By 
Caroline Marchal doesn’t hesitate. Absolutely, she would pee in a bottle of lemonade in the fridge of a cop she was trying to steal from.
These are the kind of questions As Dusk Falls asks its players. French-born Marchal, who started her career in games in Paris before jumping to Sony and London, is CEO and creative director at Interior/Night, and this is her studio’s first release. Indeed, it’s the release Marchal founded the company to make back in 2014. It’s not your usual curtain-raiser.
It’s set in 1998 in Arizona, where two families are going in different directions. A mum, dad, child and grumpy grandad are off to St Louis for a fresh start; three brothers go to rob a cop’s house. Their paths cross in the desert and a motel turns into a Dog Day Afternoon-style siege.
“The thing that was really important in terms of setting and story is that it’s really grounded,” she says. “There’s no zombies or fantastic element, it’s all about real life.”
Chopped into hour-long chapters rather than levels, the idea is to settle in for an episode on your own, with your partner, or rounding up seven other mates. Using your controller or a phone, you watch the action unfold and vote on each decision a character has to make.
At every decision, the points switch the narrative onto a different track. It’s part Bandersnatch, and part Coen Brothers caper, part Breaking Bad-informed moral maze, styled to look like a graphic novel.
It’s all deeply engrossing. And certainly, there are few better ways to get to know someone. Do they take the bait that your cantankerous dad keeps dangling, or quietly seethe through your road trip? Do they distract a guard dog at the house you’ve just broken into? Do they piss in a bottle of lemonade in the fridge for good measure?
“We have telemetry so we can track, we’ll know what you guys do,” Marchal says. “I personally always want to pee.”
What can you do differently now that you couldn’t when you did Heavy Rain?
I think it’s just that I as a game designer and a creative have matured. As Dusk Falls is my first game as a creative director, so I make all the shots. I really did the story I love with characters that are flawed and human and interesting to me, but I think when you see people play they are relatable real life people you could have met in your own life. The thing that was really important in terms of setting and story is that it’s really grounded. There’s no zombies or fantastic element, it’s all about real life.
What can these kinds of games do that TV and film can’t?
The thing we can do as a medium that TV can’t is [give] players agency. We create a narrative space. We let players experiment with several things – for As Dusk Falls it’s family, resilience and sacrifice – and there’s no right or wrong answer. It’s really how players want to make decisions for characters they feel empathy for, and make what they think is the best decision. We agreed earlier but we might disagree on something else and we will both think no, that’s obvious, we should make that decision. That’s fascinating, because it brings us all together. We discuss, we debate in a nice way – we’re not falling out. I played with my partner recently. I know him very, very well, it’s been a long time that we’ve been together, and I was just amazed that it brings back the nice things I know about his personality. Like, ‘Oh, you’re actually such a nice person!’ It sheds a very interesting light on people you love and you know, but because you’re just in everyday life you don’t talk about these big topics.
And seeing someone you love making a big, difficult decision in real life isn’t fun.
Yeah! Here it’s safe. Of course you care about the characters hopefully, and you want to know what happens next, but you can discuss and experiment and try and navigate the best way for the characters.
Why do you think people are ready for this game mechanic now?
I think people have always been ready for it, we just didn’t let them do it. Either the controls are in the way or the games are only single-player. But watching and playing are two very different things. Discussing with someone who has the controller in hand, you have no power… it’s not just about power, it’s about balance. When we’re playing and contributing to the decisions all the time it levels the playing field. It’s like being on the bench during a football match or actually playing on the field. I think the barrier that needed to go was approachability. Using the phone as a controller is a massive step towards your loved ones who might not be gamers – for once you can share your passion with them.
How has the British gaming industry changed in the time you’ve been here?
I arrived eight years ago, I worked at Sony for a bit and then straight away I left to found Interior/Night. What I found great here was the willingness of everybody in the industry to share and support, which I didn’t feel at the time – it’s probably changed a lot – was similar in France.
This looks like a very diverse team. I guess 20 years ago it would have looked very different.
It changed slowly. Paris at the time wasn’t such a similar hub as London is, but right now I think the last two years have accelerated it. That has made the whole industry more competitive certainly, and more international. But as for diversity here in the studio, we started with naturally wanting to work with different people. People who are different genders, different cultural backgrounds, different professional backgrounds – we’ve got people from film who’ve never worked in games before. And all that contributed to having more diverse team members. But naturally, not as a HR thing. It just makes us better storytellers. You’ve got people coming at the story from loads of different angles helping improve it.
As Dusk Falls can be played with up to 8 players, and launches July 19 with Xbox Game Pass
