Alone in the Dark (2024)

I gotta say I really enjoyed the atmosphere, the exploration of the mansion and the story of this one. The ways it makes parallels between lovecraftian horror and the decaying mental health of one of the characters are very interesting (please note I say 'interesting', not good). The part about the accidental lobotomy was kinda amusing.

The combat is really bad and the dialogues could be a lot better. I also find ridiculous how you can just defeat a cosmic horror by shooting at it.

I found this game to be a good modern survival horror game. To be fair, I have not played the original Alone in the Dark games. (I have always been more of a Resident evil fan).

I wouldn't say this game reinvents the genre in terms of remakes (If it is one?) or reboots, or even in terms of survival horror, I do think it's a good game.

The story and world are interesting. In fact, the best thing about the game is the level of detail in the environment and atmosphere, and even in the various clues you find throughout the manor.

The nature of the cosmic horror you face remains obtuse throughout, which is what cosmic horror should do, and that was done well. Generally, I didn't find any regular aspect of the game "scary" in terms of the monsters, combat, or general moments. However, the atmosphere was quite well done.

The exploration of this manor is excellent due to the attention to detail and the puzzles and progression (ie get this odd key to progress in tha place over there, do a weird status puzzle, etc) is good.

The combat is the weakest part. The gunplay itself is not terrible, however the main negative is that the monster designs are not that varied, or even interesting to begin with.

Additionally, the performances by actors Jodie Comer and David Harbour as the 2 playable protagonists are of course great.

I enjoyed this, though it was simple, and not too stressful of a survival horror game. I would like to see them make more alone in the dark games like this. For the 6 hour story (doubled if you do 2 campaigns) I would mainly recommend it on a discount unless you are a huge fan of the franchise. But sometimes you don't want an 80 hour game, sometimes you want a 6 hour game.

I really enjoyed this game. I’m not going to replay the other campaign just because I want to be able to get to more games and I know that the other campaign is SIMILAR but I am going to watch through all the endings and different cutscenes because I am still interested in what the rest of the game had to offer.

This was very lovely, it was visually beautiful. The setting was incredible. The game was so so beautiful that I would just stop and stare at it. You know that like common thing in games where there will be a SUGGESTION of a poster but it’s just blurry shapes and lines? Well in this game, every poster or cough drop box is in crisp detail. You can just go up and read stuff, or look at paintings and it’ll be a handcrafted item that was meant to be looked at, not something just to fill a screen. The other thing that stuck out to me was the voice acted lore notes. Everything was voice acted, including the narration of the player character’s journal. That is very cool and I don’t think I’ve ever played another game that has done that. The puzzles were fun, but not very challenging.

When it comes to story, well- its a LITTLE confusing but it’s still interesting. Emily’s campaign was very compelling with the family connection to Jeremy, and I found her connection with Ruth to be interesting. I wish they did more with her. I also wish that the story was a little more cohesive and clear bc to be honest, the game play was fun and every bit was interesting to play in the moment but when it comes to overall cohesion it fell a little flat. That’s the only reason it’s 4 stars and not 5.

I finished Emily’s play through, and I’m not entirely sure if I plan to play it again as Edward. While there are a few standout moments, the new Alone in the Dark is a largely derivative work that doesn’t really do anything particularly compelling with its format, nor its Lovecraftian elements.

But as I said, there were some standout moments, and a lot of the game’s early exploration and mystery solving is fun, and several of the dream locations were interesting enough to feel occasionally captivating. Yet none of those standout moments really rescue the game from its messier elements, from wooden acting, to a paper thin narrative, or its clunky portrayal of mental health, unfortunately dull graphical realism, and lacklustre mechanics. It flirts with a streak of Orientalism, if only briefly and in ways that probably could have been left out of the story without any real effect. Parallel to that, it also represents Vodou in a stereotypical fashion that isn’t surprising, but is disappointing.

Hayes Madsen at Inverse touches on the way I felt during the game’s best moments:

The initial hours are where Alone in the Dark’s strengths really shine through, as Derceto Manor is a marvelously realized location that genuinely oozes atmosphere. It’s a self-contained setting packed to the brim with puzzles, bizarre residents, and bits of lore to uncover. Sections where you explore the manor are some of the best the game has to offer. It feels incredibly reminiscent of Spencer Mansion from Resident Evil, in a good way.

