Alone in the Dark Review – A Case Best Left Unsolved

Alone within the Darkish on PlayStation 5

Ever because it was introduced in 2022, my hopes have been excessive for Alone within the Darkish. The franchise is the founding father of the survival horror style, predating the primary Resident Evil sport by 4 years and establishing the fixed-camera creepiness that Capcom’s collection would go on to make a worldwide sensation.

It’s a property that has lengthy laid dormant; the rights flitting between publishers till this new high-profile reboot from THQ Nordic starring Jodie Comer and David Harbour. The result’s a sport of contradictions: it concurrently tries to reclaim its survival horror throne, all whereas poorly apeing the video games it impressed within the first place. Alongside a few of the worst technical efficiency points I’ve seen in a current-gen sport, it turns into extremely onerous to suggest.

2024’s iteration of Alone within the Darkish is a full reboot of the collection, loosely adapting the 1992 unique. You play as both detective Edward Carnby (David Harbour) or Emily Hartwood (Jodie Comer), each investigating the disappearance of Emily’s uncle Jeremy at Derceto Manor, an ominous-looking asylum.

The sport guarantees diverging tales for every playable character, the extent to which you’re beneficial to play by means of each of them, a la Leon and Claire’s separate campaigns within the 2019 Resident Evil 2 remake. Doing so is rather more of a chore than an opportunity to dive additional into the lore, with solely about half an hour’s price of unique situations and sequences in each. The one saving grace is that the sport is extremely brief: my first run-through as Emily took round six hours, whereas the second as Edward clocked in at simply over 4 hours. There are a selection of endings to see, however having to trudge by means of your entire sport twice merely isn’t price it.

That’s as a result of the gameplay on the core of Alone within the Darkish is uninspired, clunky, and never particularly enjoyable. If the Resident Evil collection caught to the unique’s survival horror roots in the course of the PS3/Xbox 360 technology, that is precisely what it could look and play like. Characters run slowly across the manor, take ages to open doorways, and hearth weapons that really feel imprecise and floaty. Enemies are at finest spongey and at worst damaged, and haven’t any in-universe rationalization for present within the first place. A lot of Alone within the Darkish’s DNA feels immediately ripped from Resident Evil, however to a a lot decrease normal.

Even the map you employ to traverse Derceto Manor – alongside traditional options like colours denoting whether or not you’ve explored the entire room or not, and keys that steadily open up new areas as you progress – is tough to navigate as a result of a scarcity of directional arrows in your character, and fully absent throughout gameplay exterior of the asylum.

The one a part of Alone within the Darkish’s gameplay that’s notably enjoyable is the puzzles, which quantity to a a lot bigger proportion of the sport than chances are you’ll count on. Loads of them require you to look by means of notes you acquire, translating coded messages into inputs for the magical talisman you carry round, and there’s a extremely rewarding feeling if you determine them out. Going again to the sticking level of getting to play the sport twice to see its correct endings, although, they unavoidably grow to be uninteresting and much too straightforward on that second playthrough.

However the principle cardinal sin of Alone within the Darkish is simply how unpolished it feels. The sport already went by means of a good few delays, however even now it actually feels prefer it wanted rather more time within the oven to be prepared for a correct launch. Merely put, Alone within the Darkish is so tough across the edges that I can’t in good conscience suggest shopping for it till these points are mounted.

It isn’t simply the odd visible glitch right here and there: at worst my sport crashed completely, and it doesn’t get higher when you’re previous these. There have been quite a few instances in each playthroughs my character bought caught within the wall or flooring, which means I needed to reboot the sport (dropping progress within the course of) to proceed enjoying. On-screen button prompts are extremely finicky, generally taking upwards of 4 approaches to indicate up correctly. Packing containers you open with these floaty controls generally comprise nothing in any respect, completely losing your time. The bayou part in the direction of the sport’s finish is by far the worst offender, with leaping leech-like enemies that generally clip by means of partitions to succeed in you and different instances float within the air, static, as soon as defeated.

These technical issues made Alone within the Darkish a chore to play by means of the primary time round, and simply bitterly disappointing on the second. It’s barely simpler to look past the uninspired story and gameplay, placing it right down to double-A manufacturing and a need to return to the collection’ roots, however the quantity of game-breaking issues I encountered take away any of its appeal.

Because it stands, it’s very onerous – if not inconceivable – to suggest Alone within the Darkish in its present state. Even in the event you can look past the blandness of its design, story, and gameplay, the sheer lack of polish is much too irritating to warrant spending any cash on. It’s a sport that, with out exaggeration, I had been wanting ahead to for years. All that’s left now, although, is a bitter style.