The full-motion video aka FMV game renaissance of the last several years doesn’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon, as today developer Aviary Studios has announced a unique new FMV gaming experience called The Gallery which will be heading to mobile, PC, and consoles in April. The Gallery is described as “Part hostage thriller, part social drama" and it takes place in two distinct time periods–1981 and 2021–that were of “considerable political, social and cultural significance in UK history" according to the developers. The story centers around an art curator who is held captive by a portraitist who threatens to detonate a bomb unless their demands are met, and players will face 150 different decision points as the mysterious story unfolds. While an actual game trailer is forthcoming, The Gallery will also be releasing in UK cinemas and will feature audiences that actually participating by voting on what decisions to make in the game using glow sticks, which is a really unique and fun idea. You can see the preview of the cinema experience of The Gallery in the video below.

The Gallery is written and directed by Paul Raschid, who has plenty of experience in the FMV gaming space having previously worked on Deathtrap Dungeon – The Golden Room, The Complex, and Five Dates, with those latter two releasing on mobile over the past couple of years. I remember being a kid in the early ’90s when Sega CD launched and PC CD-ROM was becoming more of a thing, and thinking that FMV games were the coolest, most futuristic tech around. Unfortunately back in those early days developers hadn’t quite learned how to effectively use FMV, and the video quality of that era left a lot to be desired. So it makes me happy inside to see this unique genre finally find its footing, even if it did take a few decades, and I’ll be looking forward to checking out The Gallery when it arrives in April.