With The Dark Pictures Anthology, Supermassive Games has struggled to capture what made “Until Dawn,” the interactive horror game from 2015 that begot the series, so fun to play. It’s a horror “B” movie made playable. A choose-your-own-adventure slasher flick. The Scooby-Doo-style antics pulled from the horror movies that inspired it are inherently ridiculous and require some suspension of disbelief. “Until Dawn’s” success came from leaning into these conventions, cheesiness and all.
The third entry in the series, “House of Ashes,” doesn’t quite capture that same lightning in a bottle, but it does manage to strike a sweet spot between campy and creepy. If “Until Dawn” is the touchstone for this particular brand of interactive survival horror games, “House of Ashes” comes closer than either of its predecessors, “Man of Medan” and “Little Hope.”
By several measures, “House of Ashes” is the most expansive addition yet. Players switch between the game’s five protagonists several times per chapter, and while jumping from character to character may sound disorienting, it never feels that way while playing. That quick back-and-forth between characters helps to amplify climactic fight scenes, punctuating the frantic action and split-second decisions you make as everyone works together to survive. The format also lends itself to the horror movie trope of everyone splitting up, letting you follow each member of your group after you all inevitably get separated and must descend into the unknown horrors below.
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