In a recent interview with CVG, creative director of Quantic Dream, David Cage, revealed that the development budget for Beyond: Two Souls is only “a little bit more expensive” than that of the studio’s previous title, Heavy Rain.

“I don’t know if the budget is public but it’s been a very, very reasonable price,” Cage commented. “We do very complex games, but I don’t think they’re very expensive compared to others out there.”

When asked if the expenditure had been reigned in by re-using their existing engine created for Heavy Rain, Cage delineated  “Oh no the engine is completely different. We have built it from scratch.”

“The project is cheaper because we’ve got better at what we do. We’re very tools-centric and we pay close attention to our costs. We don’t do anything crazy with the finances, we pay correctly but we don’t have sports cars, boats or the rest of it. We run the company very seriously.”

Commendably, the budget remains surprisingly reasonable despite the involvement of some highly sought after Hollywood talent – Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe – to voice the game’s main characters. However their involvement does provide added pressure.

“Working with Ellen and Willem [Dafoe] as well is a lot of pressure; they have trusted us and we don’t want to let them down,” confided Cage. “You don’t want to disappoint them, and you want them to be proud of what you did. You want people to say to them ‘I loved your work in Beyond’ and not ‘what were you doing in that shitty game’?”

Beyond: Two Souls is scheduled for release exclusively for PlayStation 3 this October.

Rob Gisbey is a games journalist and music production graduate from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. To listen to his acoustic demo, read his articles and listen to the VxM Videogames Podcast head to his blog.