If you’re a fan of Until Dawn that was popular back in 2015, then you might have heard or seen The Dark Pictures Anthology.
There are tons of people arguing which games are better than the other, and which one stands out from the rest. I seem to fall into one of them, too, with my own thoughts and personal preferences of all four games.
There are four games from this anthology: Man of Medan, Little Hope, House of Ashes, and The Devil in Me — each with its own horror story to tell, with different characters for the players to lead into the light or the abyss.
So, let’s jump into it. I’ll be briefing you with what each game is about, and what I like (and don’t like) about each of them, starting with the worst to the best.
Rank #4: Little Hope
Little Hope is the second game of the anthology, which tells the story of five characters (Andrew, Angela, Taylor, Daniel, and John) along with the bus driver that took a detour to a town called — as you might have guessed — Little Hope.
Crashing into the road that leads to the town, the characters have no choice but to look for help as they explore the abandoned town, uncovering secrets of the past and monsters that lurk within.
Turns out, oh no — the missing bus driver is apparently Andrew (or in this case, Anthony) after all. The five characters, including Andrew, represent Anthony’s family that died in a house fire. And the monsters that chase after the characters are there to only re-live Andrew’s nightmares of witnessing each of his family member’s deaths (if players fail to protect the characters).
The twist, at first, caught me off guard. The characters are used in three different timelines — the 1972 which takes place during the house fire that took the lives of Anthony’s family, the flashback where previous residents of Little Hope were actively participating in hunting down witches, and the present, where Little Hope is nothing but a mere ghost town.
So, the characters all look alike, albeit with different clothing style to represent different timelines and different roles they represent.
I guess the twist is good. I like the brutal deaths of the characters, as opposed to its previous game (Man of Medan). It’s something to look forward to after seeing the lack of violence and gore in it, so that is something I can get by.
But the rest of the game is just subpar. The pacing, the plot inconsistency, plot holes, unnecessary banter and jumpscares — they put me off almost immediately when seeing the gameplay trailer, and it sure didn’t change throughout the game.
I could talk endlessly about the game, but I just dislike the pacing in this game the most. The characters wander from one place to another, with unnecessary argument about splitting choices, but ended up doing both regardless (achieving nothing in return).
The characters eventually just reach the house where Anthony once lived (before the fire), and depending on the player’s choices, all (or some) of the characters either die or live in the house except for Andrew (who is Anthony).
There’s just not much point in wandering around. First they want to look for the bus driver who turns out to be Anthony hallucinating, but later they want to look for help. Then they decide to take a refuge in Anthony’s house as the final destination. Then the sun comes, and the mist surrounding Little Hope goes away, allowing the players to escape.
It’s just confusing, really. The plot is simple and easily understood, but at the same time it’s unnecessarily convoluted.
Rank #3: The Devil in Me
The Devil in Me is the final game of the anthology, being released sometime in November 2022. It follows the story of films crews (Kate, Charles, Mark, Jamie, and Erin) who set foot in Lake Michigan (where an estate that replicates the infamous H. H. Holmes’s murder castle was built) to film documentary reports about Holmes’ murder series.
Little do they know that they are being set up and lured into the estate for the killer to execute his murder plan to follow the legacy of H. H. Holmes.
Now, this game takes a different approach from the usual horror element found in the Dark Pictures Anthology. We would usually see monsters and undead creatures haunting the players, but this time the players are being actively hunted by one serial killer with traps and mazes.
It reminds me of SAW, where players’ choices are determinant in ensuring the survival of all five characters. And throughout the game, depending on the player’s interactions and the objects they have picked up, the character they control can either be saved or killed.
That brings me to talk a bit about what I dislike about it. I appreciate the SAW-type horror elements in the game, with traps that leave the players to make a choice between saving or sacrificing themselves to save the other.
But sometimes the traps just feel unfair for players. The early trap with gas chambers, for example, traps Erin and Kate, but since Kate has plot armour until the late game, Erin is almost ensured death here unless the players choose to save her instead of Kate.
The final fight with Du’Met (the killer) on the boat also feels out of place. He was clearly left behind but he somehow holds onto the boat for his last attempt for a murder spree of the remaining crews. And the final encounter just felt unnecessary — they could’ve had the fight at the shore and be done with it.
