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‘Beholder’ is the Latest Dystopian Game to Get a Short Film Adaptation

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With the recent release of Cube Escape Paradox (Free) and its accompanying short film, as well as the short film adaptation of Lucas Pope’s award-winning Papers, Please ($4.99), filmmakers are showing that there’s plenty of fantastic storytelling to be mined from the world of video games. Now Beholder ($4.99) from Warm Lamp Games and Alawar Entertainment is the latest game to be getting a short film adaptation, and it’s being handled by Nikita Ordynskiy and Liliya Tkach of Russian film production studio KINODOM, who are the ones responsible for the excellent Papers, Please short film. Today they’ve released the first teaser for the Beholder film, and it’s striking to say the least.

In case you aren’t familiar with Beholder, it has you playing the role of a landlord in a totalitarian State who is managing a building full of tenants. The government calls on you to perform some pretty heinous activities, like surveilling your tenants without their knowledge and then reporting your findings to the powers that be. If you don’t do as they say you and your family’s well being could be put into jeopardy. It’s a dark and depressing but nonetheless fascinating experience that has you making tough moral choices and often putting yourself in danger in order to protect your tenants from the wrath of the totalitarian regime. Beholder was a big hit when it launched on desktop in the fall of 2016, and we really enjoyed (as much as you can “enjoy" such a grim experience, that is) the iOS adaptation that was released in the summer of last year.

Much like Papers, Please, Beholder seems a perfect fit for the type of filmmaking that KINODOM is known for. In fact the short film adaptation of Beholder will be entirely in black and white and a silent film with no dialogue, as the creators feel that’s the best way to portray the dark and grim state of affairs of the game. Right now the vague release date of Beholder the film is sometime in December, with a more specific release date said to be coming later in the month. For now you can follow along with the game or Wishlist it on its Steam page, and of course you should definitely check out Beholder the game itself if you haven’t already and are in the mood for something dark and intriguing. Also Beholder 2 is in the works and slated for release around the same time as the film. You can check out the sequel’s Steam page as well and of course we hope that one will also end up on mobile at some point in the future.

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