Interview: The Tale of Bistun (2025)

By Heidi Nicholas,

The Tale of Bistun promises to offer a story of myth and magic set against the backdrop of Persian mythology when it launches for Xbox next month.

The poem ‘Khosrow and Shirin’ tells of a tragic romance, and it’s the inspiration behind action-adventure game The Tale of Bistun. We reached out to the developers to find out more, with Black Cube Games’ Ehsan Tahmoures and Majid Rahmani having been kind enough to answer our questions.

What is The Tale of Bistun?

The Tale of Bistun is an action-adventure game with a rich story, inspired by the Persian poem ‘Khosrow and Shirin’. It’s in development from Black Cube Games and is published by IMGN.Pro.

When does The Tale of Bistun launch?

We don’t have too long to wait for The Tale of Bistun, which launches for Xbox One next month on July 13th!

What’s it about?

So, we know that The Tale of Bistun is inspired by the 12th century Persian poem ‘Khosrow and Shirin’, which tells of a tragic romance. “In the poems, as you can guess from the title, the king of Persia (Khosrow) and the princess of Armenia (Shirin) are the two main characters,” Tahmoures and Rahmani explain. “The original story is about their love affairs that end tragically. But, in this long poem, another character has remained in the minds of people more than the other characters despite his short presence. The story of The Tale of Bistun is about a stone carver (Farhad) who dares to accomplish an impossible task to reach his love: building a passage, alone, through a mountain,” Tahmoures and Rahmani continue. “This is the point that distinguishes Farhad from other characters: doing something very hard to achieve a goal. For us at Black Cube Games, a small team, developing indie games by adapting stories from Persian myths has been our passion for so long. And Farhad's determination through his journey inspired us to keep on and start our stories with this specific Persian myth.”

So, we play as that stone carver, who wakes up on Mount Bistun with no memory of how he came to be there. Meanwhile, a mysterious blight is corrupting the world, making monsters out of the wildlife. “The source of the blight is a titan-sized deev” (a demonic creature) “named Bistun, who is guarding a mysterious hidden realm called the Revelations Realm. The blight is a sickness that has appeared in Talisman Stones and as glowing tentacles around the trees and which has afflicted nature all over Persia,” Tahmoures and Rahmani say. “Farhad has to destroy these Talisman Stones to help nature, and in return, he will receive magical pomegranates. Farhad will remember parts of his forgotten memories by eating these divine fruits. He will remember that he was in love with a princess who is now stuck in the Revelations Realm, captivated by Bistun deev. But is this the whole story?” Tahmoures and Rahmani ask. “No! Why does Bistun deev try to pollute nature? And why has Farhad gotten amnesia and lost his memories?”

How does The Tale of Bistun play?

Exploration and combat are “both vital parts of the game's core loop,” Tahmoures and Rahmani explain. “Combat mostly serves as a pace-breaker during exploration and story beats, while in exploration you can find three kinds of collectibles alongside your journey. These collectibles all are story-related but one focuses on the backstory and the world of the game, while the other two are related to the main character and his personality. The third part of the core loop, however,” Tahmoures and Rahmani add, “is the Revelation Realm. All that happens in this realm is story content. Progression of the story and the game itself is heavily carried over by Revelation Realm sequences.”

It’s an interesting idea, to feature elements inspired by Persian mythology in the game — and this extends to its enemies, too. “We tried to design enemies based on Persian folklore. For example, deev and Parry are both mythical creatures in Persian legends and we put them in our game,” Tahmoures and Rahmani say. “However, we didn't merely focus on the folkloric aspect of enemies but also in terms of gameplay, so we designed both melee and mid-range enemies. Although the combat system of the game is not that complex, we still wanted enemies to somehow serve as a counter ability to the character.” There are six types of enemies to face: “some melee enemies swarm at the player while others are tough, more powerful deevs in almost one-to-one battles. Regarding the mid-range enemies, there are soldiers that fight with spears and shields. Parry, as mentioned above, is another mid-ranged enemy that casts a magical orb which follows the player for a specific time.”

What’s the world like?

Our character will travel between the real world, on Mount Bistun, and the world of forgotten memories: the Revelations Realm. “The game's hub is a peaceful foggy mountain where Farhad can dig through Mount Bistun, talk to NPCs, carve statues, engrave inscriptions, find Memory stones, and discover revelations,” Tahmoures and Rahmani say. “Using Memory stones, Farhad discovers a dark hidden realm where a mysterious whisper guides him to the Fortress of Oblivion: a dreadful place where a giant deev wanders around it.”

Any news on The Tale of Bistun achievements?

We don’t yet have The Tale of Bistun achievements, but Tahmoures and Rahmani gave us an idea of the design process behind them. “The Extra Credits YouTube channel has a magnificent episode on designing achievements in its earlier seasons; it was one of our sources of inspiration,” Tahmoures and Rahmani begin. “Alongside it there were some scientific articles about rewards and achievements both in human life and video games. We also have years of experience as gamers hunting trophies and achievements! Based on the aforementioned sources, we wanted some achievements that players will eventually obtain just by following the story and finishing the game. However, most of them are not visible in the achievements section of the console or PC in order to not spoil anything. On the other hand,” Tahmoures and Rahmani continue, “there are some optional activities in the game that players could do or miss, like collecting collectibles. So we dedicated parts of our achievements to optional tasks, but we prefer players to do them. So we've teased some of them in the achievements menu and have let some of them stay hidden. Lastly,” Tahmoures and Rahmani conclude, “there are some things that we can say are just aesthetic. Things that when they occur you may think, ‘that could be cool if I get an achievement there’. And so here it is, an achievement pop-up. They are there for players who want to complete the game or reach 100% achievement-wise, without overwhelming the players so much.”

Out of all that, what are they most excited for players to experience when The Tale of Bistun launches? “Since there are few video games based on Persian mythology, we're most excited to find out how much the players are interested in it,” Tahmoures and Rahmani answer. “Are they eager for more?”

What do you think? Will you be heading to Mount Bistun to uncover its mysteries and recover your memories? Let us know in the comments!

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Written by Heidi Nicholas

Heidi tends to lean towards indie games, RPGs, and open-world games on Xbox, and when not playing Disney Dreamlight Valley, happily installs every new wholesome game that appears on Xbox Game Pass, before diving back into favorites like The Witcher 3. She's looking forward to Age of Mythology Retold, Everwild, Fable, and Avowed on the Xbox horizon. Heidi graduated with an MA in English Literature before joining the TrueAchievements team.

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