How Beyond walks the line between arthouse and grindhouse

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SPOILER WARNING: This preview is based on playable code containing the first third of the game. Although it doesn't mention anything about the way the story might end, given the emphasis of narrative in Beyond: Two Souls' design there are still details here that some players may wish to discover for themselves.
"Thank you for supporting Interactive Drama". So read the little PlayStation Trophy message that pinged up after players had successfully steered Ethan Mars through the accidental death of his son in Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain, back in 2010. It was a small flourish that took a mood-breaking totem of modern gaming and turned it into statement of intent, a slogan for David Cage's relentless drive to bring cinema's auteur theory into gaming.
Whether Beyond: Two Souls follows suit, we can't yet say; the preview build contains the first third of the game, but no Trophies. What it does show is how Cage has refined and expanded his repertoire of "interactive drama" techniques in the three years since we first pressed X to shout "Jason!"
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