Alone in the Dark is a hell of a lot better than I thought it would be. David Harbor and Jodie Comer star in this Action-Horror title from developer Pieces Interactive. Early preview trailers looked rough, but promising. I’m happy to say, after beating the game three times, that it’s a damned good time. You will attempt to uncover the mystery of Derceto Manor, a Southern Gothic-style mansion full of patients, a single weird-assed doctor, and a whole lot of intrigue.
The Setting
The game begins with a choice to play as either Emily Hartwood or Edward Carnby. It’s a bit of a false one though, as you’ll need to play the game through as both to see its full story, as you attempt to unlock its extra alternate ending as well. Emily, voiced by and featuring the likeness of Jodie Comer, has received a letter from her Uncle Jeremy, who fears for his life. She has hired Edward Carnby, played by David Harbor, a private investigator to assist.
Early on your choice doesn’t change a ton as the game flows in a single direction. Both Emily and Edward will go through the same overall plot beats, though with different cutscenes and dialogue shaped to how the house’s tenants view each of them. Emily is familiar with the place and people are kinder to her in general. Edward’s gruff exterior leads to more combative cutscenes and less overall help.
Set during the Interbellum period in rural Louisiana you’ll visit various locations in the region via interesting mechanics. The title doesn’t go for period-authentic accents for most of its characters, nor does it ever hint at the racial and societal issues of the time. It’s focused on Derceto and Emily’s search for her Uncle. Early on your playable character will be affected by a painting and start seeing things the other character cannot. It’s an interesting mix when you compare each playthrough, with how scenes play out.
To unlock a secret ending you’ll need to find key Langinappes, AKA a fancy term for this game’s collectibles. There are sets to find that add to the lore and unlock secrets and they are the main impetus for exploration outside of finding more ammo or health. After my initial playthrough as Edward, I felt a little let-down by the game’s ending. After seeing things through as Emily though I got the context I needed to make things feel more complete. There are still questions though and I can’t wait to see what the extra ending has in store.
Puzzles
This is a survival-horror puzzle game through and through on normal and hard difficulties. Easy is available as well if you prefer a more action slant on things. One of the best features of Alone in the Dark is the ability to turn on more direct hints on where to go or what to do in the options menu. You can have it obfuscated and more hunt and peck on how to advance if you prefer the older style. I chose to let it give me a more directed playthrough the first time and turned off the hints in my 2nd run as I knew more about where to go early on.
Most of the puzzles are basic enough to make you feel a bit clever without becoming frustrating. Moving around broken pieces of a dish to form a pattern or moving paintings around so that the rot behind them flows freely is a lot of fun. The only puzzle type I hated was the safe-lock minigame mechanics where the hints given by the game were not clear enough and I eventually had to either brute force or luck my way into solving them.
The UI works well for sorting out what information you’ve gleaned in your investigations. Edward as a seasoned Private Dick is better at figuring things out right away and helping you along with his words. Emily is new to all of it and I found her frustrations believable as she tried to piece together what was happening as her version of Edward didn’t believe all the supernatural shenanigans that were afoot.
Gameplay
Alone in the Dark on Series X features decent shooting and movement mechanics. Edward and Emily are both rather fleet of foot and aiming occasionally felt precise enough to be deemed good. Far too often though I found the default turning speed a bit too much as the aim acceleration is just high enough to throw you off in anything close quarters. The left trigger aims and the right trigger shoots, as tends to be the case in modern games. There are multiple weapon types that you’ll unlock and ammo tends to be extremely scarce on normal and hard difficulty. Easy lets you be a veritable Rambo as you blast all the Lovecraftian creatures of the dark away with ease.
The right bumper is a strange feeling melee. It’s a bit slow and enemies do not always satisfyingly react to your hits. You will tend to stun them with a melee if they haven’t already started up an animation to attack themselves but I felt like I took far too much damage when I tried to conserve ammunition by walking up to monsters and hitting them in the face with my hard, long pipe. Up on the D-Pad is your heal, they are bottles of booze you’ll find in the world and there was no upgrade system of any kind that I could see.
Clicking in the right stick gives you a flashlight that’s pinned to your chest and has unlimited battery power. I wouldn’t call Alone in the Dark full-on survival-horror on easy or normal, as the game is forgiving in its mechanics and I rarely felt that close to death. There are occasionally quicktime events where you’ll need to mash the B button, which is your dodge, to get smaller enemies off of you. These get annoying as enemies will queue them up and you’ll have two or three in a row to do with no chance of avoiding them at times.
Presentation & Story
Graphically Alone in the Dark looks pretty darned nice most of the time on Series X. The game has two graphical modes, one targeted at 30fps and the other at 60fps. I didn’t notice a major difference in textures or lighting at 30fps so I stuck with 60 for my entire playthrough. David Harbor and Jodie Comer’s models are a bit uncanny valley. They don’t look terrible and they emote well, but it’s always a bit of a porn-star parody look when compared to real life.
Derceto Manor and the other varied locales you visit all look like a really good Xbox One game. I’m okay with that level of fidelity as long as the gameplay and story are solid, and thankfully they are. As previously stated, you will need to play the game at least twice to get close to a full picture of the story and that will last roughly 10 to 15 hours. It’s a perfect amount of time for the story they had to tell, and it didn’t feel stretched out at all with few repeating mechanics.
The writing and voice acting range between good and great. David Harbor goes all in on the crazy shit-side of things in his playthrough. He’s yelling, grunting, moaning in pain, and fully committed to the performance. Jodie Comer’s playthrough VO is more subdued and her American accent is pretty damned flawless. She’s a great actress and like Mr. Harbor she’s all-in on making her lines believable. Most of the side characters are “decent AA” level. You can tell they’re putting on accents that aren’t the norm for them, but it still works well enough to keep you invested. As for the plot itself, it’s an excellent mix of what is real vs. only in our minds with a dash of the paranormal mixed in.
I did run into a few issues with the Series X version of the game. I had it crash on me every single time I transitioned from Chapter 1 to 2, no matter who I was playing as unless I skipped the cutscene. It was repeatable every time and during Chapter 2, at random parts while playing as Edward, my Xbox would overheat and shutdown. I have never had the issue before and pulled up WWE 2K24 and let a CPU vs CPU match run for 2 hours immediately after without a hitch. I was able to finish the game without further issues and the developers told me they hadn’t had this bug before so it may just be my machine.
Wrapping Things Up
Alone in the Dark has come a long way from its initial showings. Clever writing, great performances by its two leads, and solid gameplay come together to give the franchise a new life.
Alone in the Dark
PROS
- Harbor & Comer Excel
- Looks Good
- Plays Well
- Interesting Puzzles
CONS
- Some Bugs
- Weak Side Character VO
Nice to see a positive review, I’ve been really liking the game and have been a bit bummed out that people will ignore it because of the negative reviews.