The origins of Quantic Dream: Behind the scenes of the creation of Nomad Soul, Quark, Blast, Omikron 2 Exodus, The Nomad Soul Karma and Fahrenheit
Originally, my article was going to be about a videogame mystery from this famous Parisian development studio, but my various exchanges with the Quantic Dream team have forced me to reverse my decision and tell you about the company's infancy. In fact, when we ask ourselves questions about a subject, we quickly realize that everything is inextricably linked, and that a human adventure must therefore be told with the merit it deserves!
And in this respect, I can tell you that the creative pillars of Quantic Dream are wonderful people who have provided me with a wealth of anecdotes. Their feedback is a rich source of information, as the history of video games is becoming essential to safeguard, or simply with a view to future projects, where past experience is always good advice.
The hardest thing for me is to know where to start and where to stop, so I have to make some narrative choices that will allow me to introduce Omikron's captivating story (the transition is easy).
The history of Quantic Dream and the first steps towards Nomad Soul
David de Gruttola, now known as David Cage (actually an aunt's name, easier to pronounce for English audiences), hails from the east of France. Self-taught, he set up his first company “Totem Factory” (1993) at the age of 18, with only his “Bac Économique” in his pocket, although he already had some professional experience. The company specializes in music design for record labels, TV series, cinema and, of course, video games!
David Cage at the end of the development of The Nomad Soul
To understand Quantic Dream's origins, we have to go back to 1994. David wrote Omikron in his spare time (in the evenings after work, a work routine!), which was to be his second book. At the time, he was looking to launch a writing career, fueled by his curiosity for mysticism and dystopia. He read widely on subjects as varied as Frank Herbert's Dune cycle, Philip José Farmer's Le Monde du Fleuve, and Arthur C. Clarke's Rama. He had a penchant for psychoanalysis, in particular Freud and Jung, which also led him to explore several religious texts, such as the Bible, the Koran and the Book of Krishna. Although a layman, he was fascinated by the transmission of religious books through the epics told in the texts. His professional literary aspirations never came to fruition, but the work he accomplished was not lost on him.
Jean-Charles Meyrignac: « David had written a book before he wrote Omikron. The title is something like Pyramids, with the pseudonym David Cage (already!). He told me he'd won an award for this book? And yes, I read it. »
As time went by, David Cage met some of Cryo's development teams, and the many trips back and forth eventually led to professional relationships.
Florian Desforges: « David had actually written a book and passed it on to me. I read it while I was working on the game-design specification. »
Indeed, David worked on several projects as a music designer, including Super Dany (Super Nintendo) featuring Danone's Dany yoghurt mascot in 1994. Then in 1995, he helped with Speedy Gonzales (SEGA) and TimeCop (Super Nintendo).
Jean-Charles Meyrignac: « When David was working on Cryo's music, he mostly worked with me on the Super Nintendo versions, so I compressed the MIDI sounds to fit into 64kb. »
Funnily enough, the only title in which David Cage could blossom was Timecop for Mega-CD, which was cancelled by its publisher. However, the CD medium became an obvious choice for him! He worked on another aborted Cryo title, Out of The Vortex, and the archive is out now, with a superb article by the HiddenPalace website.
« The only information I had at the time was that he had done a hit with a female singer. Also, the TimeCop Mega-CD copy was finished, but JVC Musical Industries hadn't wanted to release it. »
Thanks to the help of Jean-Charles Meyrignac, who was in charge of its programming, it finally appeared on the market much later (2007) and was even joined by its original case and manual!
Omikron: from book to video game
Yet there's a certain bitterness in David's mind: despite the success of his business, he soon felt he'd done the rounds of the music production world, and his creative side titillated him, so he sought, once again, to take himself to new horizons.
He then had the idea of turning his novel into a video game. He dreamed of a rich, open, abundant world. The advent of 3D offered him great prospects.
Florian Desforges: « I don't remember any particular moment, we just had to talk a few times on the premises or elsewhere before starting work on the Omikron project and a demo. »
During the usual visits to Cryo's fourth floor, he rubs shoulders not only with Jean-Charles, but also with a team working on another title - Raven Project. It is with Florian Desforges, a graphic designer, that David Cage shares his desire to develop his novel Omikron into a video game.
