The Gallery to be on full display in April

Written by Drew Onia — January 20, 2022 at 10:45

Full-motion video games are officially experiencing a renaissance following their premature demise in the mid- to late-nineties. No longer hindered by technological restraints, modern developers are taking full advantage of what interactive cinema can bring. One such designer is Paul Raschid, who previously directed The Complex and Five Dates and is now putting the finishing touches on a new live-action adventure called The Gallery.

Part "hostage thriller" and part "social drama," The Gallery is really two games in one, set alternately in 1981 and 2021 with either a female or male protagonist, respectively. In either case, Morgan Haynes is an independent art curator whose last-ditch show is intended to save the titular gallery. The night before it's due to open, Morgan meets a "mysterious portraitist" named Dorian, and agrees to pose for the artist as a subject. After a change of heart, however, Morgan  tries to leave and is informed by Dorian that the chair is rigged with a pressure-sensitive bomb that will detonate if triggered by standing up. Held hostage throughout the night, Morgan is forced to make a series of phone calls in accordance with Dorian's "ever-changing" demands, while also being "forced to confront demons and fractured family issues in the face of Dorian's ruminations about art and life."

Players begin the game by choosing to start in either 1981 or 2021, with the two lead roles performed "interchangeably by the same two actors across both versions." George Blagden (Versailles, Vikings) and Anna Popplewell (The Chronicles of Narnia) star, with Rebecca Root, Shannon Tarbet, Kara Tointon, and Fehinti Balogun making up the supporting cast. The two eras each represent "significant periods of socio-political unrest in Britain," and there will be "distinct similarities and differences across the two stories." There are over 150 choices for players to make throughout the course of the game, some with serious consequences as it "soon becomes apparent that not only the life of the protagonist hinges on these decisions, but also the lives of others."

Further blurring the line between film and games, The Gallery is not only set to release on PC, all major consoles and mobile devices in April 2022, but also at select UK theatres, where the in-cinema experience will allow the audience to dictate the direction of the plot via popular choice. A linear version of the film is also set to debut on TV and streaming services at a later date.