogue being spoken
Henry Gilbert is a former GamesRadar+ Editor, having spent seven years at the site helping to navigate our readers through the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation. Henry is now following another passion of his besides video games, working as the producer and podcast cohost of the popular Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon podcasts.