Introduction
"Hey, we're back with another blog of First Impressions and Gameplay Review, the show where we give you some straight-up gameplay and our first impressions of the latest game releases. As usual, it's me, Jake, and today we're talking about Alone in the Dark. Now, this is a classic horror franchise from the '90s that had its ups and downs, and it's been down for a while. This is a whole new game that kind of reimagines the original 1992 computer game classic that started it all. You don't need to have played the originals; this is just like a whole new survival horror adventure. So how is it? Well, it's got a lot of issues, and a lot of it feels like missed potential. It's messy, it's pretty short and has some awkward combat and cutscenes. But I think some hardcore horror fans or some older school horror fans should consider giving it a shot at some point down the line, maybe at a better price point because there are a couple of cool things I'll point out. Still, I ended up mostly disappointed. Now let's get into it."
Gameplay Overview
"So, you know, we've been playing a review copy here, and this footage has been captured running on PC and is spoiler-free. Now, you start the game by choosing to play as either a classic character reimagined, Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwell, with Carnby played by the Stranger Things and Second Hellboy's David Harbour and Emily by Jodie Comer from The Last Duel. Now, Emily is looking for her lost uncle, and she hired a private investigator to help. They head to Derceto Mansion in late 1920s Louisiana, and it's like a haunted plantation mansion mixed with a kind of mental health therapy rest home place. The character you choose, you're with them for the whole campaign, with your paths occasionally crossing throughout the story. It's like a lower-key Leon and Claire situation from Resident Evil 2. I'll touch more on that in a bit."
Gameplay Mechanics and Exploration
"So you enter the mansion, and the adventure begins. You navigate through this house, collecting puzzle items, finding clues, backtracking a lot, and double-checking your map for locked doors. You're generally doing the survival horror puzzle thing, and this is where I think the game mostly excels. There are some easy, simple puzzles, but also quite a few more interesting ones that require you to consult your notes or a piece of evidence you have in your inventory, or maybe even use some contextual clues from around the environment. There are some repeats, but ultimately, I liked a lot of these, and I'll admit I even got stuck once for a bit. But it's also because I'm not very smart. Unlocking doors and finding secret entrances and all that map stuff eventually leads you to other places that tend to be much spookier and lead to enemy encounters."
Combat System and Enemy Encounters
"And it's a very, very simple, workmanlike combat and item system where you eventually unlock three weapons: a pistol, a shotgun, and a machine gun. And you manage ammo for that as well as a healing item, which, funnily enough, is just booze. These spookier and weirder locations the game takes you to are awesome, like a foggy graveyard, a smoky, moonlit swamp, dark, almost Silent Hill-looking versions of New Orleans streets, and a bunch of others that I definitely won't spoil here. It's creatively inspired and makes for some great moments and unsettling exploration when you don't know what's in front of you."
Atmosphere and Environmental Design
"That's when the game feels the best. But then things get in front of you, and you've got to fight them. That's where the combat grinds things to a halt. Look, survival horror games are supposed to make you feel like you're not in control, right? Some controls are intentionally a bit cumbersome to help amp up unpredictability. Resident Evil has done it; the newer Alan Wake 2 keeps things pretty simple and has a high level of recoil. But here, it's just too messy for its good. You'll get stuck on enemies that whale on you for a while while you're stuck in a corner. There's a pretty soft feeling dodge; encounters just are never great. Melee is so messy and inaccurate; it's almost comical just because it looks so awkward and it doesn't always connect."
Story and Character Development
"The highlight is that you're occasionally able to sneak around enemies in certain sequences, and you can, on the fly, throw bricks and bottles and Molotovs lying around in the environment to mess up the bad guys. But that's it. There's less than a single handful of enemy types, all generic and uninspired and frankly disconnected from everything. At the very least, there are loud, angry, punchy gunshots, good sound effects, and some occasional good visual effects that show that this really could have been so much more."
Artistic Elements and Presentation
"Because look, I love being stressed out in combat during a horror game. I love it when it gets frantic. The original had messy combat, but this always just felt like a chore, and I groaned anytime an enemy showed up. Like, unfortunately, as the game goes on, it throws more and more at you and culminates in a kind of out-of-nowhere boss battle that forces you to almost play completely differently, similar to how Kalisto Protocol's final awkward boss went down. Alone in the Dark here is just a game of a lot of almost but not quite, and real potential just sprinkled throughout."
Setting and Atmosphere
"The mansion is so incredibly detailed, every room completely different. It was so much fun getting to know the halls, of course, draped in a lot of green, a callback to the original game. The southern sunlight pouring through the windows still manages to be eerie during the day, and then come nightfall, you get the iconic horror thunderstorm that always works well. The game pulls a ton of surprises to keep you on your feet, from a radio turning on for a second out of nowhere to just well-done, not cheap at all, proper genuine jump scares, and some incredibly hyper-detailed environmental visuals in your face that all do a lot here."
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
"There is a lot of creativity to be found here in spots. The game even has a little bit of a gumshoe detective noir style, with smooth jazz backing a lot of the soundtrack. Characters chew scenery; smoke, they drink. It feels like they tried a bit of a period piece here. But things in the game kind of just happen, nothing flows; you just do stuff. Characters throughout the mansion appear; they're weird, they say some things, but it doesn't mean anything, and you move on."
"As I played through both campaigns as Emily and as Edward Carnby, mind you, there are differences. Characters will show up in different places; they'll have different conversations depending on who they're talking to. And I do recommend playing through both because you get a little context to some of the side characters, and a little bit more of a complete story as to who everyone is, at least. And from what I can tell, each character gets their personal spin-off area and whole sequence. But largely, it amounts to the same disjointed story that just isn't as fulfilling as I'd hoped."
"There are in-game lore collectibles that are shared, so like after one playthrough, you collect the rest with the other. According to the developers, there are more endings for completionists, but to be frank, that won't change the entire game's story for me. I didn't like the enemy encounters, I didn't like the final boss battle, and I didn't care what happened at the end because it all felt rushed."
"With that, I did kind of bury the lead here. The game is brutally short. You can argue it's sort of quality over quantity, I guess. It doesn't overstay its welcome, and survival horror games are short. But I finished the first run in like 7 hours, taking it very, very slow, and after that, you can breeze through the other character and probably clock in at like 10, 11, 12 hours. I don't know; survival horror games are meant to be mastered and replayed, and some people might find some juice there, like with skins and the collectibles I mentioned. There are multiple difficulty modes, but there's not enough meat on the bone for me. Cut and dry, simple thing."
"So again, I just want to reiterate, that this is a baby step in the right direction for this franchise. Yeah, I've wanted it to have a comeback forever. I'm just tough on these types of games because there's always potential for greatness. I was hard on Kalisto Protocol last year, but that ended up having some fans; it found a fan base. And I think the same might be able to be said for this one because I did highlight some good stuff that people might gravitate towards."
Outro
"And that's all for today. Leave us a comment, and let us know what you think. And as always, we thank you very much for reading this blog. I'm Zaid Ikram. We'll see you next time right here on Speed Tool."
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