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As Dusk Falls Review: A game that’s more like watching TV

The least gamey game on Xbox Game Pass, for the non-gamers in your household.

As Dusk Falls blurs the lines between game, visual novel and TV series with a combination of all of the above. While it has launched as an Xbox and PC title, it feels least like a game due to its dearth of actual gameplay.

You make decisions that determine the path your tale will take and select from dialogue trees, but aside from a bevy of quick time events, there’s nothing in the way of gameplay.

Either alone or with others, you watch and influence the intertwined stories of two families. The first is the Walker family, with dad Vince, mum Michelle and daughter Zoe, plus grandpa Jim, who get caught up in the antics of the second while moving across the country. The Holts are three young adult brothers on the run, having just committed a robbery, after some drama with their parents.

Set primarily in 1998, the narrative twists and turns through flashbacks and flashforwards to develop the main cast and their motives. It soon becomes apparent there’s more to the boys’ cash grab than pure greed and that the Walkers got tangled up in this mess after needing a fresh start. These range from setting the scene a couple of days, weeks or months earlier to looking years into the future.

In that regard, there’s a clear influence from shows like Breaking Bad. Switching between timelines to explain how and why we’ve ended up here, with brief snapshots of how it all ends up from a restricted point of view.

With no movement required, As Dusk Falls is played using a cursor on screen through an Xbox controller or a smartphone companion app. Simply select the dialogue, story option or item to explore using the cursor – or up and down on the D-pad – and complete the quick time events by mashing A or swiping the control stick.

It’s easy to pick-up, especially using a phone touchscreen. But the quick time events mostly feel like they’re ticking a box to add a slither of gameplay – and stop you looking at Instagram or getting up to make a cup of tea, as you would during a TV show.

From developer Interior/Night, and published by Xbox Game Studios, As Dusk Falls feels like a strategic choice for Game Pass; a different type of experience. It’s similar to narrative-focused games like Until Dawn and Life is Strange, but easier to pick-up and play for irregular gamers, with pacing much closer to a bingeable TV series. Omitting gameplay keeps the story moving. It’s a game mum and dad (or generous uncle and aunty), who foot the bill for the kids’ Game Pass, can sit down and enjoy even if they don’t otherwise play games on X-Station-Box.

While it’s very much a one action at a time story, As Dusk Falls is intended to be played by between 2-8 players, either locally or online, as much as it is by a solo player. With multiple players, you each make a choice and it’s majority rules – or lucky dip if there’s a tie. Each player also has an override function, which locks out all other players, and can be crucial during the “crossroad” decisions that significantly affect the story. It’s faster, and perhaps easier, to play it alone. But its strength is with numbers – under the right circumstances.

I played through the six-chapter arc with my partner who’s a lapsed casual gamer. She enjoys the odd game of Jackbox or Mario Party, but found Until Dawn exceedingly boring between story beats, and finds Mario Kart 8 too busy compared to the good old days. She really got into As Dusk Falls, even more than I did; I suspect because there’s no learning curve, and it feels like a TV series that asks for some input.

Netflix tried the same thing, dabbling in choose your own adventure TV shows, but they never really landed; flopped on the couch, it wasn’t want I wanted from a video streaming service. While As Dusk Falls doesn’t feel like a game, it is the best medium for this kind of storytelling. The functionality of a game, without feeling like one, is what genuinely opens it up to people who otherwise won’t pickup a controller. It’s reminiscent of the Wii days, with parents, siblings, housemates and perhaps even (somewhat tech savvy) grandparents coming together.

That’s when As Dusk Falls multiplayer works very well. It’s a game best played with the people you live with, across six play sessions, as if it were a TV series.

I don’t see it working for most adults with friends, be it online or locally, so eight players seems a bit ambitious. For starters, while it does have a mobile app that can be used as a controller, visitors aren’t going to download that for 10 minutes of fun. It would work much better as a mobile website with a room code, like Jackbox.

You also can’t have 10 minutes of fun; it’s much too slow. Each episode lasts about an hour, but the opening chapter isn’t gripping enough, and like so many TV recommendations, you need to stick at it for the hooks to sink in. So, it’s really six hours or nothing. It won’t be long before someone suggests we play or watch something else instead, and fair enough.

While it’s a great collaborative narrative-focused game, realistically that needs to be with the people you live with – the people you’d normally watch an entire TV series with.

As Dusk Falls is a game that will be judged by its cover. Before you even notice the ease of accessibility, the thing that makes it feel more like an interactive story than a game is its visual novel-inspired art style. It’s not full motion, instead rolling through static images more like comic panels than video.

It doesn’t look like a game, which makes it more appealing to people intimidated by the concept of playing a videogame. But like a visual novel, it requires more investment on the part of the viewer/reader than a TV show. It works well, but my non-gaming, TV streaming enthusiast, partner wondered why the movement was so jarring, assuming it wasn’t meant to look like that.

The story starts slowly, but it offers just enough to hook you on its potential and desire to find out more. It has the pacing of a TV series, and is influenced by some big hitters, but doesn’t have their writing prowess, cliff hangers or character development. However, it gives you what they can’t: meaningful choice. It might not win any awards as a gritty crime drama, but by bringing you into the fold to make key decisions and decide which characters you want to succeed, it’s almost as engaging – especially if you commit to doing it as a household.

As a choose your path game, As Dusk Falls feeds stats on your branching path compared to other players – and presents it much better than others, with clarity over where your choices mattered most. It recommends playing it again, perhaps with different people, but at six hours per playthrough, I’m not compelled to do it again. That’s plenty.

Its storytelling is held back by its design with an over-reliance on dialogue. The story nearly always moves forward through characters explaining what’s happening. That’s one of the few opportunities for player interaction, and there’s essentially no motion beyond a couple of frames, so I understand why. But as viewers, it starts to feel restrictive and a little narrow, so we didn’t want to spend another six hours doing that again.

As Dusk Falls is the non-game narrative adventure for your non-gaming family and housemates. It’s the most engaged I’ve ever seen my lapsed casual gamer partner in a videogame and that’s because it has the familiar story pacing of a six-part TV series and almost no gameplay, which means minimal barrier to entry. That makes it a perfect addition to Game Pass, as something for the subscribers in the house who don’t want to learn how to play something. While the storytelling has some shortcomings, it’s a fun story in episodic chunks that rivals your video streaming service of choice for a nightly episode.

As Dusk Falls was reviewed using promotional code on Xbox Series X provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.

As Dusk Falls

19 July 2022
PC Xbox One Xbox Series S & X
 

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About the author

Ben Salter

Ben has been writing about games in a professional capacity since 2008. He even did it full-time for a while, but his mum never really understood what that meant. He's been part of the Stevivor team since 2016. You will find his work across all sections of the site (if you look hard enough). Gamertag / PSN ID: Gryllis.