Bard choices
The first videogame from the Royal Shakespeare Company transplants Macbeth into modern Iran
Why is the Royal Shakespeare Company making a videogame? “The RSC has been interested in this space for a really long time, for lots of reasons,” says Sarah Ellis, director of digital development. “We realised that, as much as there were differences, there were some real connection points around dramaturgy and story and worldbuilding.”
Both media share a “feedback loop between the audience and the stage”, points out Vassiliki Khonsari, co-founder of Ink Stories, with which the RSC is partnering for its first digital commission. “In some ways,” she adds, “there are more similarities between games and theatre than there may be between film and theatre.”
Founded by Vassiliki and her husband Navid Khonsari (a former cinematics director on GTA: San Andreas, Alan Wake and Resident Evil 7), Ink Stories is best known for 1979 Revolution: Black Friday, the 2016 game telling the story of the Iranian Revolution. Since then, it has focused on VR experiences such as Hero, which uses a vibrating backpack and DTS:X speakers to put players inside a Syrian town being bombed. It was while showing Hero at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival that the Khonsaris first met Ellis. “I was really taken by their work,” she says.