As Dusk Falls review | Xbox Series X|S

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When a game lives and dies on its characters and story, both need to grab you and pull you into its world. In As Dusk Falls, the adventure's first action beat is a group of brothers breaking into a house, and straight away you're challenged by the near impossible – to remember a single four-digit code.

by James Michael Parry

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​@james_parry

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Developer: Int./Night
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC
​Players: 1-8

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We jest of course, but could we remember it mere minutes later? Not a chance.

In presentation, As Dusk Falls slips quietly between two genres – a visual novel and a more interactive, episodic adventure, once arguably perfected by the now-defunct Telltale Games. Part of the reason it might appear more like the former is the artstyle, which includes single frames of hand-drawn style animation, with some 3D background and lighting elements on top.

The game describes itself as “an original interactive drama”, and that definition feels accurate, given the intense themes covered, particularly around family and relationships.

You follow one of a handful of characters through different story threads spanning six chapters in two books. The first, Collision, arguably has a better realised vision than the first, as it centres around a specific location and the choices feel more connected.

As you progress, you will see your decisions impact the outcome of characters, and, at the end of each chapter, an overview screen reveals the sheer number of possibilities you didn't discover.

So who are the characters? First up is Zoe, who, rather than swimming at the pool, has taken to holding her breath underwater for as long as possible.

After meeting her, complete with a chilling monologue, we immediately jump back to 1998, where Zoe is now just a youngster, on a road trip across Arizona with family, for her dad Vince's new job.

The other main protagonist is Jay, one of those brothers doing a bit of breaking and entering. You can tell from the get-go his heart isn't really in it, and even though he's arguably the character that gets the most play, we found it the most difficult to sympathise or side with him.

Multiplayer can lead to some interesting conversations, even creating deadlocks in decisions you can break by overriding the other players' choices...

The gameplay involves timed dialogue options and simple quick time events, which can be taken on solo or by up to eight people, either locally, online or both, even joining in with their smartphone. There's even a streamer mode to open the decision-making to an audience.

Multiplayer can lead to some interesting conversations, even creating deadlocks in decisions you can break by overriding the other players' choices, though this only comes into play at key decision-making “outcome” choices, which require all players to agree.

The music in the game combines a country road-friendly soundtrack with licensed songs, in particular a very effective use of Johnny case to accompany the drama as you close the first book. Otherwise, audio cues, force feedback and visual distortion play into the experience throughout, indicating when you need to act and when you need to sit back and take in the narrative.

The story itself is a fairly simple series of events, connected by a lot of layers of the characters. At times you can find yourself with no good option out of a situation, for example, you might be in an altercation with two other characters and need to side with one or the other, when you feel as though the character would choose neither and just leave.

Tension and suspense are racked up whenever you are forced into the aforementioned “outcome” decision points, which, fortunately, have no time limit, giving you that chance to think, or discuss, if you’re playing with others.

Depending on specific choices, you could find entire threads are closed off to you for the remainder of the game, which is why it feels sensible the team have only put together two books here to begin with, rather than three, which might feel like a more natural fit, as they only have to work out two sprawling, interconnected stories rather than three.

It does leave questions hanging though. The way book two closes clearly begs for another, leading us to conclude the success of As Dusk Falls will dictate whether something like As Dawn Rises will follow.

Structurally, how consistently you answer questions can lead to your characters’ behaviour being believable or a bit erratic. Of course, humans are imperfect and can be illogical and unpredictable, but when your choice is a single response which could end a marriage (if the post-chapter summary is anything to go by), it can feel a little arbitrary.

In the end, As Dusk Falls is a well thought-through story with some compelling moments, but exploring it with others might be what makes the game truly memorable. The performances are strong and just about avoid feeling like stereotypes, but limited options mean you can’t always make the characters act as you might in the same situation.

Given that it’s available day one on Game Pass, you’d be silly not to give this a try – especially since it will run just fine on Xbox One as well – and you’re looking at a fairly self-containing six-hour experience, with the potential for repeat plays to discover just how differently things might have gone.

For some, it might be the perfect first page to explore this sort of game, while for others, particularly wondering what happens next, you could be left wanting more.

Pros

• Compelling characters and a strong story
• Solid gameplay with plenty of accessibility options
• Plenty of other choices to explore once the credits roll

Cons

• Limited options leave you with no good choices sometimes
• Visual design longs for full animation
• Two books doesn’t feel like enough time to dig into some of these stories

8/10

Code provided by Xbox.​