➤House of Ashes Review - Horror was once more interesting 🕹

This Halloween, we bring an analysis that the date asks for! Getting into the horror mood, today we tell you what we think of House of Ashes, the latest title in the anthology The Dark Pictures.

Developed by Supermassive Games and published by Bandai Namco, like the other games in the anthology, House of Ashes follows the pattern that was seen in Man of Medan and Little Hope. The title abuses QTEs, presents choices that can decide who lives and who dies, and delivers a lot of not-so-well-written dialogue.

As in the other games in the anthology, in House of Ashes we control a group of characters, making choices and relying on dialogue options that shape the character of each one, with the moral compass being present again.

House of Ashes Review - Horror was once more interesting — Your choices decide whether Marines live or die.

The horrors of Iraq

House of Ashes deviates a little from what we saw in Man of Medan and Little Hope, offering more action than these titles and putting players in combat against "demons". Set in Iraq, in 2003, House of Ashes shows the story of US Marines in search of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons, which already gives the game a military theme that moves away from the previous titles of the anthology.

Thus, the Americans Eric, Rachel, Nick, Jason are four of the characters we control in the game, with the fifth being Salim, who in turn is a soldier in the Iraqi army.

After a mission goes terribly wrong, all the aforementioned characters find themselves literally meters and meters underground, a situation generated by a massive landslide that takes them to ruins full of unimaginable dangers. With a somewhat tiring start with poorly written dialogue that seems to get the plot nowhere, the game quickly takes on a strong air of tension when we find ourselves lost in the dark ruins.

There is a good job of introducing the terrible enemies little by little, with some moments of darkness, doubts and tension serving to make the appearance of the demons - which are actually something else, but let's not spoil the surprise - is well constructed and has a certain impact. . As House of Ashes is an extremely short game, it also doesn't take long for opponents to really show themselves, with the situation quickly defining itself as hopeless for the Marines.

shallow characters

The title is still not able to stand out when we talk about dialogues, as well as its characters are extremely shallow in several moments of the plot.

There are certain issues that almost work in an attempt to better develop the characters and introduce them more deeply, as is the case with the rocky relationship between Rachel and Eric. The big problem is that when trying to take more advantage of issues like this, the title delivers very unsatisfactory and sometimes very generic dialogues, causing any dramatic or narrative weight to be lost.

The Iraqi Salim emerges as the most interesting character in the game, with the attempt to present the other side of the story being one of the main points for him to stand out among the others. Salim shows that on the other side of the war there are not only monsters, but also people with their own problems, family issues and even people who no longer want the horrors of conflict.

Certain characters can develop better as per player choices, with some relationships becoming stronger or weaker with each decision made. The big problem is that as such cases are rare, it is very likely that most players will finish the story without having the opportunity to see such development, only seeing a simple plot with characters that don't have much to offer.

It's in your hands

It is extremely disappointing that the characters in House of Ashes are not written the way they should, as if they were, the title could become a big name in the horror genre.

This is very clear when we realize that, even though the characters are shallow and the dialogue is often forgotten, we really care about every consequence of our choices. The plot can follow completely different paths, without your decision power being false. Your choices, successes and mistakes really influence the course of the game, whether during conversations, during moral dilemmas or even during moments of action in gameplay.

One detail can get someone in the way, while a different decision could have saved that character's life. In this way, the game manages to create a great atmosphere of tension and even indecision in each moment that the player must make a decision, since most of the time your intuition is practically the only element you have to decide which is the best option to choose.

This is no longer a secret in The Dark Pictures anthology, with other games delivering similar journeys, but it is worth mentioning that this remains one of the positive points in House of Ashes.

Fear exists, even though it's not that strong

House of Ashes is less terrifying than the other titles in the anthology, something that is also caused by the military theme, which also ends up drawing more action. In addition, the opponents encountered in this game also come out of supernatural terror and other elements that tend to deliver more fear, leading to a more violent and action-driven type of horror.

However, the game is capable of offering moments when fear dominates the players. We explore the ruins with a constant atmosphere of tension accompanying the journey, while the game knows how to use the darkness between environments to make the player walk along paths where the unknown becomes a real problem.

The verdict

House of Ashes has some problems that compromise the adventure. Poorly written characters, disappointing dialogues, scenes that present strange cuts, problematic motion capture at certain moments... the title is a bit lacking.

I also felt that the game could embrace horror a little more, as the title strays far from the anthology's proposal when it delivers action as one of its strongest elements... The Dark Pictures is an anthology about pure horror.

Still, feeling like you're in control of the situation makes the journey interesting, with the player remaining interested in finding out what will happen as the plot unfolds and the characters suffer the consequences of every decision made.

If we take into account that many horror works, which include games, movies and other media, often deliver weak plots, characters and narratives, but manage to hold the audience by delivering other elements of the genre, we should also give that credit to House. of Ashes.

Note: 6 / 10

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