Quantum Break: what can we expect from the new game?

Quantum Break looks set to be Microsoft's big calling card for the Xbox One in 2016.

Remedy Entertainment's sci-fi epic, due out on in April, puts players at the heart of the action, with their decisions directly affecting the 22-minute television episodes interspersed throughout the game.

The action is set around a university where a time-travel experiment goes wrong. The main character, Jack Joyce, is a student with the power to manipulate and freeze time as he battles former friend Paul Serene to save the future.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The gameplay is split into segments divided by the television show. Players "make a choice in the game, see the consequences in the show, learn information from the actors and apply that knowledge back into the interactive side", says IGN, adding that it's "very effective".

"What you are getting is the first season of Quantum Break, the game and the show, in one package for you," says the game's creative director and writer Sam Lake in an interview with GameInformer.[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"content_original","fid":"91418","attributes":{"class":"media-image"}}]]

Plot

Lake describes Quantum Break as "Remedy’s summer blockbuster movie" and that’s "definitely what it feels like" says The Guardian's Keith Stuart: "A big, slightly silly, sci-fi popcorn flick, with lovely visuals and a neat line in meta-humour."

GamesReactor, meanwhile, praises the casting for the television scenes, which includes X-Men star Shawn Ashmore and Aidan Gillen, from Game of Thrones, saying it was "on par with most American network shows".

It adds: "Putting down the controller for an extended live-action sequence may be something that isn't to everyone's liking, but they showed a totally different side of the game and they felt like a nice addition to the experience."

Gameplay

"What you get is a combat system that puts the emphasis on planning, evasion and balletic grace," says the Guardian's Stuart. He was also keen to praise the platforming elements that were hinted at in the demo he played, saying upcoming set-pieces "will almost certainly involve Prince of Persia-esque leaping sequences between barrel rolling cars and vast chunks of exploding road surface".

GamesReactor says the action was "dynamic and entertaining", paced with "some light problem solving and platforming that required the use of Jack's time stopping and rewinding skills". However, the website added the aiming and shooting was "rather slippery" in comparison to other third-person shooters they'd played.

Conclusion

"Smartly, Remedy Entertainment has anchored its wild narrative ambitions on third-person shooting that feels empowering and thrilling," says Gamespot. "Will it be able to pull the whole thing off though?" the website wonders. "Only time will tell."

Stuart, meanwhile, believes the title's fortunes will lie in its gameplay rather than its ground-breaking televisual elements. "If it works, it won't be because of the admittedly brilliant integration of live action video, it will be because players enjoy whooshing around in time, shooting people," he writes.

Quantum Break is released exclusively for Xbox One on 5 April