BinaryMessiah Alone in the Dark (2024) Review

The series Alone in the Dark appears to have a perpetual curse. While the earliest 3D titles, such as The New Nightmare, received fairly positive scores, these last two reboots just can't seem to get things right. I'll grant the 2008 reboot some leeway, as it attempted to innovate and reinvigorate the series, despite its minimal connection to the lore of Alone in the Dark beyond the protagonist's name. This new reboot is more faithful to the first game—exploring a creepy mansion, solving puzzles, and having basic combat. It did feel more like The New Nightmare and much less like the 2008 game, but it didn't boost the series to new heights either. You can play as either Detective Carnby or Emily Heartwood. The differences here are limited to a few different scenarios in a few levels, but you must play both sides to find all the collectibles. Emily's uncle is living in an adult family home for the sick, and she needs to get him out. As she explores the mansion, she appears to be trapped in a paranormal dimension, alternating between what might be reality, her uncle's reality, or her own mind. One of the first issues with the game is that the game isn't really all that scary. The monster designs are kind of neat but not super interesting, and the atmosphere is more Haunted Mansion and Scooby Doo Fright Night than Silent Hill, but that's not the biggest issue. The combat in Alone in the Dark is quite boring and terrible. The melee combat just consists of wildly swinging an object around. You have both a regular hit and a power hit. Items are breakable, but you can carry one around at all times. This is fine if you're up against a single enemy or can't reload in time, but most of the time swinging the object causes your character to lunge forward, and it just feels awkward and stiff. There's not a block or parry button—just a dodge button. The remainder of the battle involves firing a revolver, shotgun, or Tommy gun, with limited ammunition available. In most scenarios, I felt that there were too many enemies coming at you in the tight and cramped spaces you are in. There are some throwable objects, but the only useful ones are the Molotov cocktails. Throwing bricks is pointless because it doesn't do any damage. Occasionally, there are stealth sections, which are incredibly short (requiring you to weave through three rows of barrels for example) or impossible to complete due to the enemies' lack of set patrol patterns. The game primarily consists of aimless wandering while attempting to solve obtuse puzzles with vague hints. The game features combination locks, math, and puzzles that evoke nostalgia from the year 2005. There's an Egyptian Temple level in which you need to find three lenses to bounce light around to unlock the main door. This consists of a constant back and forth through labyrinthine hallways. You need to find the switch to unlock the lens door, but that switch triggered a collapse, so now you have to find another switch to open the shortcut door. This just feels like lazy design and prolonged play time. The mansion itself is the most monotonous, with repetitive hallways and locked routes in each chapter. Even if you manage to find a key or unlock a door, it remains bolted or blocked in another chapter. This leads me to my biggest issue. Game-breaking bugs. I rarely encounter these in games, but I encountered a bug where a door was blocked, leading to the end of Chapter 4. I couldn't progress, and that's where my game ended. Restarting the entire chapter wasn't a guarantee that it would fix the bug. The visuals are pretty acceptable for what they are. They aren't ugly, but they don't feel like Alone in the Dark at all. The story is pretty forgettable, with uninteresting characters, fairly lame dialogue, and average voice acting. The stiff controls, animations, and combat bring the game down quite a bit, but the game-breaking bugs, absurd level design, lame stealth, and repetitive backtracking add up to a not-so-great adventure.