Introducing Heavy Rain Chronicles + The Special Edition Box

Hi everyone – Alex Pavey here, with some exciting updates on Heavy Rain – the dark thriller from Quantic Dream where your choices can have dramatic consequences.

Hopefully many of you will have seen some of the great first impressions of the game that are popping up all over the place. This is the first time that journalists have been given the opportunity to get to play through an extended series of scenes in sequence, so it’s really exciting to see all the positive responses. Look out for the previews (though if you’re trying to avoid even minor plot spoilers, be careful out there!).

The Heavy Rain Chronicles

First of all, I’m pleased to confirm that Heavy Rain will be supported by some very interesting downloadable content – The Heavy Rain Chronicles.

These are a series of additional, fully-playable scenes, where you’ll learn more about the backstory of some of the characters you’ll meet in Heavy Rain itself. The first episode will centre on Madison – and the setting will be familiar to those of you who have been following the progress of Heavy Rain closely…

Heavy Rain: Chronicle One – The Taxidermist sees Madison Paige investigating a suspicious and reclusive taxidermist, and finding herself unexpectedly in grave danger.

The episode is an expansion and update of the original ‘Taxidermist’ demo that received such a positive response when shown at E3 and gamescom last year.

Chronicles One and Two will be available for download from the PlayStation Store after the launch of Heavy Rain early next year – although there will be some opportunities to get hold of the episode a little earlier. Which brings me on to…

Heavy Rain – Collector’s Edition

I’m excited to announce the Heavy Rain Collector’s Edition…

The Collector’s Edition is packaged in a special ‘rain-effect’ slipcase – thanks to special embossing and other manufacturing tricks, it gives the impression of being streaked with 3D rain-drops (something that has confused a lot of people when they’ve seen it lying on my desk recently!).

But cool as that is, that’s not all. The Collector’s Edition also contains a voucher to download the following additional content from the PlayStation Store:

• Heavy Rain: Chronicle 1 – The Taxidermist – Experience Madison’s dangerous investigation in full, before it’s available on the PlayStation Store
• The Heavy Rain Official Soundtrack – Recorded at the legendary Abbey Road studios, and filled with the powerful orchestral themes that form a key part of the experience of playing Heavy Rain
• Dynamic XMB theme – Lend a little Heavy Rain ambience to your XMB

The ways in which you can get your hands on the Collector’s Edition will vary across Europe, so keep a look out for more info on this soon.

That’s all for now, but I’ll be around in the comments section for a while to answer any questions you might have – and keep your eyes open for more Heavy Rain updates soon.