Welcome to our preview of The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes, we played an exclusive demo on PC, time to find out what we experienced!
The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of standalone, cinematic branching horror games where the decisions you make in the game determine the story and the outcome you receive. House of Ashes is the third game in the series. In House of Ashes, at the close of the Iraq War, Special Forces hunting for weapons of mass destruction unearth something far deadlier – a buried Sumerian temple containing a nest of unearthly creatures. To survive the night below, they must forge a brotherhood with their enemies from the world above.
Having never played a game of the series, this exclusive demo was all new territory for me. A cinematic set of games where the decisions you take, lead to another narrative. Making your decisions more valuable than ever and House of Ashes was no exception. In the short demo, I was given the choice to either save myself and let a woman called Rachel die or end up falling down the cliff with her. Yes, I actually played the demo twice, just to find out.
From running away from the evil that haunts you to tripping because you messed up which button to tap, this game was quite intense as a first impression and introduction to the series, a game series I would normally not go for. I am not the biggest fan of jump scares and the likes, but how this game handled the atmosphere, you never really feel like you will jump out of your chair, because it may end up killing you.
The demo was short and proved to me once again that out of the comfort zone of your preferred game genres, there are tons of great experiences to be had. I loved the explorative nature of the game, heck, I even found new things in my second playthrough. Stuff that went completely under the radar my first time. I found out more about the backstory that way, how there was an expedition before in the 1940s and how this couple led it instead of going on a holiday.
As far as first impressions go, I have to admit, I may end up playing the other games in the series as well now. I liked the atmosphere and never getting a sense of being lost. Everything I did and everything I experienced, all led me to think this will be a sleeper hit for the end of the year. House of Ashes is on my wishlist now!
