Watch the New Papers, Please Short Film for Free

Papers, Please, Lucas Pope's dystopian document management indie thriller, swept Steam and the [...]

Papers, Please, Lucas Pope's dystopian document management indie thriller, swept Steam and the rest of gaming culture off of its feet back in 2013. Focused on imaginary European countries at the peak of emerging from war, the game puts the player in the shoes of a government worker who checks the papers of those coming into their country. It sounds pretty simple, but of course, there's far more to it than it seems -- the player can go down paths of betrayal or heroism depending on their choices, all under the watchful eye of their Kremlin-like government overlords.

Now, a new and official 10-minute film has been released, approved and co-created by the original developers, and it's free to watch on both YouTube and Steam. Check it out above, then scroll down for details on how it came to be.

The film stars Igor Savochkin, Evgeniy Tokarev, Antonina Kravtsova, Mikhail Panykov, and Victoriya Tsygankova. Original developer Lucas Pope served as both a writer and composer for the film alongside two women writers, Nikita Ordynskiy, Liliya Tkach and composer Dmitry Kondratenko. As far as the plot goes, it paces very closely to that of the game, not really wavering even when it comes to the way the characters interact with one another. Here's the summary provided by Steam:

An official adaptation of the award winning game "Papers, Please" by Lucas Pope. 1982 - East Grestin, Arstotzka. The 6-year war with neighboring Kolechia is over. There is a fragile peace. A border checkpoint now separates east and west Grestin.

The film is available exclusively as a streaming piece of content so far, and for anyone who has always been curious about the game's premise but never had the time to pick it up, this might be a good way to take in how intense the game can be without being fooled by graphics that some might consider simplistic. The film shows just how complex the story is in a brilliant way, with an intense script that many video game adaptations rarely get the chance to have. While it is entirely acted using the Russian language, there are about 20 subtitle options in different languages for a wide audience to view.

Papers, Please is out now for PC, Mac, Linux, Playstation Vita and iOS.

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