Florian Desforges at the Cryo offices presenting the Raven project
« From the moment we decided to start working on this project with David, we exchanged a few ideas based on his narrative and gameplay. He had an idea of a universe with a storyline but also categories of interaction. He wanted us to be able to go anywhere - visit any apartment in the city, for example. It was a relatively common idea but, in terms of ambition, it was very complex to achieve, especially at the time. The idea was to have a fairly organic city life, very dynamic combat phases and an investigative, exploratory context. We based the brief on these main pillars. »
Feedback was positive, but the project seemed too ambitious, if not impossible. Making the saying “impossible isn't French” his own, David didn't give up, and set about creating a demo on the fledgling PlayStation, the first of its kind! David Cage's background enabled him to understand the benefits of CDs (storage, audio and cinematics), as well as the importance of 3D, still in its infancy in video games. While attending CES in Las Vegas, he came across a presentation of the PS1 with a playable demo of Battle Arena Toshiden, which confirmed his position on the use of 3D for storytelling. His experience as a composer on FMV Hardline (Cryo) enabled him to understand the limitations of interactive video, but also the need to focus on the narrative and cinematographic aspects of a video game in order to tell a scripted adventure. David used his contacts at Cryo to set up a small team and create his very first prototype - clearly inspired by Blade Runner - in the evenings, after working hours, of course!
Nomad Soul (Omikron) Dreamcast title screen
« We exchanged a lot of ideas about what should be in the game's design during work sessions at his home or at his studio, based on his ideas. For my part, I was there to give him information on the feasibility of certain elements, but also to bounce ideas off or bring in new ones - I'm thinking in particular of the camera system, the different gameplay elements, and their interactions. »
During a discussion with Jean-Charles and Florian, the idea of having a camera follow the character was born. Today, the principle is well known, but at the time of the emergence of 3D, it was a truly new concept!
« From memory, the first game to be released with a camera of this type was a game called Fade to Black (a technological revolution that is the sequel to the celebrated FlashBack, which would also be released on Dreamcast in 2018), and it was Tomb Raider that really popularized it. »
The trio set to work, with Jean-Charles doing the programming and Florian Desforges writing the game-design with David to produce a first demo of the game. Hatem Benhabddal would also lend a hand on this very early version (for building modeling).
« Overall it was pretty straightforward because there were so few of us. We could discuss with Jean-Charles how best to do it, then just do it. »
The demo is finally ready, and it's time to show it off to a few publishers thanks to contacts made at Cryo in particular. The demo is accompanied by a document containing the script. Responses are mixed. Surprisingly, nobody really believed in the PlayStation, a console considered ephemeral like many machines of the time (CDI, Pippin, 3DO, Jaguar, PC-FX, 32X, Amiga CD-32, Marty...).
« We'd had an important manager (the president of the ‘game division’ it seems) from LucasArts who spoke French, by the way, and we'd met him in David's sound studio. »
After completing this first draft, which failed to convince European publishers, David Cage and Florian Desforges spent a week in the USA (from San Francisco to San Diego), the temple of video games, trying to sell the concept to various large American companies.
« I remember we went to Electronic Arts (the buildings were impressive), Virgin Games too. We had a few others too, I think we must have had 5 or 6 meetings, but I confess I can't remember the names of all the publishers we met. »
David Cage was extremely effective at explaining the scope of his project and providing an entrepreneurial vision where necessary. Florian was the project's creative and graphic guarantor.
The Quantic Dream building today (Paris)
« I have very fond memories of the week we spent meeting publishers, not only because it was a great trip, but also because it was clear that David was very good at communicating with publishers. In fact, there were quite a few appointments that were difficult to arrange, which he managed to get by calling from his hotel room the day before. You could see how motivated he was from the start, and also how efficient he was. »
The responses were similar to those in Europe. On the other side of the Atlantic, publishers advised him to make the title available on PC, which would be more promising than a mere console.
