AS DUSK FALLS
The family that plays together…
★★★☆☆ OUT NOW PC, XBOX ONE/SERIES S/X
Plenty of modern videogames feature branching narratives, letting player choices shape the story. This ambitious interactive drama adds a fun multiplayer twist, encouraging friends and families to gather around the TV, grab their phones and vote to determine the big decisions.
Rendered in a distinctive motion-comic style which uses painted-over frames of live-action footage, As Dusk Falls tracks the fallout from a robbery gone wrong, as the fates of two families collide during a tense motel standoff. A time shift then allows us to explore the repercussions for the survivors 14 years on. Complex stuff, but the game struggles to square away its prestige-TV aspirations with the contrivances of its plotting, the pulpy thrills of its first half giving way to soapy drama in the second.
It begins when schlubby everyman Vince – taking wife Michelle, young daughter Zoe and terminally ill father Jim across the US, seeking a fresh start – is run off the road, and the four are forced to stop at a desert motel while their car is fixed. Meanwhile, after their plan to rob the local sheriff to pay off their father’s debts is thwarted, three armed brothers burst in and take the family (and motel owners) hostage. Despite occasional script stumbles, the scenario grips – the knowledge that not everyone will get out alive ensures the various standoffs crackle with tension, not least when situations suddenly require quick inputs. As Vince, do you play it safe or try to wrestle a gun from an assailant? Should you really trust this seemingly volatile lawman, or are these troubled boys more innocent than they seem?
Frequent flashbacks cleverly flesh out backstories, causing sympathies to shift while delaying the resolution to key cliffhangers. Post-chapter summaries show just how many different branches there are yet to explore on the game’s ‘story tree’, while drawing conclusions about your personal values based on your playstyle and the choices you made. Alas, that feels more psychologically probing than the muddled later chapters. Here, the focus shifts towards Jay, the youngest and most sensitive of the brothers, and eventually Zoe, now 20 and still suffering trauma flashbacks. But with plot taking precedence over character development until the final act, the question As Dusk Falls poses – can you really escape the shadows of the past? – is answered in abrupt and unsatisfying fashion. Still, if you’re in the mood for a miniseries that requires a bit more effort than just skipping the credits, this offers a couple of evenings’ worth of well-acted, sporadically absorbing entertainment.