Supermassive Video games’ Darkish Photos Anthology started with Man of Medan in 2019, and its first season involves an finish this yr with The Satan in Me. As a complete, the primary season of the Darkish Photos Anthology has had its ups and downs, however The Satan in Me brings it to a strong finish with an intriguing plot, a superb method to horror, stable gameplay, and a satisfying finish, regardless of which gamers earn.
In The Darkish Photos: The Satan in Me, gamers tackle the position of a gaggle of documentary filmmakers that’s engaged on a docuseries primarily based on H.H. Holmes. Traditionally referred to as America’s first serial killer, Holmes is believed to have killed 200+ in city myths that pervaded American tradition on the time, and the sport treats this historic sensationalism as truth. The filmmakers journey to a modern-day reproduction of Holmes’ “Homicide Fortress,” and any horror fan can predict what occurs from there.
What’s fascinating although is the sheer energy of the Homicide Fortress, because it serves as the proper, unnerving setting for the franchise. Gamers shortly be taught not the whole lot is because it appears, and getting misplaced within the Homicide Fortress is a part of the expertise. The wonder and deadliness of the setting definitely elevate the sport, nevertheless it’s not restricted to only this both. Gamers have entry to a handful of different places, notably within the opening and ultimate acts, and it creates a sure sense of worry. Isolation is nothing new in horror video games, however the setting of Darkish Photos: The Satan in Me perfects this.
The setting’s ambiance is strengthened by and, in flip, helps The Satan in Me‘s overarching plot. It’s positively one of the best throughout the anthology and, arguably, among the many finest throughout the horror sport style too. On the one hand, it appears like one thing written for people who’re obsessive about true crime tv sequence, whereas the sport wears its horror film inspirations on its sleeve, like Noticed, Halloween, Friday the thirteenth, and The Shining. It appears tough to reconcile true crime with psychological horror and slasher flicks, however The Satan in Me pulls it off with aplomb. The result’s an entertaining and terrifying horror spectacle that can go away gamers screaming “do not go in there!”
To raise this horror much more, gamers can discover Darkish Image collectibles across the map that give gamers premonitions of potential deaths, however like several good premonition, they aren’t all the time what gamers count on. This leaves gamers debating whether or not they can belief one thing so simple as a ship, or if they need to be looking out for sure rooms. Even then, it is not so simple as avoiding X or Y to keep away from a sure destiny. In fact, dying in a horror sport is nothing new, however shedding any character in The Satan in Me is heartbreaking. There’s the spectacle of the dying, however the writing is superb too.
In its co-op sport modes (together with on-line and/or as much as 5-players in native co-op), gamers will take management of characters that solely exist within the prologue, in addition to the principle forged: Kate Wilder (performed by Jessie Buckley, serving as this entry’s star energy), Charlie, Mark, Erin, and Jamie. Every character is distinct of their persona, offers with the horrors in their very own methods, and is influenced straight by the participant controlling them. By the point gamers might probably lose their first character, the attachment is there, and horror awaits on an emotional degree.
As a choice-based narrative journey sport, most of its gameplay and fight come within the type of QTEs and puzzles. The larger puzzles of The Satan in Me add a pleasant enjoyable issue to the sport, however they are not essentially modern. The identical goes for its QTEs. The Darkish Photos: The Satan in Me‘s QTEs are sometimes used to nice impact, accentuating the horror of any scene or driving residence the purpose gamers are about to be caught, however they’re QTEs as seen in different Darkish Photos video games. They don’t seem to be unhealthy, however they’re nothing memorable.
The Darkish Photos Anthology has all the time been one thing completely different, and this entry within the franchise brings out one of the best of its variations. Nonetheless, it additionally serves as a testing floor for brand spanking new options that do not essentially assist The Satan in Me‘s gameplay. One new characteristic, for instance, is character inventories, however these are underutilized. They serve principally as discovering a key for a door, after which instantly utilizing the important thing. Every character has a novel puzzle they will remedy with sure character-specific gear, however these aren’t something particular when it comes to gameplay. And whereas the addition of leaping, crawling, balancing, and so forth add some good selection to the franchise, most of those new options really feel like first iterations. Total, these new Darkish Photos options present promise that is simply not executed nicely right here.
And therein lies the most important drawback with The Satan in Me. It is principally negligible, however there are fairly a couple of inconsistencies all through the sport. For one, each character will look extremely detailed in a single cutscene, look virtually life-like in greater cutscenes, however then in equally necessary cutscenes seem like Play-Doh. There are additionally unusual audio bugs that seemingly change no less than one character’s voice that we could not replicate in-game or on different video games. It’s going to generally appear to be, visually and audibly, gamers are testing 2-3 completely different video games throughout the Satan in Me.
Moreover, as a result of every character has a particular persona, it is completely doable to make dialogue decisions in The Satan in Me that make the character act out of flip, solely to be fully undone within the subsequent scene, or have them act as if they do not know key info that they definitely do. Likewise, this generally leads to characters additionally performing like they know one thing they could not presumably know. And, regardless of these characters having a transparent established historical past, they’re going to typically act as in the event that they know nothing about one another. Nonetheless, regardless of its inconsistencies, technical points, and head-scratching moments, The Satan in Me is a ton of enjoyable.
The Darkish Photos: The Satan in Me packages an enigmatic killer, tales of true crime, the spectacle of horror films, and a gaggle of shy misfits and highly effective personalities right into a plot that feels deserving of its personal big-budget movie. It’s going to go away gamers questioning the whole lot they know concerning the killer and one another, and craving to dive in as soon as once more to see different endings, uncover extra secrets and techniques, and attempt to save everybody.
The Darkish Photos: The Satan in Me releases on November 18, 2022, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Sequence X/S. Recreation Rant was offered a PS5 code for the needs of this evaluation.
