With so much of the action set in darkness, bold colour is used sparingly to great effect, and the action is presented in cinematic widescreen with UI intrusions kept to a minimum.
The motion-captured characters are convincing and the otherworldly threat is horribly detailed.
While all the Dark Pictures games are technically impressive, House Of Ashes features some jaw-dropping cinematography, with ominous shadows, stark lighting and impressive use of contrast framing the action beautifully. It's fair to say that Neil Marshall's seminal subterranean horror, The Descent, is a big influence: at one point, a female character wades through a pool of bloody water in a moment of iconography lifted directly from that film. This is storytelling on a much grander scale, although it would be remiss to divulge too much. Man Of Medan focused on a ghost ship, and Little Hope was set in a haunted town. What really marks out House Of Ashes from the previous games in the series is its ambitious scope. As well as moral choices, you'll need to respond to quick time events (press a button before the timer disappears), and the consequences for missing these can be severe: mistime a jump and your ward might plummet to their doom. This becomes less of an issue later on as the protagonists start to fall and your focus narrows. Having made decisions on behalf of one character, you'll assume control of whoever they're conversing with, and back again. Throughout the drama your focus shifts between characters, which can be confusing when you're trying to figure out who to root for. The site had been discovered in 1946 by an archaeological team whose fate is documented by numerous diary entries and other records, and it becomes apparent that something sinister and otherworldly lurks within the vast subterranean complex. Set during the 2003 Iraq War, you assume multiple roles as US and Iraqi combatants whose initial mutual distrust becomes dwarfed by a far greater threat.Ī US taskforce is searching for weapons of mass destruction when events transport it underground to a hidden Mesopotamian temple.
This third entry in the Dark Pictures Anthology from Supermassive Games is another stand-alone supernatural adventure where split-second decisions taken in stressful situations can have profound consequences. Technically brilliant adventure that never forgets character is key
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