Developer: Supermassive Games
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Release Date: 22nd October 2021
Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
▫️ Review code provided by the publisher ▫️
Well, it’s The Dark Pictures Anthology time again! The House of Ashes released this Spooktober in good time for the happy Halloween season. Let’s start by making something very clear. In my humble, slightly quirky, occasionally bizarre but always honest opinion, this release is the best we’ve seen from Supermassive Games since the splendid Until Dawn.
Much like the previous games in the anthology, you are put in charge of keeping alive a small collection of ignorant humans who will never see their worst fears and possibly their sticky deaths coming. This time instead of a ghost ship or an abandoned town, you are lost in a big hole, in a war zone, which isn’t ideal at the best of times, but throw in something big and bitey with a desire to make you shit your shorts and you are truly all out of luck. If Man of Medan was a little more old fashioned in its style of horror, House of Ashes feels more up to date with much better pacing and some excellent action breaking up the darker moments. It’s a terrific scenario with a great story which I won’t go into for fear of spoilers but I will say it put me in mind of a very recent series and a slightly older film or two. House of Ashes really feels the most like a proper interactive horror film since Until Dawn. The production quality is so high this could almost be Hollywood.
The action scenes are of course littered with QTE’s but there are difficulty options to help you out if required. There’s a handy symbol that appears on the screen to let you know to brace for a QTE so it isn’t a QTE nightmare like back in ye olde times. Your success at these events will partially plot your course as well as your dialogue decisions. There is a lot happening between the characters which helps to ground the story from a hellish fantasy into something that is also more relatable. It’s easy to step into the shoes of these characters and sometimes beautifully hard to make decisions for them. A great script obviously helps a lot with this and I’m pleased to say it’s low on cheese and high on building a narrative that pushes the characters, the story and the gameplay along. There are repercussions for everything you decide and the impact of these can vary from very small to absolutely massive. A tiny thing can have both devastating and very varied consequences and sometimes it’s really not easy to decide if you made the right choice. One particular choice I made near the beginning of my solo game had consequences that hit me throughout my playthrough, even right up to the end. I’d absolutely fluffed it up, so I thought, but in addition to the negative outcome there was also a spark of light that finally made me decide that I’d chosen wisely after all, even if it did cost me in other ways.
My second playthrough was a shared experience and it was a lot of fun to see how things played out when my buddy chose different courses. Solo I’d managed to save everyone and I tried ever so hard not to nudge him towards failure just to see what happened. “Luckily” a few QTE slip-ups and some different choices did indeed lead us down different paths with a few casualties. Playing together online was an odd experience at first as you are sometimes playing out completely different scenes simultaneously. It’s an interesting way to handle online play and it certainly did change up the experience in a big way. These types of games are meant to have multiple playthroughs and House of Ashes handles that beautifully. The standard solo Theatrical Cut in itself can go so many different ways. The shared experience builds on that. It’s a fantastic idea to play through more than once, both online and solo if possible because the combination of the two expand the story and give you so much more depth. Additionally, after the standard solo Theatrical Cut was finished, I unlocked the Curator’s Cut. This time the perspectives shifted and I was able to play from the point of view of different characters to my original solo playthrough. It’s both a clever alternative and brilliant addition to the Theatrical Cut and shared experience which, again, gives you more depth to the story and more chances to deviate and play with the scenario as you want. There’s so much that can change and it’s truly worth seeing.
Visually, House of Ashes looks gorgeous. The character models are finely detailed and the environments are surprisingly stunning considering you’re in a very dark hole. The lighting is just perfect. The dark tunnels and corridors are pitch back and you often only have a small light that you can aim around to see where you are going. The darkness gives off a very intense and claustrophobic vibe and I often found myself holding my breath until I reached a lighter area or until that bitey thing I mentioned earlier forced the breath out of me. Although House of Ashes is far from the scariest game ever made, there are some pleasing jump scares along the way and plenty of tension to keep you wide-eyed and very alert. One small thing I did notice was that during the shared experience, the game sometimes had a small delay when picking up collectables and my buddy experienced a couple of minor bugs. Other than that the game’s performance was excellent. I would like to see control of the characters become a little smoother in future games as they currently feel rather heavy and clunky to move around, but considering everything else it’s a minor complaint.
It’s clear that Supermassive’s Dark Pictures Anthology is improving with every new release. House of Ashes is the best of the bunch so far. Everything clicks, everything works. It’s a damn fine game and worth every penny even at full price. I’m now excited for the future of this series and will be pouncing on the next game. Of course, I’m not done with this one yet. Still got to try to kill them all off because what’s video games without an occasional slice of sadism.
-S.J. Hollis