But that doesn’t hold up, and the overall package fails to really deliver in any compelling ways. While combat is meant to provide a layer of friction in survival horror, it never feels quite right. It’s clumsy, yet so much ammo is thrown at you, even on hard, that you’re never really struggling except with the game’s terrible aiming system. Puzzles that are novel at first, are wither never repeated or are so simple that they present little in the way of satisfying “ah-ha” moments. And the game continually trips over its mishmash of thematic and narrative elements in ways that prevent cohesion. As Madsen concludes:

Alone in the Dark is the kind of game I don’t necessarily regret playing, but for every little thing I loved, there were three things I hated. The aesthetic and environmental design are genuinely great, featuring eerie locations that really evoke the 1920s setting in imaginative ways, and the best mansion since Resident Evil. But making your way through those environments is filled with so much frustration, compounded by the fact that the two playable characters retread the same ground. And the story can feel downright incomprehensible at times, highlighted by a lack of care for its more sensitive material. If Alone in the Dark was ever going to have a comeback, this is far from what the series needed.

Although I didn’t find the story incomprehensible, I do think the writing lacks an edge to elevate the game above its position as a conventional and middling survival horror adventure. Otherwise I agree with Madsen’s sentiment that I don’t regret playing Alone in the Dark, yet that it has enough shortcomings to prevent it from being a memorable or essential addition to the legacy of survival horror that the original Alone in the Dark inspired.

The word that comes to mind is "janky".

The game ok overall, but technically it's wonky as heck - especially the combat. Bad combat is a staple of survival horror, sure, but here it feels pretty pointless and not so fun...

Also the monster design is just boring. Enemies look bad and don't offer an interesting challenge (the final boss is just the worst). The story is kinda interesting, especially towards the end, but I don't think it's all that good - serviceable, but not that good.

Looks nice during cutscenes, and some hidden ending gives you a reason to play again. If Emily's and Carnby's campaigns where really different from each other (and not just for 1 chapter) the would've been a lot better. As it stands - it's just ok.

It looks like Embracer continues its shitty M.O. and shutters another studio:

Alone In The Dark Proves That Games Aren’t Allowed To Fail Anymore

Video games used to be an art form where every single thing didn’t need to set the world on fire. Developers could afford to try new ideas, take risks, and embrace failure because they knew that even if reviews were middling or sales were passable, they had a chance to dust themselves off and try again. That time has passed, and the medium is forever worse off.

Alone in the Dark launched earlier this year and was neither a critical nor commercial success for developer Pieces Interactive or publisher THQ Nordic. The studio was already victim to a round of layoffs recently, but I don’t think any of us expected them to be shut down. But to save money and recoup losses, that is precisely what parent company Embracer Group has done. The announcement was quietly made via the official website and is heartbreaking for its brevity, as ten years of hard work and creativity were snuffed out in an instant.

Now new and existing studios aren’t allowed to grow, build portfolios, or establish what they do well without a surefire hit on their hands, but such games don’t come from nowhere. They are products of individual creative visions, tight-knit teams, and audiences who are followers of the genre and willing to support them. As a teenager, I could pick up a game I’d never ever heard of before and have it change my perception of video games forever, but every day we are moving further and further away from that. The things we play cost so much and take so long to make, that anything that doesn't take over the world is doomed to stagnate.

Alone In The Dark (2024) developer is facing layoffs a mere month after the game dropped.

And that really blows, because this game was excellent. I rated it 5⭐, and I think it's the true return to survival horror the broader games industry seems reluctant to engage in. It's my present frontrunner for GOTY, and I think it's one of the best horror games of the generation. Certainly better than what Resident Evil's been putting out since after RE2 Remake dropped.

But let's be real - marketing was almost nada. And fair enough, Embracer is broke... But the narrative around this game before it launched seemed to be, "Alone In The Dark is shit, so this game is gonna be shit." Like the "influencer" world completely shit talked this game without ever playing it, and I have no doubt that also heavily impacted sales. It was dismissed as "another one" (referring to the truly awful Alone In The Dark Inferno and Illumination), and laughed at for being done by a studio that previously did mobile games.

