Navid Khonsari is revisiting his roots with 1979 Revolution, a first-person immersive video game exploring the tumultuous Iranian events of that time

During the Iran hostage crisis of 1979, Navid Khonsari was on the way to Canada with his family, escaping the Iranian Revolution. But it never stopped haunting him.

Khonsari, the founder of Ink Stories in Brooklyn, is the picture of the successful American entrepreneur. Khonsari has worked on some of the world’s most popular video games, including Grand Theft Auto, one of the most popular – and controversial – video games of all time. His corner desk overlooks the open Ink Stories office, a multimedia production company he co-founded with his wife Vassiliki Khonsari. Bits of gold and diamond glint on Khonsari’s fingers, wrists and neck. He sports the look of a lot of Brooklyn creatives: interesting eyeglasses, turquoise pants, a crisp oxford shirt and bulky headphones.



But Khonsari can’t get out of his mind what it would have been like to stay in Iran. His new video game, 1979 Revolution, is based on a protagonist named Reza who stayed behind in Iran long after Khonsari’s own family left.



Reza who lives in 1970s Tehran, as did Khonsari, is “swept away by the passion that he sees in the streets.” Khonsari recalls his own excitement as a kid to see tanks rolling down the street and a sea of protestors. Despite Khonsari’s young age at the time, the power of the people was palpable.

Their paths diverse there. The fictional Reza remains in Iran throughout the revolution and its aftermath. His path is a complicated one. Khonsari describes Reza’s trajectory from politically impartial observer, to revolutionary hero, to public enemy number one.

Reza’s life is being assembled and planned in a buzzing office in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood – a once industrial area that is now filled with lofts commanding astonishing views of the Manhattan skyline and the pricey mortgages to match. A handful of young Ink Stories employees buzz around the office in service to the fictional Reza. They answer phones and prepare walls for future whiteboards and the Ink Stories logo, a boy with a hat that looks like a fez. A smattering of Persian rugs warm up the polished cement floor and a grid of storyboard illustrations are taped to a wall. 1979 Revolution is slated for release by spring 2015, playable on PCs, consoles and tablets.



But can the complexities of the Iranian revolution and its vast diaspora, be captured in a video game?

Khonsari has no doubts. “Absolutely,” he says. “You’ll get a good understanding of the entire eco-system of political philosophies.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest An Iranian woman walks past a mural showing a gun painted with an interpretation of the American flag on the wall of the former US embassy in Tehran. Photograph: ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images

What makes it work is the player’s viewpoint – 1979 Revolution is not a traditional first-person shooter game like Grand Theft Auto.

Instead, the player embodies Reza, a photojournalist, and makes his decisions during the chaos of the revolution. How should he stay stealth and avoid detection? Should he turn to violence? Which injured friend should he help, leaving the other to die?



“They’ll be forced to make these morally ambiguous choices,” Vassiliki Khonsari says, “that’s sort of the fun in the game.” Each decision creates a different storyline so the two-hour game can be played repeatedly.

The Khonsaris coined the term “Vérité Games” to describe 1979 Revolution and their future projects, which could potentially explode into a new gaming genre. It’s a form of interactive storytelling that combines advanced video game technology with elements from documentary film, and a flexible fictionalized narrative.



1979 Revolution is the natural evolution of the Khonsaris’ combined work experiences; he’s worked on blockbuster video games like Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne among others; she has a documentary background. One of her films is about the Kamakia lovers in Greece – men who seduced female tourists – where she’s spent summers with her extended Greek family.

With these creative influences, experts say that 1979 Revolution defies categorization.



The way it positions history and experiential game play is pretty unique

“The way it positions history and experiential game play is pretty unique,” says video game analyst Billy Pidgeon after looking at a 1979 Revolution sample clip.

It delights Pidgeon that the game evades easy labels: it is visually sophisticated, edgy, and based on a framework of facts – yet not didactic.



From afar 1979 Revolution might have a whiff of the educational, but Khonsari is adamant that the game is first and foremost entertainment. “I think if you go about this heavy handed,” says Khonsari, “you kind of have one foot in the grave.”

