“She’s been written as someone who is in charge, in control… “

Italian studio Storm in a Teacup is gearing up for the upcoming release of its first-person horror game Close to the Sun and publisher Wired Productions has shared a video interview with the voice behind the game’s central character.

Singer-songwriter and voice actress Emily Moment portrays Rose Archer, a journalist searching for her sister Ada aboard the Helios – a research facility tucked away on international waters. The place is empty but smells of rotting flesh.

“Rose is smart and enterprising, and she is sassy. I like all those qualities,” Moment explained. “I quite like that this is obviously a strong female-driven script – that’s really drawn me to it. The fact that it’s two strong female roles in it has been great, but particularly that she is not a side character. She’s been written as someone who is in charge, in control, who gets the job done and has a sense of humour, which I quite like.”

Close to the Sun is Moment’s first video game project and she remarked how different it was compared to jobs where she’s recording with others in a scene.

“I love it, it is so much fun,” said Moment on her video game debut. “It’s different than working with someone else in a scene, where it’s purely based on listening, right? You have to be a fantastic listener in order to be a good actor with a partner.

“This is a completely solo job but you have so much freedom because you don’t have to base your responses off what someone else says. You get to create what the character is feeling and thinking, and you might even have the ability to say something and maybe kind of inspire the way that it’s going to be designed around it. It’s really exciting. I love it.”

Other topics in the interview include the importance of good writing for a voice over artist, and the relationship between Rose and Ada.

“… they would die and kill for each other.”

Close to the Sun will be released on 2nd May for PC exclusively from the Epic Games Store. Pre-orders include a limited edition digital art book.

A console release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is scheduled for 2019.