Press X to Shaun

"Press X to Shaun" is the popular name of a glitch that can occur in "The Old Warehouse," the final chapter of Heavy Rain. The first person to upload a video of the glitch in action was ItsThaBus, a YouTuber who discovered it on July 27, 2011.

The glitch can be triggered while controlling Ethan Mars by pressing X to call Shaun's name, pressing L2 and selecting any of the thoughts that appear, then walking up to the drywell while Ethan's voice clip plays. It causes him to shout "Shaun!" with every press of the X button for the remainder of the chapter. Ethan may still say his actual voiced lines (such as when speaking to other characters), but if the player presses X while Ethan is speaking, he will interrupt whatever he is saying by shouting Shaun's name. Ethan's mouth will animate and subtitles will appear when he shouts, but the volume will depend on how close he is to the camera when the X button is pressed - it will be inaudible while the other characters are fighting the Origami Killer, unless he arrives to save Madison at the end of her fight sequence.

Players claim that the glitch can only be found in the outcome where only Ethan and Madison are present; however, while it is more likely to happen in that outcome it can happen in others. The glitch is still present in the PlayStation 4 remaster of the game, but it is much more likely to happen in the PlayStation 3 version (as are other glitches). In addition, when triggered in the PS4 remaster, the glitch can cause certain QTEs (i.e., ones that are completed by pressing X) not to register, likely because Ethan is still shouting whenever X is pressed, and the game just registers that first.

The glitch has become so popular that there is a video showing a parody of it made in Detroit: Become Human, called Press X to Alice, by editing the sound clip of Kara shouting Alice's name. It has even been referenced in games not made by Quantic Dream: a modder named CDante created a mod for Fallout 4 as a shout-out to the glitch, and uploaded a video demonstrating it to his YouTube channel on April 1, 2017.