The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) announced this week that it is collaborating with indie game developer iNK Stories to create its first video game: A thriller title called Lili, a modern reimagining of the story of Lady Macbeth set in contemporary Iran. It stars Zar Amir as the Bard’s tragic femme fatale and allows players to push her into certain life choices while playing out her story. The RSC and iNK plan to launch the game later in 2025.
Vassiliki Khonsari, iNK Stories co-founder, said in a statement, “The partnership between iNK Stories and the Royal Shakespeare Company is a landmark collaboration, bringing together two creative forces to unlock the profound potential of adapting Shakespeare’s timeless masterpieces for contemporary audiences. 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.”
Lili tells its Lady Macbeth-inspired story through the medium of screens, as players follow the character through security cameras and personal devices. The three witches are reimagined as hackers, putting the player themselves in the position to view Lady Macbeth’s life and influence her decisions. The game features live-action scenes starring Amir, who also co-produced via Alambic Production.
Emma Smith, an RSC board member who worked on the play-to-game text adaptation, added, “Lili takes up Shakespeare’s character-based exploration of political ambition, personal compromise, and distorted human lives under tyranny, and transports these themes to contemporary Iran. It is both utterly Shakespearean, and radically defamiliarized. 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.”