Where to get it

2015 · Tale of Tales · Adventure · Casual

Sunset

It's 1972 and a military coup has rocked Anchuria. You, Angela Burnes, are trapped in the metropolitan capital of San Bavón. Your paradise has turned into a warzone. You take up a job as a housekeeper. Every week, an hour before sunset, you clean the swanky bachelor pad of the wealthy Gabriel Ortega.

Released: 21 May 2015
Platforms: Linux Windows macOS
Genres: Adventure Casual Indie Shooter Simulation Strategy
Developers: Tale of Tales
Publishers: Tale of Tales
Modes: Single-player
Perspective: First person
Themes: Comedy Drama Warfare Romance
Languages: Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish (Spain)
Time to beat: 4.5hmain story15hcompletionist

About

Sunset is an adventure video game developed by Belgian studio Tale of Tales, released on 21 May 2015 for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. Set in the fictional South American country of Anchuria, players take on the role of Angela Burnes, an African-American housekeeper working for the enigmatic Gabriel Ortega. As she completes her daily tasks in his luxurious apartment, she slowly uncovers pieces of his life and his involvement in the country’s escalating revolution. With each choice Angela shapes her own role in the conflict, blurring the lines between duty and defiance in a world on the brink of change. Sunset is the last commercial game developed by Tale of Tales before their return to focusing exclusively on video game art exhibitions and other artistic projects.

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Media

The articlegameplay, story, development, reception

Gameplay

Sunset is played from a first person perspective. Angela Burnes, an American citizen who is visiting the fictional country of Anchuria, has to perform numerous housekeeping tasks an hour before sunset. As she performs her tasks, the player finds out more about the Civil War and the dictator that currently leads Anchuria. As time goes by, changes occur both within the house and in the city which Angela can see through the windows.

Development

Sunset was announced by Tale of Tales in a March 2014 press release. The press release detailed the developers' collaborators, Austin Wintory would be providing the soundtrack, and Leigh Alexander and Ste Curran would act as consultants.

The ideas behind Sunset had been developing at Tale of Tales for many years prior to its announcement. Tale of Tales describe The Apartment, a 2005 game prototype released as part of the developers 10 year anniversary bundle as "an early related sketch". Sunset was originally envisaged as a romance between the player character and the apartment's inhabitant. During the game's development, Tales refocused the game to explore how everyday life continues against the backdrop of war. Though war may not be as immediate to the player as it is in Sunset, Tale of Tales state that "we are all living our lives while in the background a war is going on", "Sunset is about all of our lives, the lives we all lead: in our peaceful apartments while the world is burning outside."

Reception

The game received a score of 65/100 on reviews aggregation website Metacritic based on 33 reviews, indicating a mixed response. Michael Thomsen of The Washington Post wrote, "Sunset creates a beautiful and sometimes-unnervingly artificial platform for the alienating role-play bound up in employer-employee relationships, staged against a backdrop of historical revolution that threatens to spoil it."

Edge awarded the game a score of 9/10, describing it as "an enormously affecting examination of the impact of war. Not on soldiers or politicians, but on everyone else - those who can only watch from the sidelines."