Remember Me

Capcom revealed at Gamescom that it was publishing Dontnod Entertainment’s title Remember Me. The game focuses on a futuristic Paris, where people are able to record and share their memories. The game’s heroine, Nilin, has the unique ability to remix peoples’ memories, altering the way they recall events in ways that benefit her.

 In the game’s debut video, we saw how that worked in an impressive sequence. Nilin entered a character named Forlan’s memories in an adventure game-like scenario, changing how he recalled a fight with his wife. After a few failed attempts (after the player selected a variety of objects in the room), Nilin was able to convince Forlan that he killed his wife in an argument. Forlan, now convinced he committed a crime, kills himself after he thinks the police are on to him. The scene ends with the police and his wife discovering his body, seconds after he dies.

We sat down with Remember Me’s creative lead, Jean‑Maxime Moris, and got some answers to a few nagging questions. Here are five things about the game that you should try not to forget.

1) Nilin isn’t necessarily a killer
In the demo, we see Nilin battling enemies with flurries of acrobatic kicks and punches, culminating in what appear to be finishing moves. Is she a stone-cold killer, in addition to being a gifted memory hacker? Nope. “Basically what she does is she overloads their memories,” Moris says. She uses a spammer, a device that tunes into ambient data, to jumble up and erases her opponents’ memories. “They’re left on the ground, but they don’t die. They’ll get up eventually—they might have forgotten their fifth birthday or who they’re married to, but they’ll get up eventually. It was a conscious choice to not have death as a recurring event in the game.” Moris says he’s not an advocate of antiviolence in games, but adds that when it’s not meaningful there’s no use in relying on it.

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2) Memoreyes isn’t a cartoonish villain
“Although I talked about the company who built it watching over the memory transfers, Memoreyes, maybe being a scary thing, all of the people have accepted the device of their own will,” Moris says. He likens the memory-recording tech to the advent of TV and smartphones, only with even more sinister potential. At the same time, don’t expect to see a portrayal of a company that’s comically evil. “They’re not viewed as the bad guys in the game. The way people will be depicted in the game will be happy people sharing their memories and having access to knowledge and sensorial experiences.” That perpetual bliss wouldn’t necessarily translate to an interesting story. And judging from the demo, the possibility of the tech being used for less-than altruistic purposes appears to be quite real. Just don’t expect any Snidely Whiplash style mustache twirling from the suits at Memoreyes.

3) Memory segments aren’t going to be tedious
During the video presentation, we saw Nilin figure out how to implant memories through trial and error. Each time she failed to get the intended outcome—not turning the safety off on a pistol, for instance—the scene rewound and Nilin tried again. Players will have control of the rewind and fast-forward abilities in the memory world, which solves a key issue with adventure games. Where’s the fun in experimentation when you have to repeatedly perform the same steps in a puzzle? If you figure out the beginning setup of a puzzle and fail, you can simply rewind to the point just before your mistake. Moris says his team was inspired by the way the PS3 video player can fast-forward and rewind footage using the Sixaxis controller.