Alone In The Dark review – the grandfather of survival horror

The game that inspired the original Resident Evil is rebooted yet again, with an ambitious tale of Lovecraftian horror and weirdness.

At the moment, Resident Evil has 10 mainline entries and almost twice as many spin-offs. Not only have most of them been financial hits but the majority have been critically acclaimed, with an impressive batting average over the last three decades. Alone In The Dark hasn’t done too badly either, with eight games in 32 years. However, if we point out that three of those have been reboots, it gives some indication of how different the two franchises’ fortunes have actually been.

The original Alone In The Dark arrived in 1992, from French developer Infogrames, and invented everything that Resident Evil – which didn’t appear until four years later – is known for, including fixed camera angles, combat with very limited ammo, obscure puzzles, and a horror setting within a spooky mansion.

There are many reasons as to why Alone In The Dark’s initial success did not last, including the exit of director Frédérick Raynal after the first game, the fact that the original was PC-only, and the Lovecraftian tone and period setting – which was less immediately attractive than the goofy shlock of Resident Evil. This new game is by far the best since the original, but the problem is that’s a very mild compliment.

What immediately marks this reboot as different is the reverence it has for the original. It’s a pseudo-remake, and reuses or remixes many of the same plot points and characters but greatly expands the concept and setting. The Lovecraftian tone is more evident than ever, not so much in terms of cosmic horror but in its obsession with madness and generational decline, including elements and characters that are not often seen in video games.

Set in 1920s Louisiana, the new game starts as the first one did, with the choice to play as either Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood. The latter has an uncle at Derceto Manor, a remotely situated mental health clinic run by an obviously evil psychiatrist. The Hartwood family believe themselves cursed and Emily wants Carnby to help investigate the place, especially as the first thing they discover is that her uncle has gone missing.

Naturally, the game doesn’t use fixed camera angles anymore (except for one brief segment towards the end) and so it ends up looking and working very much like the Resident Evil remakes. The graphics aren’t amazing, especially not the people, but this is clearly a lower budget release and even then some of the backdrops are quite impressive, especially a desert scene during an eclipse.

What becomes clear after a few hours is that the manor is essentially just a hub world and that technically there are no monsters in it. Instead, you learn to transport yourself to other places using a special talisman (how real these events are is left largely up to interpretation), which works well to ensure variety and to make sure the game doesn’t end up feeling too much like Resident Evil.

Except… it doesn’t really work. The Louisiana setting, which comes from the original game, is unfortunately reminiscent of Resident Evil 7, and one of the most common monsters looks like a cross between Swamp Thing and a Molded. In fact, none of the half dozen creatures are very interesting, either in terms of gameplay or visual design, and especially given the sub-par combat.

The gunplay is fine, but the game doesn’t automatically snap the aim forward, into the screen, when you press the left shoulder button, and so you have to manually turn around first. That makes running away a short distance and turning back to fire near impossible in enclosed spaces, which is what most of the game maps are. This means it’s very easy to get crowded by two or three enemies, after which it become impossible to move or aim.

In terms of puzzles, almost everything in Alone In The Dark revolves around the acquisition of keys or three digit codes, for use in either locks or the reality-warping talisman. Although puzzle clues make no sense in real world terms it all starts off quite interestingly, with more complex challenges than Resident Evil, but the needless repetition of puzzle types suggests the designers ran out of ideas long before the end – especially given the peculiar number of sliding block puzzles.

Given the variety in locations, Alone In The Dark does manage to keep your interest but the core gameplay is fairly weak. Unfortunately, it also follows in a long line of recent horror games in that it’s not particularly scary. There’s a tense atmosphere, especially as you never know when reality is going to suddenly warp around you, but even that was done better in Silent Hill.

You eventually begin to realise that apart from the sudden reality shifts nothing particularly shocking is ever going to happen, especially given how unremarkable the monsters are. This is one area where the reboot definitely pales compared to the original, which was filled with weird and unexpected encounters, many of which you had no defence against, including ghosts and poltergeists.

Once you realise the game is considerably more predictable than you initially thought it also becomes obvious that it’s actually very linear. There’s a certain amount of leeway given when you’re in the manor, but everything else is just short, self-contained sections you have to complete in a set order. The lack of scares also interferes with the desire to replay the game with the other character, as you realise that there’s actually no reason to be scared of unknown horrors and you can just run around largely unhindered.

Which character you play as makes no substantial difference for the majority of the game, as while they both have very different backstories this doesn’t come into play until near the end. Different characters react to you in different ways (one woman makes a pass at Emily but is much colder with Carnby, for example) but otherwise the difference is largely cosmetic and neither playable character interacts with each other, except for a brief spell at the beginning and the final cut scene.

Carnby is played by Stranger Things’ David Harbour and Emily by Jodie Comer from Killing Eve. Neither of them is phoning it in but you do get the impression that they only had Comer for a couple of days, as she sounds inappropriately cheerful at times, and doesn’t really sell her big emotional reveal at the end; although its framing and her limited amount of dialogue doesn’t help the situation.

There’s isn’t much dialogue at all really, considering there’s actually quite a few characters at the manor, and the celebrity casting all feels rather wasted in the end, especially as there’s so little interaction between the two leads. Also, the pulp origins of Lovecraft’s stories also mix well with the more serious plot points that the game tries to develop, to the point where it probably would’ve been a better idea to keep things more vaguely Lovecraftian in terms of atmosphere but not include specific elements and characters from his mythos.

A more narrative and dialogue heavy game, where you get to properly interact with the other characters – and so feel something when they die or reveal their true motivations – feels like it would’ve been a better fit. That might have been more difficult to make work as a survival horror but it doesn’t seem impossible, not if you imagine a cross between The Last Of Us and Resident Evil. It would have also helped to move the genre forward and reclaim Alone In The Dark’s crown as an innovator, instead of a franchise desperately trying to catch up with its own legacy.

This may be a return to form for the series, compared to other modern entries, but Alone In The Dark is too familiar and too unthreatening to work as a true survival horror. Whether that means a fourth reboot or taking a risk on a sequel remains to be seen, but the series is reaching the point where it may be best to just turn the lights off and let the darkness take it.

Formats: PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PC
Price: £49.99
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Developer: Pieces Interactive
Release Date: 20th March 2024
Age Rating: 18

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