At E3, Quantic Dream was revealing only two of the four playable characters, drug-addicted FBI agent Norman Jayden and insomniac photographer Madison Paige. They will both find themselves wrapped up in Heavy Rain's main storyline which involves the mysterious Origami Killer. Although a scene with Madison in a nightclub was part of the demo disc in the PS3s at the Sony booth, de Fondaumiére was adamant that no one be allowed to play that one. The scene that could be demoed involved Jayden investigating the murders at a junkyard, encountering the dangerous owner, Mad Jack, and occurs roughly halfway through the game. Despite it not being the opening of the title, the scene turned out to be a good example of the unique interface they've developed.

"We wanted to minimize, really, the interface," de Fondaumiére explained, "like, no inventory whatsoever. So whenever you have such an icon appear, with an arrow, you have to follow the animation of the character with the right analog stick. For instance, to open the door. When you press R2, you're basically controlling your character, so it moves forward. With the left analog stick, you're controlling the head and the shoulders of the character. Another thing is, pressing L1, there's the possibility to switch the camera. At any given time, you always have two cameras tracking you."

As Agent Jayden stepped out of his car and scanned the junkyard, icons with words attached swirled around his head, which is what they've deemed the "thought system." "When you press L2, you can actually see the thoughts of your character," he revealed. "It gives us the possibility to give you more information about the psychological status of your character. And also a little bit more information about the conflicts of the scene." For instance, by pressing the square button, you could hear Jayden's thoughts about his drug addiction. It will also give some background about the scene and the location you're in, but it isn't a clue or hint system telling you what to do.

Each character has its own special abilities and weaknesses, and Jayden's ability happens to be the Added Reality Interface, a pair of sunglasses that allows him to scan his surroundings for clues with the touch of a button. From tire tracks to fingerprints and blood stains, all can be analyzed using a virtual reality interface. Unfortunately, Jayden's weakness happens to be his drug addiction. "He's addicted to a drug called Triptocane," de Fondaumiére confided. "It's a drug that's been given to him by the FBI to get acquainted to his ARI system."

You will switch between the four characters often during the course of Heavy Rain as the story unfolds. "It's almost like a movie," he smiles. "You're going to follow one after the other, but they're on different paths. So their stories are intertwined." And don't worry if something happens to one of them, because the game will not end if you die. "As a game, you'll have the possibility to replay it if you want," the producer admits. "But we strongly encourage people not to replay, to bear the consequences of their actions and the story continues. There's no 'Game Over' in Heavy Rain. If you lose a character, you can continue with the other characters. If you lose all characters, it is of course, the end of the story. It's not a game over."

Because each scene plays out differently depending on your actions, that naturally means that multiple endings can be reached, although de Fondaumiére couldn't quite put a number to it. "To be very frank, I don't even know," he confessed. "I think more than two dozen. But more importantly, though, you have totally different journeys. The core story, of course, remains the same. But the way you evolve and of course, the way the story ends, is totally dependent on what you're going to do."

So because they want you to be able to replay the game over again and try different approaches and reach different endings, it won't be a 40-hour epic... although de Fondaumiére insists it will have a good number of hours of gameplay, depending of course, on how you play. "I would say a minimum of eight hours and a maximum of 14 hours," he calculates. "We didn't want to create, either, an experience that was too short. I mean, videogames are expensive. Sixty bucks and you play four hours like some games, sometimes. We think that's a bit too much. On the other hand, we didn't want to have an experience that was too long, because we wanted to have something that's dense. We preferred to have ten highly dense, driven, gameplay experiences rather than a lengthy thing."

Currently, Heavy Rain is on track to hit the PlayStation 3 exclusively in early 2010.