As Dusk Falls Review

"Hold-Up at Dawn"

Campaign

July 23, 2022 at 5:19pm
By Jason Stettner

This is a narrative focused interactive story. It’s a bit different from other games as you’re essentially just watching a series and then lightly interacting with it. Think Life is Strange or Telltale Games, then just remove any movement based gameplay.

It’s this neat bridge between a literal viewing of a series and playing a game. It’s quite interesting, and at the same time likely not for everyone due to this chosen style. At times, it feels like a bit of a glorified Netflix Original Series though at other moments it does shine through as having a bit more quality than that.

It’s a six act story, with the first half setting up the latter. You follow two distinct families over the span of thirty years to see the big moments and the lasting impacts of certain choices.

Choice is a big part of this as your decisions can greatly alter what’s going to happen and it’s rather fascinating to give this additional plays with new choices as what happens is altered greatly. When it comes to the story we do have a few main characters and then a selection of secondary ones that are present. You’re largely playing as a concerned father and then a terrified youth stuck in a bad situation.

It’s a slow start to establish the scene and then a really unique hostage type of scenario that is host to the first part of this story. I won’t dive in too deeply as I don’t want to spoil things but this game certainly had one strong opening three act arc. The latter half while having the potential to be interesting really dragged out and ruined a lot of the pacing for me.

I didn’t mind how flashbacks were handled as that usually bothers me in stories for pacing reasons but the back half of this just became boring. I really liked the tension and setup of the initial opening story whereas the back parts just dragged for what felt like hours. It’s a weird mix as they almost felt completely disconnected from one another.

Gameplay

As Dusk Falls can be played with either a traditional controller or also via touch screen using a special app that can be downloaded. It’s very simple controls where you either swipe, tap or multi tap in order to fulfill quick time events.

These interactions can also be adjusted further if needed from the settings, alongside other options such as for broadcasting the game for which that integration is only allowed on Twitch. The visuals are quite neat here, providing a 4k resolution at 30fps. It makes sense as you’re watching essentially a show. The aesthetic style is similar to say a comic, and it may take time to get used to.

Quite honestly I felt nauseous for about fifteen minutes at the start as I got used to the movement. After that, I actually really liked the style they went with as it’s very neat. It’s realistic, yet at the same time distinct. Each room is filled with details, there are varied spaces and the voice acting was also quite well done throughout.

The Conclusion

As Dusk Falls provides an interesting first half with a latter portion that felt boring and stretched out. Pacing aside this is a very interesting middle ground between traditional series viewing experiences and interactive gaming. I would certainly like to see more from this studio within this style.

I can see endless potential for this more casual type of viewing and interacting experience but with differing stories. It featured a decent length, and offered some solid replay value. At the same time, I certainly had some issues with the narrative. There’s a lot of potential with this style, and I look forward to future releases from the studio.

Read our Life is Strange: True Colors Review
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As Dusk Falls Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by Microsoft

Rating Overall: 7.2