« Afterwards, it's always difficult to know exactly what people are thinking at this kind of meeting. They also analyze together in a second step who they have in front of them in terms of business and how it can fit in with theirs. »
From the anecdote it's clear David Cage and Florian Desforges were convinced of the success of the PlayStation. David had been able to find himself a PSX import, which was virtually impossible to find in France. The Tekken sessions were numerous, which surely explains the inspiration for the fighting mechanics in The Nomad Soul, especially if we take into account the initial attraction of Battle Arena Toshiden!
David didn't want to abandon the project and decided to make a PC version, but the original team was no longer motivated. Time had passed and so too had the opportunities. The only thing left to do was “go all in”! He decided to hire a new team with money from his company and a contribution from his father.
« He was always convinced. I don't think he wanted to stop succeeding in this, but he realized how complex it was to find a publisher without having a structure. I think that creating the structure and making a more accomplished demo is what enabled him to find a publisher. That said, he's the one to ask. »
There was a 1st version; very simple, developed on PS1, and it was simply a character moving in a scene. Obviously, this would not be enough to convince publishers. Antoine Viau points out that the PlayStation didn't take into account the Z axis on the mapping, which caused quite a few graphical problems. However, a copy of the script was included with the project to help sell it to publishers.
The birth of Quantic Dream
David Cage decided to invest all of his company's cash, i.e. 1 million French Francs (230,478 Euros), which would last him at best 6 months, to produce a technical demo on PC. So it was then, after months of waiting (almost a year), David contacted Florian again to create a PC demo. Florian refused, as he had been appointed Art Director by Cryo on Guardian of Darkness. Jean-Charles Meyrignac did the same, but recommended Fabien Fessard, a close friend he'd met at the Transbeauce Démo (a huge Atari convention held in 1991 and 1992 in France), nicknamed Mcoder. Fabien was a member of the Art of Code group.
Fabien Fessard programming Timcop at Cryo
Jean-Charles Meyrignac: « He'd told me about his plan to make a video game, but I wasn't interested (I'd already had over 10 years' experience in the field, so games didn't really appeal to me). I advised him to talk to a friend, Fabien Fessard, who was a serious and reliable person. He could help him build his mock-up. »
Fabien finally resigned from Cryo to follow David and replace Jean-Charles Meyrignac on the project. A programming genius, he tragically passed away in 2006. He worked miracles when it came to creating the game's engine
His highly acclaimed work in Demoscene is available here: https://cpcrulez.fr/auteur-fabien_fessard.htm
David formed his first team, enlisting the help of various Cryo and Ubi-Soft acquaintances: Fabien Fessard (lead programmer), Olivier Demangel (graphic designer), Pierre Roux (graphic designer), who had worked with Florian Desforges on Raven Project, Antoine Viau (3D engine conception and realization), who designed and produced the music and sound effects manager for the cancelled Barbwire title (from the failed Pamela Anderson film of the same name), and Philippe Aballéa (character designer), who worked on the 3D graphics for the Versailles 1685 title, for which David Cage recorded the French voices.
front l/r) Antoine Viau and Philippe Aballea
(back l/r) O. D., Pierre Roux, David Cage, Fabien Fessard, circa 1997
At this stage, Quantic Dream's unnamed studio (created on May 2, 1997) was just an audio recording room in the Totem studio, which continued to operate as normal during the day, but would then transform into a video game studio at night under the name “Extreme Studios”. The first logo was inspired by Robocop. It was in this small space, alternating between the stifling summer heat and the icy cold of frozen pipes coming from the toilets in winter, that long work sessions took place. Conditions that are unusual, to say the least, for the development of the project. David had no intention of resting on his laurels, and with only 6 months before bankruptcy might arrive, the pressure on the staff was directly imposed. The charming table game Foosball would become the company's outlet.
Now that Quantic Dream's studio had been set in place and its staff hired, Nomad Soul's development could finally get underway... but not without some difficulty!
Article and research by Romain Villez
Documents to download
The document White Paper2 written on December 12, 2000 by David Cage in partnership with Quantic Dream's American subsidiary concerns their projection, vision and strategy for the future of interactive entertainment (video games, cinema, TV games, music, cartoons etc.). It talks about the emergence of the Internet and online gaming, the different types of gamers, how to consume a video game, what consumers want and much more, with regular graphs and stats to back up their statements. These observations led the studio to think about Farenheit PS2/Xbox. Reading it 25 years later, were they right?
