MILAN, Italy, March 12, 2025 — Today, Hail Macbeth, a third-person narrative game led by Italian theater director turned game creator Paolo Sacerdoti, was announced as in development at his independent studio, Specto Studio, in collaboration with veterans from the video game industry. A bold new interactive adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, the game reimagines the relationship between player, character, and fate. Prioritizing storytelling over mechanics, Hail Macbeth transforms video games into a medium for emotional and narrative depth, where interaction enhances the experience rather than dictating play. This adaptation challenges players to navigate a world where every choice feels both personal and inevitable, bringing new layers of meaning to one of literature’s most haunting tales.
“Macbeth is the perfect intersection of action and introspection,” said Sacerdoti. “Its themes of fate and free will feel uniquely suited to an interactive experience. That tension between control and inevitability is what drives Hail Macbeth, making players complicit in a story they can’t change. I’ve always been drawn to video games for their ability to create deeply personal, immersive storytelling experiences. Coming from theater, I see Hail Macbeth as an opportunity to explore that potential—giving Shakespeare lovers a way to discover the power of interactive storytelling, and gamers a fresh way to engage with one of the greatest stories ever told.”
From Stage to Screen: A Vision for Games as Art
Sacerdoti saw video games as the next evolution of his craft, building on a multifaceted background in theater and immersive experiences, from large-scale productions to experimental interactive works. In May 2024, he began developing Hail Macbeth, seeing interactive storytelling as the ultimate stage—where agency, emotion, and narrative collide in ways no other medium can fully capture. Treating the game as a work of art in its own right, he set out to create an experience that is both narratively rich and emotionally immersive. To bring this vision to life, he assembled an elite team of game industry veterans, including game designers, level designers, concept artists, composers, and motion capture specialists who previously worked on renowned narrative-driven and cinematic titles such as Detroit: Become Human, Horizon Forbidden West, Hellblade 2, Alan Wake 2 and The Last of Us. Together, they are pushing the boundaries of what games can achieve as an artistic and storytelling medium.
A World Shaped by Paranoia, Not History
The world of Hail Macbeth is moody, dreamlike, and untethered from time—set in a version of the 1990s that feels both modern and surreal. This city, shaped by ambition and alienation, is the physical manifestation of productivity culture taken to its extreme. Castles loom over brutalist architecture, trench warfare meets corporate high-rises, and industrial ruins pulse with an eerie, dreamlike energy.
To achieve a sense of lived-in reality, the team embraced hyper-realism—scanning real costumes and props not for pure visual fidelity, but as a storytelling tool. Every object, every environment carries the weight of history, revealing the unseen habits and unspoken past of its inhabitants. A sofa isn’t just a place to sit—it’s worn on one armrest, sagging on one side, subtly revealing who once occupied it. This level of hyper-real detail wasn’t about recreating history, but about grounding players in a world that feels psychologically real, even as reality itself distorts around them.
Approaching the game with a theatrical sensibility, Sacerdoti treated the world of Hail Macbeth not just as a space to design, but as a stage to construct—where every detail, from lighting to costume texture, serves the narrative. Rather than adhering to strict historical accuracy, Hail Macbeth’s setting reflects the play’s themes—ambition distorting reality, paranoia shaping perception. Players are both puppet and puppeteer, immersed in a world that reacts as much to their choices as to its language and soundscape, drawing them into the tragedy in ways that feel unsettlingly personal.
A Tragic Story, A Player’s Fate
Shakespeare has been adapted across mediums for decades, but Hail Macbeth explores what video games can offer that film cannot—an experience where players don’t just observe a tragedy but become entangled in it. Designed around exploration and psychological tension, the game places players in the role of an unseen force shaping Macbeth’s destiny. Played in third person, Hail Macbeth unfolds through all key moments of the play, but interactions are structured to reflect the weight of choice—not just what players do, but what they hesitate to do.
At its core, Hail Macbeth remains faithful to Shakespeare’s language—every spoken word in the game is taken directly from the original text, preserving its rhythm and musicality. While dialogue has been carefully restructured and reassigned to fit the game’s cinematic and interactive nature, the integrity of Macbeth remains intact. The result is an experience where players engage not just with the play’s themes, but with its language in a way that feels immersive and alive.
Hail Macbeth challenges players’ sense of control. Some actions feel deliberate, while others seem disturbingly automatic, creating an unsettling disconnect between player intent and Macbeth’s fate. The world itself acknowledges players’ presence in ways that challenge traditional storytelling. The witches—agents of prophecy—are embedded into the game’s UI, subtly revealing or obscuring information, shifting perspective, and distorting reality in ways that make players question the limits of their control.
Through these elements, Hail Macbeth plays with the tension between agency and fate, immersing players in a tragedy where their presence shapes the experience, even as the outcome feels inescapable—a vision of Shakespeare not just as a story to be told, but as an interactive work of art.
Coming to Console and PC
Hail Macbeth is currently in development and will be released on console and PC in Q1 2026. Additional details about the game, including key gameplay features, will be revealed in the coming months. For more information, visit HailMacbeth.com.
About Paolo Sacerdoti
Paolo Sacerdoti is a designer and director specializing in immersive storytelling, with a background spanning theater, experiential design, and interactive media. Trained in acting and directing at C.S.C. Carcano in Milan, he furthered his studies at the Strasberg Institute and Yale University. Beyond the stage, he has contributed to academic research at Università Cattolica’s Department of Psychology, studying awe, the sublime, and transformative experiences, and exploring how psychology and artistic practice shape perception and immersion. In 2018, he directed Roseline, Italy’s first large-scale immersive theater production, earning critical acclaim. After working across entertainment, advertising, and academia, he turned to game design in 2023, bringing his expertise in narrative immersion to Hail Macbeth, his debut game project.
About Specto Studio
Specto Studio is an independent creative studio dedicated to pushing the boundaries of interactive storytelling. Originally founded by Paolo Sacerdoti for his large-scale immersive theater productions, including Roseline, the studio now expands into game development, bringing its expertise in narrative and worldbuilding to digital experiences. Based in Milan, the studio unites a team of experienced developers from the gaming industry to craft immersive, narrative-driven experiences. Hail Macbeth is the studio’s debut gaming project, reimagining Shakespeare’s tragedy through a bold new interactive format.
# # #