The Town of Light: Visiting Volterra

A widely ambitious debut for a fledgling team of eight, The Town of Light provides a touching glimpse into life inside a 20th century psychiatric institute, documenting a young woman's struggle with mental illness. Striving to quash the stigma and raise awareness of mental illness, The Town of Light handles its subject matter elegantly, straying away from posing bias and opting for a true retelling. Ahead of the game's upcoming launch on console, we got the opportunity to visit Ospedale Psichiatrico di Volterra, the institute which was featured in the interactive adventure from LKA.it, and we also caught up with art director and screenwriter Luca Dalo.

After wandering through the confined halls of the desolate facility, it was troubling to comprehend that the building was once home to thousands of patients that wrestled desperately with their mental wellbeing. The dilapidated Ospedale Psichiatrico di Volterra's walls were embellished with graffiti, marked with the conflicting emotions of those who passed by. What resonated the most, however, was when we visited the graveyard where many of the hospital's patients resided. As they were stripped of their identities upon arrival, many of the graves possessed all but a number to distinguish who was buried beneath.

After experiencing the game it was chilling just how faithful it was in recreating the architecture of the building and its many imperfections which have surfaced over the years.

Everything from its crumbling structures, flaking layers of paint and slashes of graffiti are present, forever securing its legacy in digital format. Visiting the site felt quite surreal as we'd previously walked the grounds through the eyes of Renèe and everything we remembered was positioned exactly where we recalled. Though some visitors did attempt to catch us off guard and sky rocket our anxiety by placing mannequins, peering lifelessly out of the barred windows.

Following on from the tour, we had the opportunity to visit the institute's museum, which existed previously as the check in area for entering patients. Here we got acquainted with the first hour of the enhanced console version, were treated to an exclusive live-action trailer, and gazed at artwork and household items crafted by patients. In the neighbouring room there also stood dusty old medical equipment which would have likely been used by doctors, who desperately worked to help their patients despite being short-sighted in the grand scheme of medical advancements.

The facility closed its doors in 1978, after stricter laws swept across psychiatric hospitals in Italy - this signalled a new era of change for Volterra. Its closure could have been due to the fact that the institution was broadly known for its treatment of electroshock therapy and was even dubbed as 'the place of no return'. Following its closure, Volterra plunged into widespread unemployment, as the hospital provided work for many of the town's then 11,000 residents. Instead of restoring the building or knocking it to the ground, it still towers as a beautiful yet tragic reminder of Volterra's history and remains deeply rooted in the quaint town's identity.

The Town of Light is an immersive and emotionally challenging psychological drama, set within the confines of the aforementioned asylum in Volterra. The player goes on a journey with Renèe, helping her explore her own history via a branching narrative, remembering patches of her troubled past as more and more of the asylum opens up for further exploration. As we wrote in our review of the game when it launched on PC, it's a "well narrated and emotionally engaging" experience, held back at launch on PC by a couple of technical faults. Having seen the game on console, we still noticed a couple of minor frame-rate drops, but it seems a more polished experience ahead of its appearance on PS4 and Xbox One.

When speaking to art director and screenwriter Luca Dalco, he revealed that he was inspired by his own experience of mental illness and came across the institute after embarking upon research. With The Town of Light he has strived to portray an accurate snapshot of this defining era and wished to open a dialogue about mental health to increase awareness and acceptance. While you may grow a natural attachment to protagonist Renèe throughout the narrative, Luca's team worked to not impose a bias, but instead present the facts in an authentic manner, allowing you to form your own personal opinions.

Luca also mentioned a major ethical difficulty he faced whilst creating the character of Renèe was deciding whether to compromise the authenticity of the story or retell somebody's true story. When creating the character of Renèe he created a storyboard of around 200 pages, creating her life from birth to death. The story was inspired by his research of reading books, interviewing those involved, and studying the surrounding locations. He mentioned that only around 15% of this story made it into the game, but in order to make it believable he had to create the entire story. This meticulous level of planning is echoed within the narrative as you start to develop a real sense of attachment to Renèe and feel a powerful sense of empathy during her darkest moments.

The real horror is that The Town of Light's story is grounded in reality and what we see is inspired by the experiences of thousands of people, many of whom were committed with minor treatable conditions. Through teenage protagonist Renèe, this haunting breath of reality is felt, as she falls witness to the institute's primitive methods of treatment, severe overcrowding and horrific moments of abuse. While we can shrug off many other horror titles as a work of fiction, The Town of Light's themes are especially profound as they are rooted in reality and tackle subjects that would have likely had an impact on us all.

Releasing on consoles soon, The Town of Light will feature more collectables to flesh out the story, as well as enhanced voice work. Looking towards the future, Luca's team are hoping to use video games as a medium to tell similar stories and we were told that there's some Easter eggs scattered around the console version pointing to this. After seeing the degree of passion and dedication to authenticity that was poured into LKA's first outing, we're excited to see what stories they're hoping to explore next. The Town of Light mightn't be a perfect video game, but it is a title built around a noble cause that grapples with a subject matter that very few dare to tackle.