But a great game is a great game. And Alone In The Dark is great. The devs did a bang-up job, and they deserve a kudos and stable work.

The game has fewer than 1000 reviews on Steam, which seems to suggest lousy sales overall. I'm glad I got my physical copy, cuz I can almost guarantee this is going to be one of those games that pops off when it's rediscovered as a hidden gem.

The gameplay is serviceable. There gunplay is pretty basic, and most of the puzzles are sliding block puzzles for some reason. Thankfully, it never got annoying, but there's no standout moments.

The story isn't anything special either, but it's told in a fun way. The game revels in the 1930s Louisiana accents in a way I dug. The story regularly breaks from reality transporting the player to different locations at the flip of a switch which reminded me of The Evil Within (a game I love). And of course, the two leads are played by actors I love which is biggest selling point. Because of this, the game kept me hooked while playing my way through both characters' stories. The disappointing part is that both playthroughs are mostly the same: same enemy encounters, same puzzles, and same locations. The dialogue is different keeping true to the characters' personalities and history at least make for fresh interactions with NPCs. It wasn't until Chapter 4 (out of 5) when these characters finally split off onto their own paths.

It's a pretty painless experience. It's just that it doesn't do anything well enough to be good. It's a bit disappointing.

5th Game Completed in 2024

I really have to hand it to Embracer Group. For the third year in a row, they have managed to deliver an outstanding horror game in Alone In The Dark (the others being 2022's The Chant and 2023's Scars Above), and this one may well be the best of the lot.

Alone in the Dark (2024) is the fourth series reboot (you read that right!) of a 1992 survival horror game that really set the stage for survival horror as we know it. And in true reverence of that legacy, it's the true survival horror experience AAA gaming has all but given up on.

Derceto Manor is an interesting place. It shifts, it has doors to other places, it has people roaming about, out of your character's view. What immediately struck me about this game is just how active it is. In a bit of a subversion of the, "big old building with a bunch of locked doors" formula, doors will become locked again later in the story, after you've opened them. Items will be left in rooms by boarders and staff, some areas may be temporarily blocked off by someone you don't especially feel like arguing with, and veins of rot progressively change spaces that become familiar. Derceto is a dynamic space that constant changes along with the people and cultural influences on its grounds, and that's a theme that's strongly referred to in the game's lore.

Everything about this game is thoroughly disorienting - in a good way. The people are strange and off-kilter, switching between lucid and detached affects unpredictably. Reality will shift before your eyes, in both stark and subtle way. Nothing is ever static. The game actively fights the sense of safety and familiarity of a game like Resident Evil by changing the very geometry of spaces, and removing access to corridors on a whim.

This, of course, is really driven home with some truly exceptional writing and acting. It's always extremely suspect when a game casts celebrities, but both Jodie Comer and David Harbour deliver excellent renditions of fairly normal people in a disorienting situation - reacting with genuine confusion and distrust in very organic ways. The expanded cast, including voiced readings of documents, do an outstanding job too. The writing can't be understated either, as the game is often downright poetic in its descriptions of the unknown and otherworldly. Minor mid game spoiler: ||One particular character, The Dark Man, has literally no lines of dialogue, but still manages to be one of the single most oppressive and intimidating antagonists I've ever experienced in gaming.||

The game does struggle a bit in some areas though. The combat in this game... Kinda sucks. But that's also kind of always been the MO for the survival horror genre. Your aiming is awkward, your reload animations take forever, and recovering from a hit leaves you stunned for a good 5 seconds while enemies can continue to combo you. It was tolerable on Normal, but I could definitely see it being infuriating on Hard. As a minor note though, I found the aim sensitivity was WAY too high on default settings for PS5, so be ready to change that ASAP.

