In Cage's fictional future, the golden age of leisure that androids were supposed to unlock for humanity didn't happen. Instead, it's 2038, and a third of the US is out of work because robots took over the jobs typically done by blue-collar humans. As a result, pro-human protesters demonstrate in the street and rough up androids as they pass by. Androids have to ride in the back of autonomous buses in cordoned-off sections. No matter the problem, if an android is nearby, it becomes the whipping boy.

Detroit is the story of three androids questioning their roles in society: Kara, a nanny of a child with an abusive father; Connor, a detective investigating why robots are becoming "deviant" (expressing human emotions) and Markus, a caregiver who might be the android messiah.

If you've played a game from Cage before, you'll know what you're getting into: Each protagonist is playable, and the choices you make while embodying them will influence how their stories overlap. The game uses a context-sensitive control scheme for pantomiming the actions on screen. Tilt the PS4's controller to the left to pour water for one guest at the dinner table, right for the other, do a quarter circle with the right analog stick to sit down. Cinematography and story take precedence to typical gameplay; heavy action is the exception rather than the rule, with conversation and exploration making up a bulk of what you do in the game.

Make the wrong choice, or take too long to make one, and 'Detroit' punishes you swiftly.

Each character paints a different glimpse of our future, but too often Cage relies on lazy tropes to get his point across. Kara's story begins with her playing witness to a drug-addicted father taking out his impotent rage on his young daughter; a disgruntled (human) detective with the Detroit police department stops at nothing to degrade Connor, calling him a "plastic detective" and ordering him to go fetch coffee rather than do police work; Markus has to grapple with one compatriot in the android uprising urging violence against humans while another begs to take a peaceful approach.

Depending on how you handle situations, your choices will not only affect events but also personal relationships and the public perception of androids as a whole. The latter impacts the tone of cutscenes, and newscasts playing on TVs throughout the game, but seemingly little else. While you might be able to choose different approaches to a conversation (aggressive, understanding or sympathetic, for example) the end result is binary: Someone will either like you more or less, or one person's opinion of you will go up while another drops. There's little room for nuance.