The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes is a 2021 interactive drama and survival horror video game developed by Supermassive Games and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It is the third game of The Dark Pictures Anthology. The game features a multilinear plot in which decisions can significantly alter the trajectory of the story and change the relationships between the five playable protagonists; some lead to their permanent deaths. House of Ashes is set during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and follows five characters—four Americans working for the US Armed Forces and one Iraqi Republican Guard—who must escape from an underground Akkadian temple and survive the vampiric creatures that infest the area. Ashley Tisdale, who plays CIA operative Rachel King, was marketed as the game's leading actress. Jason Graves, a long-time collaborator with Supermassive for the series, composed the soundtrack during COVID-19 lockdowns in the United Kingdom.
Reappearing in House of Ashes are staple mechanics of The Dark Pictures Anthology, such as quick time events, two single-player and two multiplayer modes, and collectibles that allow players to see visions of possible future events. New features include a more interactive camera system, a handheld light source for easier navigation, and three difficulty levels to manage QTEs. The films Aliens, Predator, and The Descent, as well as the H. P. Lovecraft novella At the Mountains of Madness and the myth of the Curse of Akkad were the main influences for the game. The creatures were made using motion capture and hand animation, and the temple's design was inspired by ancient Mesopotamian architecture. Military specialists and Arabic speakers were consulted to ensure a faithful depiction of the war.
House of Ashes was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on 22 October 2021, to mixed reviews. Several critics deemed it an improvement from the previous two instalments in the anthology, and points of praise included the replay value, QTE intensity, cinematography, multiplayer modes, and likeability of the Iraqi character. Critiques were directed towards the game's pacing, scare factor, facial animations, texture and animation glitches, and handling of the Iraq War. The fourth game in the series, The Devil in Me, was revealed in a teaser trailer at the end of House of Ashes and released on 18 November 2022.
Gameplay
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes is an interactive drama and survival horror game presented from a third-person perspective. Player control switches between five protagonists, working for the armed forces of their respective countries during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, who become trapped in an underground ancient Akkadian temple infested by vampiric creatures. Managing the characters' relationships is one of the game's core mechanics; they can be amicable, being courageous and ensuring everyone survives despite their differences, or they can continue alone and be concerned with their personal safety instead. Characters often quote the proverb "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", one of the story's recurring themes.House of Ashes is the first game in The Dark Pictures Anthology to feature difficulty levels, which affect the game's quick time events, another core gameplay feature. Players are given the option to hold rather than mash buttons, and they can give themselves more time to respond to the prompts. Several scenes, including combat-heavy ones, make use of QTEs that can lead to penalties like a protagonist's death if an input is not precisely timed. The game displays a notice whenever a QTE is about to happen, illustrating the type of action the QTE is intended to perform. Some types of QTEs involve pressing specific buttons to trigger actions from the player character, such as dodging an obstacle or keeping calm when hiding from a threat. Another type involves moving a reticle onto a target to shoot it.
Players often make choices that affect the narrative's progression and the characters' perceptions of each other. There is a limited amount of time in which they can choose an action or a line of dialogue with which to respond, or else say or do nothing when prompted to make a decision. An anatomical drawing of the brain and heart accompanies every choice in House of Ashes, indicating that the player character may choose actions based on rationality or emotion. Their decisions can influence the characters' assigned personality traits, which will sometimes lead to them acting in a different way when not under player control, but the game does not say how each choice will affect the trait.
To track the narrative branches in one playthrough, the game's menu has a system called "bearings", which allows the player to retrospectively view the actions they took that led to the current state of the game. The story is interspersed with discussions with an omnipresent observer called the Curator, who returns from the previous games in the Anthology. He talks to the players about the choices they have made and provides clues about what will happen next in the plot. The survival of the main characters depends on player decisions, and the game continues without the deceased characters.
House of Ashes includes elements of exploration and allows players to pick up collectibles while searching and moving through locations. A light source mechanic aids players in underground navigation and inspection by illuminating dark paths that lie ahead. Returning in House of Ashes are "pictures", collectibles that trigger a vision of possible future story branches to help players make decisions. Pictures can have a black, white, or gold frame. Also in line with earlier games in the series, 50 "secrets"—items that are scattered throughout House of Ashes—provide background information and context to events that happened in the temple and preceded the main plot. Secrets include journal entries that, when retrieved, each activate a cutscene where the author's voice recounts a 1940s archaeology mission that occurred in the temple.
