Beyond: Two Souls is an interactive drama action-adventure video game for the PlayStation 3 home video game console, created by French game developer Quantic Dream and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was released in October of 2013. The game features Jodie Holmes, one of two player characters. The other is an incorporeal entity named Aiden: a separate soul linked to Jodie since birth. Jodie, who is portrayed by actress Ellen Page, possesses supernatural powers through her psychic link to Aiden, growing from adolescence to adulthood while learning to control Aiden and the powers they share. Willem Dafoe co-stars as Nathan Dawkins, a researcher in the Department of Paranormal Activity and Jodie’s surrogate-father-figure. The actors in the game worked during the year-long project in Quantic Dream’s Paris studio to perform on-set voice acting and motion capture acting.
Beyond: Two Souls, despite being a video game, premiered at the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival, marking only the second time the film festival recognised a video game. David Cage, writer and director of the game, explained that game development studios should provide “interactive storytelling” that can be played by everyone, including non-gamers. The game received polarized critical reception upon its release. Sales reached over one million copies worldwide by the end of 2013. A PlayStation 4 version was announced in June 2015.
