Gods of the Twilight Early Access Review | Promising Beginning

Visual novels get a bad rap in the games industry. Often seen as the middle ground between reading a book and playing a game. And while I can understand the sentiment, I also think that the genre has some excellent stories to tell. I used to love visual novels and at a point in my budding YouTube career, they were a cornerstone of my channel. However, in recent years, I haven’t played them much. So I was curious when a code for Gods of the Twilight popped into our inbox. It wasn’t just an upcoming visual novel, it was the first few chapters of a visual novel launching into Early Access with a promise of more episodes and seasons to come. Though I originally just wanted to check out the first hour of a new visual novel, over the last few days, I’ve found myself coming back to Gods of the Twilight, and a total of 9 hours later, I am eager to see where this journey goes from here.

Gods of the Twilight tells the story of Farkas and Althea, two protagonists that you switch between during the duration of the game, who discover that they might be more than human. (For the sake of spoilers I won’t say any more.) The game presents you with the choice of who to play at the start but it’s more a selection of who you want to start with as you’ll likely spend equal time with both of them over the course of the game’s five chapters. The protagonists are sort of blank slates in the beginning with not a lot of character, but they take shape before you as you play. While Farkas is the hero I picked out of the gate, I have to mention how refreshing it was to see a character like Althea in the game. As an Indian-born person who had to move around a lot as a kid, I related to her quite a bit.

When it comes to setting, Gods of the Twilight takes place in a far future where ocean levels rise, swallowing up coastal cities, and seasons are no longer as clearly defined as they used to be. Most of the story is set in New Reykjavik, a cyberpunk city floating across the ocean, though you do go to the mainland later on. It can take a bit to come to grips with the game’s setting. It doesn’t quite lore dump on you and there is a handy codex to help provide more context to anything you might have a question about. But in the context of the first five chapters, I think the cyberpunk backdrop is a bit underutilized. There’s talk of human augmentation and Big Brother-style corporate surveillance but we don’t really see the purpose of that yet in the narrative. I understand the need to turn the clock forward as it’s significant to the Norse mythology hook that pulls the story forward, I just hope to see the cyberpunk elements used in a more meaningful way in the coming episodes.

To derail briefly, there is a trend in some modern animes where they will feature both 3D animation and traditional hand-drawn animation. While it can work thematically in certain stories, by and large, the look has never been my favorite. So it makes sense that I feel similarly about Gods of the Twilight. On one hand, the character artwork (which has the nice added detail of facial expressions during dialogue and even blinking) is great, and, paired with some of the similarly drawn action stills, makes for a cohesive art style that I wish the game fully committed to. Instead, a majority of the backgrounds in the game look like 3D renders. Most of them are fine but they rarely have the lively-ness of the rest of the art. The game does try to bring life to the scenes by switching between stills to create a sense of motion in the background, though even that did not really improve the experience for me personally.

This is partly also due to the fact that the sound design in Gods of the Twilight is often good enough on its own to support a given scene. There is a nice blend of diegetic sounds, dramatized sound effects, and music in the game. The background sounds are often enough to make an area feel lively and the punctual sound effects add to that in a nice way. The music, which consists of 13 tracks by AudioCreatures (Markus Zierhofer), frequently just plays on a loop based on what part of the game you’re in but it never got boring in my roughly 10 total hours with the game. The game mostly knows when to use sound and when to not, though a few unnecessary sound effects are the exception.

On the note of audio, one thing that’s special about Gods of the Twilight is that all the dialogue is fully voiced featuring talent like Amina Koroma (Baldur’s Gate 3), Kelsey Jaffer (Genshin Impact), Atli Óskar Fjalarsson (The Midnight Sky), and Ellis Knight (SMITE). As someone who is used to reading every line in a visual novel, it took me a bit to get used to alternating between reading the narration and listening to dialogue but the performances started to grow on me and some of the characters grew to be rather endearing as a result.

Of course, the glue that holds everything together is the writing. Despite the occasional odd piece of dialogue, I really enjoyed both the narration and dialogue in Gods of the Twilight. The writing makes the game feel more like an anime and I think that is what made it so easy to binge through the five episodes available in Early Access. Before I knew it, I was 9 hours in, staring at an end-screen that told me to wait for the next episode. The game is planned to be a multi-season affair and the seeds for a lot of interesting ideas have been laid out in these initial episodes. Anyone hoping for a satisfying ending here will be disappointed, but, similar to how one might feel after the pilot episode of a new series, I am curious to see where the story goes from here.

Player choice is essential in a visual novel and it’s very present here. While I can’t point specifically to the moments that changed the trajectory of the story, I can still see generally how the narrative could have differed. Speaking tonally, for example, the choices I made in my first playthrough (which were fueled by a particularly flirty achievement) turned the game into an entertaining Love Island-esque drama show while experimenting with old saves got me to different results. The feeling of ownership in the narrative helps make each playthrough special and encourages replays. Another thing I liked in that regard is the way the game keeps your character in character, even when you aren’t controlling them. Minor spoilers for the rest of the paragraph, at a certain point, Farkas and Althea’s stories overlap and the characters make decisions based on the kind of choices you’ve previously made.

I have one big complaint and one related disclaimer to report before I wrap it up. I played through Gods of the Twilight on my Steam Deck and, in many ways, it was awesome. I could sit in a comfy chair or sink into bed while playing, similar to getting settled to read a good book. However, this also led to a really annoying bug where the game would freeze randomly, forcing a restart that often meant that I lost progress. There is a handy quick save button that I got into the habit of regularly tapping for every new scene but I can’t deny replaying through sections was not ideal. I am not sure if this was a result of me playing on the Steam Deck, but remember to save regularly either way just in case.

With the first five chapters available now in Early Access, Gods of the Twilight is off to a promising start. Though a blend of 3D and 2D animation didn’t work for me, the writing and performances definitely did. The game both reacts to and remembers your decisions and the result is an interesting narrative that will leave you wanting more. I only hope that the quality on display will be maintained in the coming months. Purchasing the Early Access version of the game will immediately unlock the first 5 chapters (along with Chapter 0 from the demo) as part of Season 1 of Gods of the Twilight. Season 1 is planned to be 20 chapters long with 5-6 chapters expected to release every 6-12 months. Because the game is only in Early Access on Steam, we will not be giving it a formal numbered score. But this is a game I will be keeping up with and I will share my conclusive thoughts after it comes to an end. In the meantime, be sure to check out our interview with Lead Developer, Ashley Micks, and Narrative Designer, Leandro Zantedeschi, about what it takes to make a good visual novel, how they find the balance between story and gameplay, and what to expect going forward with their new game.