Stranger Than Heaven’s Story Is Built On “Fictional Realism”

New York Comic Con can be a strange place sometimes, but this year, Sega gave select media the opportunity to make it stranger (than heaven). We went hands-on with developer Ryu ga Gotoku's next major project, and while our extended look offered glimpses into the decades-spanning adventure, there's clearly still a lot more to see. The three-hour demo was broken up into five parts. The first three were all set in 1915, first on a ship headed to Japan, and then in the harbor town of Kokura. These three sections introduced key characters, a major conflict in protagonist Makoto's early life, and a climactic battle in an ironworks factory. The later two sections highlighted two other cities and eras: 1929's Kure and 1943's Osaka. Both sections were centered around the multiple open-world activities we'll find in each of Stranger Than Heaven's time periods, from minigames and short missions to the side content involving Showbiz show-planning. There was a lot to take in during the demo, which reinforced the massive scope that director Minikobu Abe and the RGG Studio team are going for in the full game. After we played the game, we sat down with Abe to learn more about feedback received f…

≈