The Dark Pictures Anthology: House Of Ashes launches this October
At the height of the spooky season
I do so love it when games let me think about Halloween this early in the year, so big thanks to Supermassive Games for announcing the release date for The Dark Pictures Anthology: House Of Ashes today during the Summer Game Fest. The next instalment in their spooky narrative-driven game collection is set to arrive on October 22nd, and in the new trailer they showed some of the scary beasties we'll be up against.
Set in Iraq in 2003, a handful of American soldiers find themselves trapped in Sumerian temple after a firefight causes a tremor. Unfortunately for them, said tremor did more than just make them fall in a hole, it woke up some dark evil stuff that is now hunting them.
The monsters look like terrifying xenomorph bat-things with echolocation. The whole trailer is giving me mild Pitch Black vibes actually, which bodes well. Love that film. I am curious how much guns will be involved in this one, though. None of the characters in previous Dark Pictures games have been heavily-armed or military-trained (as far as I'm aware), I just hope House Of Ashes doesn't lean on shooter elements.
The Dark Pictures Anthology games put players in charge of the different characters across these dire situations, making choices that will affect who lives or dies. The first of the Anthology, Man Of Medan, was a bit naff, though it's witchy follow-up was a bit better according to Alice Bee's Little Hope review.
I've yet to try Little Hope myself, but I am partial to these sorts of games. Perhaps I'll wait until the Halloween season to try it out, so I can dive into House Of Ashes straight after.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: House Of Ashes is coming to PC via Steam, as well as the Xboxes and PlayStations on October 22nd.
E3 2021 may be over but our memories live on - see everything on our E3 hub. Many more big game showcases and streams are still to come this summer, leading up to Gamescom, so see our summer games stream schedule to stay up to date.