Review of As Dusk Falls- The Interactive Graphic Novel from Xbox Studios Captivates long After the Credits have Rolled

Quick Overview

At first glance, Two Rock, Arizona appears to be nothing more than a backwater town populated by exactly matches and a few rows of houses. But nothing is as it seems, and it only takes one small, decades-spanning tragedy to reveal As Dusk Falls’ many layers of storytelling depth. And the story is everything, as this is a choose-your-own-adventure-style graphic novel that cleverly borrows ideas from Telltale’s The Walking Dead series and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. Each member of this unique and interesting voice-acting cast has their own, often conflicting overarching storyline that propel the story in seemly 100s of logical and intelligently attached instructions.

Story of Game

This story begins with a heist carried out by three brothers who, while looking for a place to stay, collide with some other family just at auspicious Desert Dream Motel. You alternate between the soft-spoken youngest brother, Jay, and Vince, a husband and father who can care more about his troubled professional history or his family, depending on how you play him. The voice acting is above average, with familiar names like Deus Ex’s Elias Toufexis and Returnal’s Jane Perry, to name a few, and each character is played with plausible guilty verdict. For a match with enough dramatics, little of it is played oddly, which is a huge plus.

Characters

Characters and their motivations can change drastically depending on whether you confront a mugger with a shotgun or try to reason with him. Everyone has an opinion about Two Rock and its history, and if the story begins to paint one of the non-player characters as the villain, it rarely stays that way for long. The moral tug-of-war is continuous here, and you may find yourself replaying the six-hour campaign more than once; not because you have to, but because taking different paths and investigating these vastly divergent stories is so satisfying.

Events In Game

The quick-time events, on the other hand, could be done a little more imaginatively, as they only ever come down to the basic “move a cursor or quickly tap a button” prompts, and they appear in some very random places, such as scenes in which your persona does something as simple as packing boxes. At the very least, it gives you something to do things are quiet. However, As Dusk Falls feels conventional in this regard, and after playing Disco Elysium and 13 Sentinels, both of which transformed the concept of interactive fiction on its head in unique ways, it is indeed safe to say that Interior/Night wasn’t exactly ready and able to go skydiving without a parachute during the escape scene.

The Decision

Only one town. There are two families. Three decades of mysteries. As Dusk Falls is an original engaging drama from Entrance that follows two families’ lives overlives of two families over the course of thirty years in a small town in Arizona. Beginning with a botched robbery in 1999, the decisions you make will profoundly have impact profound impact on the lives of the characters in this epic tale of deception, sacrifice, and resilience.