Are you looking for Lovecraftian lore, a little detective noir, and silly occult goodness? Then this game is delightful. It's not packed with action or the scariest game, but I don't think it was supposed to be either. The story is short, but I am glad it didn't overstay its welcome. And if playtime is a worry, the secret endings and dual protagonists give you a reason to play the game more than once. So yeah, check the game out if you think the atmosphere will click with you!

A Lovecraftian story set in New Orleans. The lore is fairly decent, and it has David Harbor both as a VA and as a skin to play - not bad. But my oh my are the movement and combat clunky AF. In that sense it reminds me of Sinking City. Although I have to say, Sinking City is an all-around better game for the atmosphere and lore. So this game is I suppose a 5/10 or so. If you're a Lovecraft acolyte then you'll likely derive some enjoyment from the story and atmosphere; it's not a game to play for the action/combat.

In these times of remakes and remasters, the news about an Alone in the Dark remake was a nice surprise to me. I played the first three games back when they released in the 90s. The first one was one of the first games with graphics in three dimensions. The controls were pretty horrible, the main character moved like a tank but it was still great. I suppose its faults were tolerated since it was after all one of the first games with a character that was able to move in 3D and also it was mainly an adventure, so combat was secondary and you could get around without having very responsive controls since you would be doing lots of puzzles. There was no voice acting and only midi music (no space for digital audio on diskettes!!); but the game was still groundbreaking at the time because of the novelty of the graphics and the gameplay, as well as the extreme camera angles. It had a chilling atmosphere, a Lovecraftian story theme lurking around, and definitely some 1990s funny scary/not really scary enemy monsters. All done with love!

This remake had some potential going on with it. The graphics although not groundbreaking like the original, they are a pretty solid AA quality, and the two main characters are nicely rendered. There is voice acting as you would have in any modern game and a full original soundtrack with live instruments which frankly sounds very well done and sets the mood that the original could only dream of. The puzzles in this game are modern, more streamlined and you have different difficulty levels (puzzles and combat) to accommodate for different playing styles.

And then we come to the point of the combat…

The combat in Alone in Dark remake, for a 2024 game is really bad. Its so bad that it may be worst than the original. It still controls as a tank, it is slow, it has long non skippable animations that makes it difficult to reload a weapon for example, and it simply is not fun. It may seem worst perhaps, because of the fact that (at the time of release) in 2024 we had much better options and what worked 30 years ago may not work as well today. I tried to focus on the other parts of the game, but by the time I reached the final boss (and the ending of the game) the experience in that moment was so bad that I was almost to the point of quitting the game and not coming back, even lowering difficulty did not help, it was not pleasant.

But that was only the combat, it is just a part of the game… we still have, the adventure, the story, and the two main characters which are fully voiced and interpreted by Hollywood actors David Harbour and Jodie Comer and the rest of the cast…

Sadly the two main characters are only together at the beginning of the game (the first five minutes). Then, they remain separated for the rest of the game, talking to themselves briefly (strong emphasis on the word BRIEFLY).

There is a complete waste of David Harbour and Jodie Comer. They seem to be good actors, and they do what they can with what is given to them (specially David Harbour which seems to be a little less lost than Jodie Comer) but they just walk alone from here to there, encounter a secondary character, which are on a whole different level of performance, listen to what they have to say for one minute and then they go on their way. Their interactions seem meaningless.

As for the story itself, it does have elements that are initially interesting and remind us, of the original story of the 1992 game, along with some mention of the different habitants of the Derceto mansion over the years, that was very interesting; there is even, on the voiceover side of things, a great feature which is, for every document you find in game, there is a spoken narration of its words, relating to the original context, that is, it sounds like a radio play or an audio book. Sadly, the story for the whole game lost me by the end with its explanation and resolution of the conflict with Emily’s uncle and the Dark Man.

The game has several endings, with both characters. You have to play it two times, to get the full story and the collectibles. Which also gives you a hidden narration. That would be fine (in principle) but as it is, the game narrative is not really good, the dialogues are fragmented and non-existent, and all you can think about is, well, what if instead of doing all that we just concentrated on one good story for one character…

Alone in the Dark remake wastes time on unnecessary filling, hires popular actors from film and tv and doesn’t know what to do with them, has a ton of collectibles across two different playthroughs but doesn’t concentrate enough on the main adventure; The puzzles are ok and the main story has a good foundation but it loses my interest by the end (especially with the main characters not interacting between each other) and the combat is as horrible as if taken directly from 1992.

It hurts me saying this, but this series should’ve been better left… alone in the dark .


This review ©2025 Aleena.