Surprisingly, and contrary to a lot of reviews, I really didn't experience much in the way of technical problems on PS5. I would occasionally get stuck on scenery, but in all but one instance, I was able to either walk or dodge out of the obstacle. That one instance was in an area that seems particularly buggy - an icy level very late in the game. Not only did I get permanently stuck, forcing a reset, but there was a very strange instance during a boss fight where after being hit exactly once, I dropped to 0 health, the game's audio cut out, and no buttons aside from movement worked at all. Had to close out the game and restart. Given the number of delays, I am kind of disappointed these weren't ironed out, but this is also the developer's first game on this scale, and what it achieves on a technical level is downright jaw-dropping.

Speaking of technical highlights, this game looks absolutely gorgeous. Visually, it's one of the best-looking games I've played... Well, ever. Much of that comes from the art direction, but the ways it can seamlessly change reality in an instant, with no load times, really sell the illusion of what this game is offering.

Overall, Alone In The Dark is a phenomenal achievement from a team who's never really done anything on this scale before. And for a first attempt, I think they knocked this one out of the friggin park. Embracer is absolutely drowning in some top-tier AA talent, especially when it comes to horror games, and I hope they continue to invest in this end of their business rather than the AAA stuff. This game is really something special, delivering a thoroughly unique survival horror experience that deeply reveres the past while also subverting and iterating upon it.

If you're into survival horror, this is truly a must-buy. It's outstanding. If you're more into the action horror stuff like Resident Evil 4-6 though, you may find the combat too obtuse to enjoy. But for someone who can overlook mid gameplay and enjoy a game for its ambiance, story, and world (myself included), I think this game's a masterpiece, and I'm really, strongly, deeply hoping it sells well enough to get a sequel. 🙏

Note: Spent around 9.5 hours on the Carnby playthrough, and will be returning to complete the Hartwood playthrough. Similar to RE2, these two characters have moderately different campaigns, so it's worth noting what I base my review upon. ;D

Disclaimer, I only got through 3/5 chapters, but I couldn’t stand it anymore. This game is a snoooozefest.

If you want a resident evil like with unresponsive combat, dull puzzles, unrewarding exploration, and almost zero charm - here it is! After just finishing Song of Horror, this is so bad in comparison.

Voice acting is fine, a couple puzzles were fun, and some mansion exploration was fun. But that was far outweighed with the tedium the rest of the game makes you do. It’s half-baked and watered down and I do not recommend.

I'll start with the bad stuff.

It has some technical difficulties with some stuttering hear and there but not like other "famous" releases a few AI bugs and one, probably two audio bugs. At least that is what i encountered in my playthrough. Either wait for a patch or be patient because the journey is really good.

For a first experience i started with standard difficulty and no hints and it was a memorable journey

Now, the good stuff.

I'm just going to say right from the start that, this is the most closest horror game, in my experience, that respects the Lovecraft vibe and mythos since Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth. Mister Mikael Hedberg who worked previously on SOMA and Amnesia the Dark Descend has done a terrific job setting a misterious, crazy, unsettling, rich universe using the good stuff from famous cult classic movies, and games such as The thing, Shutter Island, Silent Hill, RE.

The exploring part is rewarding, with a lot of trinkets and background story in form of pages with the posibility of listening to them with some good voice acting. Puzzles are fair and not too hard to figure out. Once you get inside Derceto and start exploring it and meet its inhabitants it will feel like something taken from an American Horror Story episode.

There are a few jump scares but they don't overuse them.

The soundtrack and sound design is just amazing, it blends perfectly with the noir vibe, fighting and tense moments. I took my time slowly exploring the mansion just to absorb the unsettling air that weighed heavy on detective Carnby. The characters are done well and there are some funny moments to lighten up the mood.

Combat system Well, here it depends on your preferences. I failed a couple of times and i admit it is a bit clunky but i think it is meant to feel like that. After a few encounters and analyzing how the level design was thought, i had no issues and i faced the challenges with a decent amount of difficult.

Last but not least, the story, it messes with your mind and your expectations along the way. It is fantastic.

Lads and Lasses and Wonderful Enbies, this game is fan freaking tastic so far in the first hour. Combat is a bit naff, but the tone, atmosphere, and utterly disorienting narrative paired with a downbeat moody jazz soundtrack...

If it continues like this, I have an early GOTY favourite. I really like how it gives you the option to be guided through the game or solve puzzles and read clues on your own accord.