But I like the approach the game takes nevertheless. It’s definitely something refreshing after seeing undead creatures endlessly.
Rank #2: Man of Medan
This is arguably the better part of the anthology. It’s the first game of the anthology, where you get to play this interactive story with your friend(s) if you wish it so.
It follows the story of a group of friends on a ghost hunting trip to the South Pacific. Their boat encounters a storm and is stranded on a derelict ship. As they explore the vessel, they uncover a dark secret and find themselves trapped in a terrifying struggle for survival.
What I like about this game is that the game is based on a true story about chilling urban legend of the SS “Ourang Medan” (not sure why they wrote it as Ourang instead of Orang).
Turns out the horror they encounter is because of the leaking chemical substance which was mistaken by both the pirates and the main characters as “Manchurian Gold” — substance which causes the affected to hallucinate, which explains why the characters in the game to turn on each other the longer they explore the Ourang Medan ship.
There are only a few complaints when seeing this game, however. As much as I love the twist where the hallucination was causing the soaring violent nature of the characters, it was revealed too early. The rest of the game then just loses the horror elements because by then the players already know that their characters are hallucinating.
But it could be fixed, though, if the climax would test the players’ judgement skills in telling the truth from lies. Sure, the players know the chemicals are causing the hallucination, but how good can they distinguish their allies from their enemies when it matters most?
Instead, we have unnecessary fight scene between Olson (the pirate) and the two main characters (whoever chooses to retrieve the distributor cap to fix the boat) that serves no purpose but to kill of either Olson or both him and the main character.
Still, the hallucination is a good twist for the first game. If only they had polished the story a little bit, then it just might be the best one out of all the instalments.
Rank #1: House of Ashes
Now this is a masterpiece.
House of Ashes takes place somewhere in Iraq back in 2003, where a group of American soldiers is tasked with investigating so-called chemical weapons hid by Saddam.
Led by Eric with his team Rachel, Jason, and Nick, and later joined by an Iraqi Republican Guard, Salim, both teams join forces to fight off the undead creatures that unknowingly lurk beneath the surface of the desert.
This is by far my favourite of the entire anthology. You get to see both sides of the war (the American and the Iraqi soldiers), and how they finally band together in order to fend off something much more lethal than the war they’re in. You get to see each character either reaching conclusion of their own conflict, or leaving it hanging depending on players’ choices.
Take Rachel and Eric King’s relationship struggles, for example. Depending on your choices, you can lead both of them to reconcile to save their marriage, or to lead them to divorce (with Rachel going for Nick instead).
Jason and Salim, who is from the American army and Iraqi Republican Guard respectively, are two sides of the same coin. From hating each other to forming a bond stronger than blood ties, players can choose to establish strong brotherhood between them or have one of them betray the other, repeating the history of the Akkadian army like in the prologue.
And the finale is the best part of the game. As they finally reach the surface again after dwelling in the hidden Akkadian temple below for hours, they thought themselves to finally be free before the eclipse sets in, allowing the undead creatures to attack the team on the surface.
It doesn’t matter if you have saved all of them. If you fail to survive this final encounter, either some or all of them die before rescue could come in time.
It’s really good. Out of all instalments, I would easily recommend this game first before recommending the rest.
But of course, the game is not without its caveat. I can’t help but to feel that Rachel, Nick, and Eric’s story shouldn’t intertwine with each other. Instead of focusing on a love-triangle cliché story, just leave Rachel and Eric to solve their marriage issue on their own.
For Nick, the game had it good with Nick’s PTSD over shooting a civilian at a checkpoint, and it can be seen haunting him over the course of the game. So why not explore this side of his story to make sure he reaches conclusion on his own? That would make each of the character stories perfect, with each of them overcoming problems as they try to survive the night together.
Conclusion
Of course, everyone has their own preferences, so do take my personal rankings with a grain of salt. But I do have to say that, after House of Ashes, people had high expectations of the final instalment, which the game has failed to deliver. That explains the poor reviews on Steam.
Regardless, let me know what you think. If you wish to read more about other game reviews I have written, feel free to check my review on Stray. Otherwise, feel free to check out my entire catalogue. Until next time!
