Developer: INTERIOR/NIGHT
Store Link: Steam, Xbox
Genre: Interactive Drama
Release: July, 19th, 2022
Would you call interactive dramas video games in the first place? By that question, what would you call Detroit Become Human? Here's the thing, by technical definition, DBH is a video game, this one is between the two. Other interactive dramas usually have live service footage mixed in with decision-making for different pathways. Kind of like Netflix's Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. But it's more choose-your-own adventure type.
What As Dusk Falls does is take a rotoscoping art style and makes it run like a slideshow, which is jarring for a game that is all about getting into momentum, following the beat of the drama. This game falls short in a few areas that other major titles would put quality into, but it makes up for by doing some interesting things. Even if the experience was somewhat flawed in certain areas.
In Two Rocks, middle of nowhere in Arizona, a family moves away from their home in California after some debacle with an airline. Someone within them suggested that the father takes the scenic route. Just after arriving in a hotel, a hostage situation ensues when 3 gunmen shows up and olds everyone hostage. 2 staff, a mother, father, their 6-year daughter, a grandfather reconnecting with his son, and his small dog.
It was supposed to be a simple burglary for those guys, but one bad mistake meant they had the sheriff of the town chasing them and the full brunt of the law enforcement. Thus ensues a tense situation riff with mistrust, mayhem, and magnitudes of conspiracy.
There are so many, different story branches to look at, all interconnected to Two Rocks. The game is a high stakes drama revolving around these stories. Some of them have debs to pay, some are working for nefarious organizations that hold this town by the teeth, and some that came to start a new life, but rather has a trauma to deal with.
The best way I can describe is like they boiled everything they could get from Breaking Bad, Banshee, and Sons of Anarchy. Put an atmosphere that kind of feels similar to Telltale's The Walking Dead, and presto, an intense narrative experience where different choices you make branches out the story to different directions. The story is split into two books, I enjoyed the first one, the second one leaves more wanting.
The former staff of Quantic Dreams created her own studio to work on this game, I'd say it's an interesting first foray of hers, even though she seems largely familiar with something like this. But it's a weird choice for her to go with the slideshow visual presentation, it just removes the momentum that other games add when there's continuing animation.
Being a character driven drama, there are moments where certain people act, and you have to respond immediately, making a choice that'll create a junction leading to another story path. Similar narrative games have done this, but not with so many branching paths. The interesting part is also how decisions that have little to do with how the character's story end has some effect on others too. They're all intrinsically linked.
I guess it's easier, especially when you don't have full-bodied animation and can slack off on creating its own world and texture to a full extent. I have started to get used to it, but the game I think lost its luster when it loses intrigue and tension right around the second book. That's when I start to notice the shortcomings, even if the game does have texture and some clear animations present half the time.
The first book carried a lot of intensity, that is because it was hinging on the heist story, whereas the aftermath move things along, just 14 years later for closure so that it could move to the next phase of the story. Playing this, I did feel like there was more mystery to unravel, and world building that it would have me kind of invested in. And I was really getting into by the end of the second book, before it ends on a cliffhanger. Leaving more questions than answers.
The quick time events do a lot of different things, and gets challenging. But that being the only interactive aspect outside the decision-making is also what makes the gameplay feel a little shallow.
The dialogue in this game makes or break, it doesn't always pan out. Especially when you're playing as two teenagers on the run, the game loses its awareness of how tacky it sounds. I seldom wished it was back to the motel hostage situation, because there was so much going on there.
I guess the other neat part of the game is that it has 8 player co-op, both online and couch. You can vote on these decisions before choice made based on majority voting. So it also works as a party game too. If they're making a sequel to this, or book 3 as DLC, I hope they find a way to end it well.