You can download this internal Quantic Dream document below
White Paper2 - Future of Interactive Entertainment GBFINAL4gb2 (1) (Dec 12, 2000 Document, 15:20)
Quantic Dream's projects
This article dedicated to the birth of Quantic Dream functions as a homepage listing all the contributions written for this famous French development studio. Only the period from 1997 to 2005 is covered, focusing mainly on never-released projects. You can read the Making-Of with testimonials from the people who designed them for the following games, sometimes accompanied by Prototypes, Artworks and Game Design documents:
Memories of The Nomad Soul/Omikron, a critical success that revolutionized the Open World: Behind the scenes of its development whit prototypes and game design documents! (interview)
A behind-the-scenes look at the creation of The Nomad Soul (Omikron) PC/Dreamcast/PlayStation 1, as told by the Quantic Dream team in charge of its development. A Dreamcast prototype and game design documents are available for download. Programming a game like this was no simple task, and the project was an ambitious one.
In the depths of Quark Dreamcast/PC: A world, Artworks, faxes and a forgotten Quantic Dream demo! (interview) COMING SOON
In the early 2000s, Quantic Dream was constantly communicating about Quark, one of the most coveted Dreamcast Unreleased titles, but there were still many grey areas surrounding it. This article, with testimonials from its developers, attempts to clear them up, providing additional information about it and new Artworks contextualizing it. Not to mention fax scans containing suggested ideas.
Omikron Exodus and Omikron: Karma: Quantic Dream's Aborted Saga Begun by Nomad Soul and the Evolution of a Visionary Studio! (interview) COMING SOON
The Nomad Soul - Omikron 2 Exodus and Karma, two cancelled titles from Quantic Dream , were intended to be direct, spiritual sequels to The Nomad Soul, released on PC and Dreamcast. Unfortunately, Eidos decided to cancel development of the former. The second's scenario was deemed insufficient for Quantic to pursue its conception, sealing the fate of the franchise to this day.
Blast, Quantic Dream's forgotten Survivor Horror COMING SOON
Blast was a real-time 3D action/adventure Survival Horror developed by Quantic Dream. Although one level was playable on PC, this Lovecraft-inspired steampunk project was eventually cancelled to refocus the company's workforce on Fahrenheit. Nevertheless, as the developers explain, some of the work on the demo, well executed for its time, will be carried over to Fahrenheit.
Fahrenheit or the renaissance of Quantic Dream: a breath of fresh air in the midst of adventure games! (interview) COMING SOON
When it was released on PlayStation 2 and Xbox, Fahrenheit redefined adventure gaming. Developed by Quantic Dream, it blends the gameplay of a real-time 3D adventure game with the production of a TV series, offering a unique experience of interactive cinema. Its Making-Of looks at the chronology of its development, as narrated by its creators.
We hope that this research work will enrich your general videogame culture and that you enjoy these articles, so happy reading!
I'd like to thank all the following people for their availability, kindness and taking the time to answer my questions. Thanks to them, we learn more about Quantic Dream and its obscure Unreleased games. This dive into the entrails of the studio and the mystery surrounding its games reveals the secrets of their making.
David Cage
Jean-Charles Meyrignac
Audrey Leprince
Vince
Thierry Doizon
François Kermovant
Jérôme SnyderReneaume
Kamel Gali
Tsoa Rakotoarisoa
Bernard Bittler
Loïc Normand
Florian Desforges
Pierre Roux
Elisio Lima Da Costa
Eric Seigaud
Olivier Nallet
Antoine Viau
I'd also like to thank everyone involved in The Nomad Soul/Omikron (MobyGames link), Quark, The Nomad Soul - Omikron 2 Exodus, Omikron: Karma, Blast and Fahrenheit. Some games truly make you want to play them!
Special thanks to:
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Romain Villez for his research on Quantic Dream and the writing of the various articles
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Hicks and Brainjamain for proofreading and editing the French texts
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Neil Riddaway for the English correction of the article.
