Hands on with The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me - Preview
The Devil In Me is the final entry in the Dark Pictures’ anthology and aims to be the ultimate piece in their development. Over the last few years we’ve seen improvements and multiple styles of horror with Man of Medan, Little Hope and last year’s House of Ashes. The Devil In Me aims to take a less supernatural, Alien and/or science fiction style of horror. It pushes for a horror based on what is almost the most truly terrifying thing in our world. Reality.
A bitter and disjointed film crew get invited to Granthem Du’Met’s near perfect recreation of the “Murder Castle”, that being the house of horrors once owned by real world serial killer H. H. Holmes. The preview build provides a little backstory to ensure that I wasn’t walking into the events completely blind and gave a decent amount of explanation as to what the seeming motives of Du’Met are.
In the hour or so I got to experience, which ranges from the arrival at the hotel, to the first initial encounter with the would-be killer, The Devil In Me does something far better than previous titles. The atmosphere and tension is significantly better paced and developed. The subtle touch of Man of Medan is mixed with the more oppressive atmosphere of Little Hope. The host himself is absent, there are animatronics littered throughout the hotel, which after a specific cutscene are lent a far more malicious meaning. An unknown figure appears to be stalking and watching the crew as they explore the hotel and begin to attempt to film their new show.
Something I hope that the developers completely remove before release is the ridiculously over the top breathing. Every single character breathes so heavily that you can constantly hear them. At first I thought this was only with Charlie who is a smoker. Then I thought it was just Charlie and Erin, as Erin is an asthmatic and Charlie is a smoker. Then every single other character had their breathing turned up to eleven and sounded like they were attempting to recover their breath after a sprint. It is infuriating. This is something I would encourage the developers DEEPLY to remove. There is potential that it is intentional, as Erin does appear to have a scare mechanic related to her asthma.
This is fine for the one character and I’d go as far as accepting it for Charlie if they make it a point that he has breathing problems as a result of his smoking. Otherwise, I’d cut it now, before the game releases. Nobody wants ASMR breathing constantly berating their ears as they are attempting to lose themselves in the fear factor atmosphere.
Interestingly, except for Erin, pretty much every character comes across as vain, insipid and spiteful. Whilst I would normally hate having such unlikable characters, the vitriol really accentuates the tension. The characters are stuck together and have to get along if they are to survive. I also find it wildly enjoyable trying to be as civil as possible with my own responses, and then the characters being as wildly aggressive and combative as possible when they aren’t being controlled. The dialogue feels far more human and logical to the scenario than previous titles have too and makes the characters themselves whilst complete wipes, they are also far more relatable.
The most interesting addition is the items that each character have, that are unique to them. It makes each character feel more unique than just a different personality. Charlie and Jamie have similar starting items, but Charlie has the ability to unlock locked drawers with business cards, and a lighter for light. The multi-meter for Jamie seems interesting for puzzles but wasn’t particularly well explored in the preview build. Mark too seems lie he will be interesting, having both a video camera and a flash camera for light, but the video camera itself never really gets fleshed out. Interestingly, Kate is the only character that you do not get to play as in the preview, so her items and abilities are still a mystery.
Erin’s direction microphone plays into one of the best sequences in the series so far. Hearing arguments through the wall, then what appears to be murders that have taken place in the past, climaxing with the cries of a woman being played on a cassette. Erin seems like she’ll be the one who has sequences most steeped in audio horror, which is something very underutilized in the series. There also appears to be a potential for the death of a character incredibly early into the game, so part of the difficultly will likely be in even getting the characters through enough of the choices to experience the dangers.
The Devil In Me seems to have the right things going for it. If the developers can curb the ASMR breathing, they have the potential to really stand out in a game where interactive movie horror is getting a trifecta of games. The preview sets up for a creepy, atmospheric horror piece that is far more fleshed out and defined than previous entries. The use of a real-world entity as a setup is intelligent and adds a needed reality that horror games usually lack. Looking forward to seeing what comes from the full release.
The full game will be released on November 18 for PC, Xbox and PlayStation.