The game features four gameplay modes. The "Theatrical" and "Curator's Cut" modes are single-player, while "Movie Night" and "Shared Story" are multiplayer. Customers who pre-ordered the game gained early access to the "Curator's Cut", a version of the story that shows mostly the same scenes that are viewed from the perspective and control of another protagonist. "Shared Story" and "Movie Night" offer the option to control the characters with another person; "Shared Story" acts as a two-player version of the game online and "Movie Night" accommodates up to five players in couch co-op.
Synopsis
Setting and prologue
House of Ashes plot is set in the former territory of the Akkadian Empire, which existed in Mesopotamia around 4,000 years ago. In the game's timeline, it was the site of the crash-landing of a spaceship that carried thousands of large, bat-like aliens, which were controlled by a parasite that gestates within the host's body. The disease caused the aliens to mutate into vampires vulnerable to ultraviolet light; they had been hibernating underground for millennia, occasionally venturing to the surface to feed on their victims' adrenaline. The prologue takes place in 2231 BC, as a Gutian army prepares to invade the capital Akkad and a solar eclipse allows the vampires beneath the temple to emerge and massacre both armies. Following the prologue, the game cuts to a library owned by the Curator, who introduces himself to the player and provides information about parts of House of Ashes gameplay, including the decision-making system and the pictures system.Characters
The game's five protagonists are Rachel King, a CIA officer; her husband, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col Eric King ; U.S. Force Recon Marines, Sgt. Nick Kay and 1stLt. Jason Kolchek ; and Salim Othman, a soldier of the Iraqi Republican Guard.House of Ashes centres around two main character dynamics: Rachel's romantic relationships with Eric and Nick, and Jason's relationship with Salim. After a year apart, Rachel and Eric have grown distant, leading to her affair with Nick, which can cause serious issues between the three throughout the game. Having enlisted after the September 11 attacks, the Islamophobic Jason is searching for his purpose in life, haunted by memories of ordering the shooting of an unarmed civilian at a checkpoint. Salim, a father who wishes to reunite with his son, may help Jason turn their initial animosity into friendship as part of the story's core theme and help Jason overcome his prejudices.
Main plot
Eric arrives at Camp Slayer in Baghdad along with his assistant, Clarice, to brief a team of Force Recon Marines led by Rachel about a mission to raid a village in the desert. He tells them that there may be a facility underneath the village hiding chemical weapons. Meanwhile, Salim returns home and searches for his son, but his commanding officer, Dar Basri, forces Salim to intercept Eric's raid, headed by Jason. Salim's squad ambushes the Americans on arrival, but sinkholes plunge everyone into the Akkadian temple buried beneath the sand. Clarice is grabbed and taken away by one of the creatures.The Iraqis and Americans are frequently attacked by the creatures, as well as an undead character from the prologue who became infected by the parasite inside the temple. Rachel and Jason can catch the infection later in the game. Throughout House of Ashes, the characters learn about the temple's history and of a 1940s British archaeological expedition who were searching for Alexander the Great's tomb, and who perished after encountering the monsters.
Salim, using steel debris from a fallen truck to fight vampires, explores the temple alone as the surviving marines regroup; Rachel is separated from Eric after fighting Dar and falls into a blood-soaked pit. While the US forces search for ways to signal for help, she meets the infected Clarice. Together, the two climb out of the pit, but due to Clarice's worsening state, Rachel must choose whether to abandon her or stay with her in the hope of medicating her illness.
Rachel reunites with her allies in the temple, after which they are assaulted by vampires. The Americans encounter Dar and Salim as they escape to the catacombs below. Salim suggests they unite to fight the monsters, to which the others reluctantly agree. The vampires attack again in the catacombs, separating everyone and killing Dar. After the assault, Salim encounters Jason and proposes to form an alliance. The two explore the temple and go deeper into the spaceship's remains. Nick, and possibly Rachel and Eric, follow and learn about the vampires' origin.
The survivors find a gigantic nest of hibernating vampires in the spaceship and destroy it. They escape to the surface to await recovery by a rescue team, but a total solar eclipse allows the creatures to attack the group before help arrives. During a post-credits epilogue, the located protagonists are transported to Camp Slayer, where the survivors are interviewed. The US military, planning to cover up the entire incident, begins analyzing the vampires. Salim, if he survives, is either captured by American forces or manages to escape to search for his son.