Dead of Darkness does a pretty good job of replicating early survival horror games but lacks some modern quality of life improvements that would make it more fun.
Horror fans are eating well right now thanks to such a large number of solid games being released in recent years. As much as major publishers liked to tell everyone that horror games weren’t popular, the sheer volume of them being lapped up by fans of the genre says otherwise. Dead of Darkness is an interesting case as it’s a modern game, with a retro art style, that is enormously inspired by the original Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil games, sometimes to a fault. That isn’t to say it’s not fun though, as my time wandering around Velvet Island whilst being shambled after by the undead isn’t a bad time at all.
You initially play as Miles Windham, a private investigator in 1980s Britain. Receiving a letter regarding the deaths of his wife and daughter from a mysterious contact, he heads to Velvet Island to learn more. Obviously things go off the rails fairly quickly when Miles discovers warring family members who seem to be keeping secrets from him, and of course a slew of reanimated corpses. Along his journey, Miles will meet allies and enemies, find secrets hidden beneath the island, and maybe learn more about his own family’s fate.
I’ll point out early that the Resident Evil influences are rampant, and at times this feels very much like a top down version of that game. You have enemies smashing through windows when you think you’re safe, doors locked by a series of symbol-associated keys, and even a secret underground lab. The plot is more Alone in the Dark than Resident Evil, focusing on cults, sacrifices, and mysterious gods. This isn’t a bad thing, as you might as well crib from genre luminaries, but you will feel like you’ve seen and done this before at various points.
An issue I had with the plot is the sheer volume of characters that are thrown at you within the first twenty minutes. The plot is one of gradual revelations, as you might expect, but almost everyone involved in it is front and centre right from the off, and there are around fifteen people to keep track of in some capacity. I don’t have a problem with there being a lot of characters in many games, but everyone being there immediately meant I rather swiftly lost track of who was who. A reference in the notes section of your inventory would have been a great help here.
Characters do at least all look unique, and are fully voiced which is unusual for a lower budget project like this. During conversations, the art work for each person is excellent, and the pixel art is on par with this too. The animations are generally great, and seeing some people mutate or be torn apart in a scene is incredibly graphic for such a pixelated art style. The voice work is far more all over the place though. There’s a huge variety of accents, which isn’t something I was expecting for 1980s Britain, and some of the performances are quite weak. When someone learns of their loved one’s horrifying demise, I’d expect more emotion than almost total indifference. That isn’t to say they’re all bad, with Miles and Olivia coming across quite well, which is a good thing as they’re the leads.
Gameplay is very much survival horror fare. You’ll scour an area for clues, keys, and equipment, all whilst trying to survive the monsters lurking nearby. Ammo and healing are quite limited late in the game, but early on there’s really plenty to get by, especially considering a lot of basic enemies can be run past with some careful kiting. You’ve got an item box to support your very limited personal inventory that can be accessed in safe rooms, and a small collection of weapons to keep yourself going throughout. A lot more handgun ammo than I’d expect for Britain, but I’m not complaining.
Foes are varied in appearance, but mostly operate in the same way, which is shambling towards you. Some will injure you whilst others will instantly kill you. I liked how some of them could follow you through doors, which was quite a surprise the first time it happened. Most can be dispatched with a few handgun bullets or a couple of shotgun blasts, but you’ll want to figure out who to fight and who to avoid early on to conserve resources. The bosses look very impressive, but tend to be easy enough to beat. Often all you need to do is fire off a couple of shots and then move to a safer spot and repeat until you win. Still, the spectacle makes them thrilling a lot of the time, especially once you reach the larger scale ones.
You’ll deal with the usual health issue of gradually being chomped on by the undead, and enough damage will result in your moving more slowly, much like in other games of the genre. There’s a sanity mechanic at play that can cause visual effects that can disorient you, requiring a specific healing item to fix. There’s nothing super creative like you’d find in Eternal Darkness, but it’s an interesting inclusion. Honestly, I found them more annoying than frightening a lot of the time, as things like inverting the screen or mirroring the map just felt frustrating to deal with.
When you aren’t surviving, you’re puzzle solving, and this is quite a strong area for Dead of Darkness. Often you’ll have your standard key puzzle of needing to locate the right key for the right door, but a lot of the puzzles require you to find, read, and interpret notes. There’s a great puzzle solving system here, where your character has a clue inventory as well as an item one. Reading a significant note will add a clue that you can read and ponder on before actively using that clue in an appropriate place later on.
A simple example of this is finding a fire that you can put out and discovering that there’s a draft coming from behind it. If you had found a clue earlier about a hidden weapon cache hidden in a certain room, you can use that clue here to access what’s there. The clues are rarely super specific, and will frequently require you to explore the area and interact with objects to find out what they are before piecing things together for yourself. I enjoyed this element a lot, and wished for more of it and less combat.
I do wish there were a few more modern conveniences in place here and there though. I realise this is meant to be a throwback, but an individual key taking up the same amount of inventory space as a shotgun is as irritating now as it was twenty years ago. Just let us have a keyring! I know the devs want us to really think about what’s important to take with us, but most of the time it just results in me running backwards and forwards whilst solving a puzzle. The aforementioned lack of a reference for characters and plot points is a minor gripe, but one that I have, whilst the lack of a really good map for the outdoor areas made navigating parts of the island harder than they should be.
The thing that got me the most though, was how often you find yourself doing the same thing. You’ll reach a new part of the island, and you’ll find yourself in a building where you need to find a bunch of different keys to progress. Eventually you’ll reach the next area and need to do the same thing. This happens multiple times throughout, and whilst the puzzles themselves are interesting, having to find yet another series of keys isn’t. When there’s puzzle, enemy, and story creativity on display, this feels pretty weak in comparison.
However, the whole package here is pretty solid, and fans of the genre will probably enjoy this, assuming the handful of bugs I found have been remedied by the final release. Getting stuck on tables whilst walking around was irritating, and the sanity effects not repairing when taking the appropriate healing item frustrated me. There’s a lot of fun here, with a pretty deep lore if you read all the logs with care, so there’s plenty for a survival horror lover to sink their teeth into.
Dead of Darkness is available now on PC.