Pidgeon believes the misogyny that’s been unleashed during the recent GamerGate movement, which he calls “rancid,” is a symptom of the growing popularity of non-traditional video games, some of which are created by women. “There’s more to life than first person shooters,” Pidgeon says of the stereotypical GamerGate gamer, “and they hate it.”

‘I think if you go about this heavy handed,’ says Khonsari, ‘you kind of have one foot in the grave.’ Photograph: Nina Roberts

The Khonsari family moved to Canada on December 22, 1979. It was “kind of sad and happy all mixed in one,” Khonsari describes slowly. Through connections his father made a decade earlier when completing his medical residency in Montreal, the family settled in a rural farming town north of Toronto. They started their new life with the items they could take on the airplane. “We left behind a life,” states Khonsari.

Khonsari’s family felt they had to leave Iran. His father was considered “western affiliated” simply because he made a good income as a urologist, according to Khonsari. When Ayatollah Khomeini came to power prior to their departure, Khonsari remembers a sense of heaviness. Conversations swirling around his extended family shifted from “When are you coming back?” to “Where are you going?”

Khonsari was called a “motherfucking Iranian” on his first day of school in early January; the Iranian hostage crisis was underway, broadcast on the nightly news. He now speaks in a North American accent with no trace of his first language, Farsi; Khonsari chuckles at his limited English at the time. He understood “mother” and “Iranian,” and once he figured out “fucking,” fists went flying. “Donny” as Khonsari remembers him, was suspended by the principal and Khonsari was told to return to class. The principal’s actions made a huge impression on Khonsari, who at that moment thought that maybe Canada would turn out to be okay.

Khonsari has a friendly face accented with angular metal-framed glasses. His demeanor is sunny, enthusiastic and positive. Every job he reflects on was “a great learning experience.” Even his action feature The Contract that earned online reviews like “acting is below atrocious” and “credibility-straining plot turns” he considers a triumph, he sold it one year after film school. Peddling dog food at dog shows across Canada? “For somebody who wants to be a storyteller, the characters were aplenty,” beams Khonsari.

In 2000 Khonsari moved to New York City, and the sense of ambition he found was addictive; “You want to be around it if you are ambitious.”



New York City reminded him of Tehran: huge, sprawling, established, an essential city in the world. First Khonsari worked under the table at a dot com, and then at Rockstar Games after meeting the director of development at a party Khonsari weaseled into for the free food. After years of “nonstop learning” at Rockstar, he left in 2006 to strike out on his own.

Under the easygoing exterior, Khonsari possesses a shrewd understanding of business and a creative project’s commercial success. “You have to be an entrepreneur in order to be able to get your stories distributed and financed and supported,” says Khonsari.



With a smile, he says the better word for entrepreneur might be “hustler.”



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Iranian female students wave flags during a ceremony marking the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Tehran, Iran in 2010. Photograph: ABEDIN TAHERKENAREH/EPA

Critics might say it’s in bad taste to make entertainment based on the bloody Iranian Revolution. Revolution, including Iran’s, is not sacred says author Hooman Majd, though he concedes those who had family members die during the revolution could be offended by the game.



“Revolution as entertainment? What about Les Misérables?” asks author Hooman Majd rhetorically. Majd, who writes frequently about Iran, adds as an aside that it happens to be the Supreme Leader’s favorite book.

“As an artist you can’t worry about that too much,” says Majd of the potential sensitivities. He is a fierce defender of artists’ rights: “you just have to worry about being honest.”

Majd notes most Iranian authorities are very wary of western depictions of Iran. “A lot of people in power in Iran believe very much the US is after a soft development revolution to slowly undermine the Iranian regime so they fall,” explains Majd. So far, Khonsari has only received one article via Facebook alleging that he’s making American propaganda.

According to Khonsari, accuracy in 1979 Revolution is “nailed down.” Ink Stories has been conducting ongoing interviews with people who lived through the revolution and have consulted with Iranian academics and experts like Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment. As Khonsari puts it, “we just want to make sure we can silence out critics.”