House of Ashes doesn’t offer a new unique tale that I found with Little Hope or Man of Medan. I did enjoy my time playing through another The Dark Pictures Anthology tale, but it hasn't left an impact on me as a player as Little Hope did. Choices often felt inconsequential, and few and far between. Character development for all of the characters outside of Salim was underwhelming and disappointing, even though the backdrop of the Iraq War in 2003 was ripe for compelling character development.
The night is dark and full of terrors.
Try as it might craft a unique story, The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes leans too heavily on its inspirations to be enjoyable. On its surface, House of Ashes had an opportunity to craft something pretty unique with its story. With its clear inspirations being Predator (1987) and Aliens (1986) with the backdrop of the Iraq War in 2003, House of Ashes had an opportunity to craft a story that could have said more than it did. Instead, the game heavily relies on well-known tropes in the Predator and Alien franchises and doesn’t offer any other subtext beyond what is shown on the screen.
Following the story of a group of US Marines in search of a potential WMD site in Iraq, along with a parallel story of an Iraqi soldier, House of Ashes finds the characters deserted in an ancient temple. Quickly, the characters are plunged into hellish conditions as creatures in the darkness begin to hunt them. For the first time, The Dark Pictures Anthology offers three different difficulties for its players. I opted to play through the story for my initial playthrough on the “Normal” difficulty, and then once again on the most difficult option to gauge their differences. As the five main characters dive deeper into the labyrinth of this ancient buried temple, situations are set up to ratchet up tension…
…or they felt as though they should have been. House of Ashes’ main issue is pacing. I chose to play through the story in single-player, and I can’t remember any other The Dark Pictures Anthology games having as many non-interactable cutscenes. Throughout my roughly 8 – 10 hour playthrough, I only remember making a handful of choices or interacting through QTEs. There were plenty of times that tension arose from anticipating a potential interactable segment, only for a scene to end and switch to a different character. There were plenty of times I noticed scenes that felt as though they should have been interactable, but the game held those back. The toughest difficulty option did allow for more interactable events, but not as many as I would have hoped.
Non-interactable scenes aside, House of Ashes tends to lean too much into its quieter moments. Throughout the entirety of the story, when I thought key character development was occurring, it oftentimes results in no character development at all. Just when I believe a character is going to round a corner and make a profound sentiment or statement, the scene ends. Oftentimes the exposition presented feels as though it’s there to fill time, without offering the player any reason to want to keep the various characters alive.
That being said, there is one standout character in House of Ashes. Salim, the Iraqi soldier character, stood out to me as the most important character throughout the entire game. House of Ashes does a good job of fleshing out his character and offers a unique perspective on the Iraq War that has never been seen in gaming. His story, and how my particular story ended with him, was satisfying and engaging throughout.
Other characters, such as Ashley Tisdale’s Rachel King, were so frustrating that I never felt as though I should save them from certain death. One character, in particular, Jason Kolchek, is presented as the stereotypical misguided Marine so often presented in movies during the Iraq War in 2003. The only motivation I had to keep his character alive was to see if he can redeem his prejudicial personality by the end of the game, a feat that took a lot of convincing of me to do as a player.
Another new feature House of Ashes features is a full 360-degree camera during its player-controlled segments of the game. During my preview coverage of the game, I was hopeful that the 360-degree camera would allow Supermassive to lean into the exploration horror element of the game. Unfortunately, it never really felt as though the 360-degree camera mattered all that much, outside of finding one or two hidden paths to a premonition tablet found in the caves. There is a flashlight feature by hitting L1 on the controller, that illuminates different secret objects or pitch-black rooms, but these playable segments were few and far between.
Another aspect House of Ashes disappoints in is its player-controlled segments. I was fully expecting to be able to explore the temple and cave system as these characters but found that House of Ashes feels just as linear an experience as past The Dark Pictures Anthology games. Players have the opportunity to control the characters walking around the various cave systems only a handful of times, and each time lasts only a minute or two before launching into a long cutscene sequence. While I do admire House of Ashes’ dedication to keeping the story moving; it did feel as though the player-controlled exploration segments were just short moments to get to the next cutscene as opposed to fleshing out the world around the characters.
In the end, House of Ashes doesn’t offer a new unique tale that I found with Little Hope or Man of Medan. I did enjoy my time playing through another The Dark Pictures Anthology tale, but it hasn’t left an impact on me as a player as Little Hope did. Choices often felt inconsequential, and few and far between. Character development for all of the characters outside of Salim was underwhelming and disappointing, even though the backdrop of the Iraq War in 2003 was ripe for compelling character development.
