Horror Review: Alone In The Dark (2024)

[@HorrorReview]

Hello fellow slightly drunken private investigators in 1930's America... The Patreon: www.patreon.com/horrorreview The Discord: discord.gg/C7T7XdGrAk

[@Cooldadder]

This is a wonderful game that pays loving tribute to the original. If you want action survival horror, you won't like this. But if you value atmosphere, suspense, sound design, and lovecraftian horror, you will almost certainly enjoy it. I really hope there's a sequel.

[@One_Stoned_Bastard]

The publishers killed the studio :\ The money men don't understand anything, even from their point of view this developer house could have been a good investment.

[@Vimes86]

This game and its developers deserved so much more

[@espirite]

The NG+ on this game is really worthwhile as well. Went to replay in that mode and a bunch of things are changed enough to make you jump especially if you haven't played for a bit.

[@mr.sinjin-smyth]

I had a wonderful time playing this game with already 5 finishes so far (3 Edward, 2 Emily). This latest Alone in the Dark is a much needed revival to this badly mismanaged series of 30+ years, and I feel optimistic it has a solid enough foundation in continuing the series forward. It also has cult status material with decent gameplay, engaging story, solid characters, and creepy atmosphere. It will gain an audience in due time and be an ideal ENTRY point for newcomers to the series. Thanks for the great review.

[@donniedarko7751]

Thanks for another great review, I can't wait to try this one out.

[@chrisviklund]

Looks good, am looking forward to trying it out...

[@JackGordon86]

Purchased it on launch. Finished it 100% yesterday. I adore this game except for... Chapter 3. It is 90% uninspired formulaic tripe complete with a garbage stealth segment and asinine Egyptian tomb light puzzles we’ve seen a thousand times before. It’s boring, tedious filler and drags down the entire experience significantly. The appearance of a certain antagonist fell completely flat and I had to burst out in hysterical laughter. Words fail to convey how much I loathe Chapter 3. It is flat out game design heresy. By the way, I highly HIGHLY recommend playing through the game with the Vintage Horror Black & White filter!

[@raimundopilotto2675]

Just what I needed for a saturday night alone, a new video about a new horror game that actually looks good!!!! Thanks!!!

[@childofthe80s1981]

Was looking forward to hearing your views on how this ranks on the Mason Scale

[@Impalingthorn]

I am really divided on this one. The OG Alone in the Dark was pretty much the game to start Survival Horror as a genre. It is the father of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, my two favorites, and pioneered immersive fixed camera angles, puzzle solving in stressful situations, hard punishments for dying, etc. And this game does a lot of things I like; it has an equal focus on both of the original characters, developed their stories, focuses on deep South voodoo culture and CLASSICAL Lovecraft (I point that out due to the oversaturation of pseudo-Lovecraftian fiction these days), can be colorful and intriguing... But on that same token, I feel like a lot of these elements are middling and I'm hard pressed to even call this a Survival Horror Game. Of course the Fixed Camera Angles are gone and I was never going to be shocked by that; modern devs are cowards that tow the line for whatever is popular in that moment and we've hit a point with over-the-shoulder 3rd person where it's this annoyingly "Safe" option to go with so it feels like that cinematic element of the original is completely stripped bare. But that's only a minor complaint, the real issues for me were the jank combat and lack of emphasis on mechanics that make combat SCARY to engage with; Survival Horror usually took the approach of making animations slow and unwieldy compared to the usual snappy responses of something like LOZ where Link will strike fast to emphasize the action. This is somewhere in between there and simultaneous feels ungratifying while also not being risky enough to put you in the "Fear Zone" like you would be using a knife in Resident Evil or a pipe in Silent Hill. Resource management isn't quite there, the puzzles vary greatly in quality, the enemies (generally) don't do anything new or special and the only true fear comes from being caught off guard; nothing strips you of confidence or pressures you in such a way where you feel like you are making mistakes. Story elements can really feel forced at times and other times just seem to hit you out of nowhere which causes "Wtf" moments that yank you out of the experience, and of course you have those weird transitions where a character will just come out of a hallway of nightmare creatures only to bump into a character and suddenly neither of them want to address any of the crazy nonsense you just waded through. And frankly Carnby's voice actor just felt like a gimmick from the get-go; I always felt that hiring notable actors for voice acting roles isn't always a recipe for success given they are legitimately two different fields, always rings more like a cheap gimmick you forget about the moment you've been in the game for more than an hour or two. I'm honestly a little disappointed. An attempt was made and it's definitely better than all of the OTHER Alone in the Dark sequels, but it also feels more akin to Silent Hill Downpour: Not the worst, but still sorta missing the point in major areas. Capcom still knows how to scare the sh** out of you when they feel like it and I think more people should be taking notes from them, Alone in the Dark felt like it was taking notes from Bloober's style of "horror". I want to like this game, but in my heart I know I'm underwhelmed.

[@dommoore6180]

You're definitely coming at this from the perspective of a Silent HIll/RE fan and not an Alone fan though, because Alone (especially the original) was not about scary combat. It was about puzzles, the storytelling, note reading and atmosphere. Alone is not like RE and never was. Also Carnby's well cast here, he 100% suits the characterisation given in the original trilogy. Is it stunt casting? Yeah, sure. But he's much more like his original self than Emily who feels vastly different from her original self here.

[@Impalingthorn]

@@dommoore6180 Well I mean of course I make those comparisons. Alone in the Dark is the father of Survival Horror. The combat, for its time, was scary. Goofy by today's standards but I'm not looking at it from today's standards. That, and not to distract from my point, the point is more so that they tried to HAVE an in depth combat system here and it actively detracted from other elements of the game. I don't just grade horror games based on SH and RE, I grade them more so based on what they are trying to achieve which is why I will defend Outlast 1 but ridicule every Outlast title that came out after it (aside from the DLC of the first game). The problem is that they failed to make it scary and the story, which probably had a great script going on in the background, wasn't as well executed as I would have hoped. I'm actually a big fan of the original Alone in the Dark story; it's not every day that you get a legitimate oldschool cosmic horror using a mansion and numerous generations of minions propped up by a deep south bayou background. Compared to everything else nowadays it's incredibly unique and largely forgotten, it was the number one thing I was looking forward to in this game and... I dunno, both in execution and tonally, it just feels far different. If I had to phrase it, it's a little too straight forward and action adventurey. I don't mean to make it sound all bad, I just really wanted to be impressed and I wasn't.

[@rockybalboa4593]

I am absolutely loving this game and having a blast with it. I am 40% through

[@YogBaal]

Thank you for the cool review.

[@TsDwelling]

I actually re-played the original New Nightmare game, so it's interesting to look at this new game. Might give it a pick up at some point. I have such a massive backlog of games to get to. Never enough time. Take care.

[@dwayneasher6765]

Can you review my game

[@HorrorReview]

What’s your game?