The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is making its first foray into video games, partnering with New York-based indie studio iNK Stories on “Lili,” a neo-noir thriller that reimagines “Macbeth” in contemporary Iran.
The ambitious project stars Cannes best actress winner Zar Amir (“Holy Spider”) as Lady Macbeth, with her Paris-based Alambic Production co-producing. A French-Iranian actor who was named to BBC’s 100 Women 2022, Amir brings her lived experience as an Iranian woman in exile to the role.
The screen life game gives players access to Lady Macbeth’s personal devices in a stylized vision of modern Iran where surveillance and authoritarianism loom large. The gameplay blends live-action cinema with interactive storytelling, allowing players to make choices that influence Lady Macbeth’s destiny.
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Leading Shakespeare academic Emma Smith from Hertford College, Oxford, who worked on the text adaptation, suggests the Bard himself would approve: “Forget the old chestnut that Shakespeare would be writing for Hollywood if he were alive now: what Lili makes absolutely clear is — he’d be writing for gaming.”
“It pushes the boundaries of storytelling, marking an inflection point in the depth of expression within commercial video games and expanding the creative vision of the RSC into new, interactive territory,” says iNK Stories co-founder Vassiliki Khonsari.
RSC co-artistic directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey note that centering the thriller around Lady Macbeth rather than her husband is “radical and transformative,” saying it “turns the play’s questions around gender, identity and power inside out.”
The game builds on iNK’s track record with politically charged interactive storytelling, following their acclaimed “1979 Revolution: Black Friday” which scored over 20 industry honors including a BAFTA nomination, Meta’s Game of the Year award and the Indiecade Grand Jury Prize.
“Lili” is currently in development and slated for a multi-platform release later in 2025. The project received support from Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
