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Last Stop interview: Weaving three tales with the game's directors

Three very different people are about to see their lives intersect in a strange way, as Shacknews speaks with the three co-directors at Variable State to learn more about Last Stop.

Ozzie Mejia

May 28, 2021 6:00 PM

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Annapurna Interactive and Variable State have a very unique story they're aiming to tell. It's a story that weaves together three different tales, intertwining different characters and putting them in the middle of a supernatural crisis. Last Stop looks to be unlike a lot of the narrative games that are out on the market. To get an idea of how the developers are approaching this interesting saga, Shacknews spoke with three of the game's directors: Terry Kenny, Lyndon Holland, and Jonathan Burroughs.

"The original idea was that [Last Stop] was going to be a spiritual successor to Virginia," Burroughs told Shacknews. "I think that's how it was originally pitched. There was this ambition to do, from our side, like having done Virginia, which was first-person, totally devoid of dialogue, we knew we wanted to do something that would feature dialogue. And we're also really excited about moving from first-person to third-person so that we could do something interesting with cameras, as well, for storytelling reasons, really.

Burroughs goes into the possibilities that a third-person perspective offers a narrative-based game like Last Stop, discussing cinematography and interactive storytelling. The directors also talk about setting Last Stop in London, the game's supernatural elements, some of the hurdles in development, and assembling such an ambitious narrative effort as a smaller team.

Shacknews recently had a chance to go hands-on with Last Stop, taking a first look at what awaits John, Meena, and Donna. While we didn't get to see how their stories intertwined just yet, we got enough of a taste that we were eager to see more of these characters' lives unfold. The wait for Last Stop is almost over. The game is estimated for a July release on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. For more interviews just like the one above, make your next stop the Shacknews and GamerHubTV YouTube channels.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?