The Royal Shakespeare Company has today announced a new collaboration with iNK Stories, a New York based independent game studio and publisher, to create a new game, Lili. Set in contemporary Iran, this interactive, trailblazing vision from iNK Stories puts Lady Macbeth, one of Shakespeare’s most iconic female leads, front and centre.
This cross-industry collaboration marks the RSC’s debut in video gaming. Starring Cannes Best Actress winner Zar Amir as Lady Macbeth (Lili), the game is co-produced by her Paris-based Alambic Production. Zar draws from her lived experience as an Iranian woman in exile who has courageously confronted her own battles against authoritarian gendered oppression.
Lili is a screen life thriller video game which gives players access to Lady Macbeth’s personal devices, combining the skill and artistry of theatre and film to tell this interactive story. Players will be immersed in a stylized, neo-noir vision of modern Iran, where surveillance and authoritarianism are part of daily life. The gameplay will feature a blend of live-action cinema within an interactive game format, giving players the chance to immerse themselves in the world of Lady Macbeth and make choices that influence her destiny.
Macbeth’s witches are reimagined as hackers, with surveillance cameras and cyber-infiltration putting the player at the heart of the story and giving them a unique perspective into the world of the play. This modern twist on the Macbeth story explores themes of technological domination, the manipulation of information, and institutional violence, reflecting the dark realities of inequities in our digital age.
Vassiliki Khonsari, Co-Founder of iNK Stories said:
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“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. A video game based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a thrilling endeavour that transforms one of literature’s darkest and most compelling tales – of gender, ambition, fate, power, and morality into an immersive, interactive experience.”
Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey, RSC Co-Artistic Directors said:
“From its first performance, Macbeth was always exhilarating: its sudden opening with thunder and lightning raises audience adrenaline levels and propels them as participants, not just spectators, into the jittery, action-driven narrative. Lili creates similar effects for audiences. As a storytelling medium, gaming today is what theatre has always been; a chance to explore worlds, inhabit story, and experience something at once personal and communal. Centring this tense thriller around Lady Macbeth rather than her husband is radical and transformative. It turns the play’s questions around gender, identity and power inside out.”
Emma Smith, RSC Board member and leading Shakespeare academic at Hertford College, Oxford has worked on the adaptation of the text, and 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.”
Lili is now in development and slated for release later in 2025 with the final release accessible across gaming platforms.
This exciting new collaboration builds on iNK’s acclaimed, genre-defining game
1979 Revolution: Black Friday, which garnered over 20 top industry honours, including a BAFTA nomination, Meta’s Game of the Year award, the Indiecade Grand Jury Prize, and a special UNESCO award. The game has also been showcased at prestigious venues such as the Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, Doha Forum, and the Museum of the Moving Image.
