As Dusk Falls Review

One of our top games of all time was Telltales The Walking Dead: Season One. It was far from perfect and had plenty of flaws but the writing, the acting and the characters elevated this interactive drama into something special. That was over a decade ago in 2012, and no interactive drama has reached these levels since.

The portfolio of Interior/Night is full of experience from studios that have heavy emphasis on rich narratives. Quantic Dream, BioWare, Sony London, CD Projekt Red are just some of the places that these developers have come from. According to Interior/Night, their goal is to situate themselves at the crossroads of prestige television and video games.

Art Style

Lets get it out of the way early. You are either going to love the art style or hate the art style. It might even cause many people to skip As Dusk Falls completely, but heading into the game indifferent to the art style, I was pleasantly surprised by how much it grew on me.

The fusion between graphic novel and live action is a choice that works by putting the focus on the writing. The weak point of The Walking Dead and many other interactive dramas are usually the art, graphics of technology not being able to match the writing, which can easily break immersion when a characters mouth doesn’t move or eyes don’t blink or they clip through the couch.

Breaking Bad or Just Bad?

The year is 1998 and Better Than Ezra sets the stage for this drama. This passion for gritty drama is instantly on display as we are thrown into the middle of Arizona with a Father and his Daughter sitting at a bench. As Dusk Falls isn’t force feeding you every single detail you need to know but instead lets you piece things together making the story that much more impactful.

The writing feels instantly better than the average narrative title, characters are relatable and even though there is a game happening, it feels much closer to the prestige drama as I constantly find myself getting comfortable, sinking into my couch and enjoying an episode like i’m watching HBO or AMC causing me to just make choices in the knick of time. Thankfully there is a controller vibration every time a decision needs to be made. As Dusk Falls is broken down into 6 episodes as it emulates prestige television with episodes falling in the typical 45-60 minute range, along with title card in the first few minutes and credits at the end.

The story moves at a strong pace, with decisions being made very frequently and choices that will alter the story happening on a regular basis. The focus in As Dusk Falls is much more in the story and making choices that will change the outcome instead of the typical narrative driven game where there is a lot of walking around the room and flipping over the picture frame to reveal nothing. There is still some point and click scenes but they give the story time to breathe as opposed to being a roadblock.

As Dusk Falls not only manages multiple character arcs at the same time but also juggles many different timelines. This is broken into an episodic format, where you immediately want to see what happens next, just like binging Netflix. At the end of each episode, you get the narrative choice map that showed which direction you took along with which decisions others made.

All of the characters are not based on any likenesses of real actors, nor are they voiced by recognizable talent which is a good thing because using someone familiar like Nolan North, Troy Baker or anyone from Hollywood would distract from the story. For the most part the acting is good, most importantly with the core characters. There are a few weak links but luckily, these are supporting characters that are few and far between. The uptight dad just didn’t feel authentic to me.

Sunsets

With many members of the studio coming from Quantic Dream, it’s no surprise that at points it feels like too much drama is being forced upon you. The best shows of all time, that Interior/Night is trying to emulate aren’t constantly trying to raise the moral stakes but instead use time in between big events to flesh out the world and the characters. Interior/Night doesn’t always have to be pushing the envelope to be successful.

As for the art style, even though it was a divisive choice, there were reasons that I enjoyed it, but what wasn’t great was how much the camera constantly panned back and forth across the scenes. Instead of trying to simulate movement, it just felt like motion sickness instead.

Epilogue

Just like prestige TV, during a season, there are a lot of ups and down and not every episode can deliver consistently. As Dusk Falls certainly follows this pattern. It’s not about the quality of each individual episode but instead of looking at the season as a whole.

As Dusk Falls isn’t as much jank as Telltale or as much camp as Quantic Dream and when judging the season on a whole, As Dusk Falls is a success. Most of the loose ends were tied up in one way or another. I wouldn’t want to see this show renewed for a second season, but I would love to see where Interior/Night goes from here with this experience under their belt.