The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is venturing into the gaming realm for the first time with an audacious new endeavor: a video game adaptation of Shakespeare’s *Macbeth*. Announced on Wednesday, the RSC has teamed up with New York-based indie game developer iNK Stories, recognized for their praised title *Revolution: Black Friday*, to produce *Lili*, a noir thriller focusing on the notorious Lady Macbeth.
Taking place in contemporary Iran, *Lili* reinterprets the Scottish play’s ambitious queen, played by French-Iranian actress Zar Amir (*Holy Spider*), who also co-produced the game through her company Alambic Production. In this interactive, narrative-driven adventure, players will navigate Lady Macbeth—known as “Lili”—through a storyline rich in themes of authoritarianism and gender oppression. The game combines cinematic aesthetics with point-and-click gameplay, allowing players to make crucial choices for the character. Although details about the remaining cast are limited, it has been disclosed that the classic witches will be re-envisioned as hackers.
Currently under development, *Lili* is expected to launch in 2025, with platforms still to be revealed.
Vassiliki Khonsari, co-founder of iNK Stories, characterized the project as a revolutionary blend of storytelling and gaming. “It extends the limits of narrative, signifying a turning point in the depth of expression within commercial video games and broadening the RSC’s creative vision into new, interactive realms,” Khonsari stated. “Creating a video game based on Shakespeare’s *Macbeth* is an exhilarating venture that reshapes one of literature’s darkest and most riveting tales—concerning gender, ambition, fate, power, and morality—into an engaging, interactive experience.”
This project marks not the first video game inspired by Shakespeare’s works, but it is the first to originate directly from the RSC, an institution that has performed *Macbeth* numerous times. To ensure adherence to Shakespeare’s text, iNK Stories worked alongside Emma Smith, a prominent Oxford Shakespeare scholar, RSC board member, and author, to adapt the play for the game.
Shakespeare’s works have long served as a wellspring of inspiration across a multitude of mediums, including gaming. Most recently, the Bard’s influence was evident in the documentary *Grand Theft Hamlet*, where filmmakers Pinny Grylls, Sam Crane, and Mark Oosterveen enacted a production of *Hamlet* within the virtual environment of *Grand Theft Auto Online*.
RSC co-artistic directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey underscored the innovative spirit of *Lili* in a joint statement. “As a narrative medium, gaming today resembles what theatre has always represented: an opportunity to explore worlds, inhabit stories, and experience something that is both personal and communal,” they remarked. “Focusing this intense thriller on Lady Macbeth instead of her husband is both radical and transformative. It flips the play’s inquiries into gender, identity, and power upside down.”
With *Lili*, the RSC and iNK Stories aspire to introduce Shakespeare’s timeless themes to a fresh audience, merging the immersive potential of gaming with the lasting impact of the Bard’s work.