Those who managed to complete The Dark Pictures: Little Hope were treated to a teaser for the next game in Supermassive's anthology horror series, The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes. The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes teaser trailer didn't reveal too much, confirming Ashley Tisdale as the main character and a desert setting, but now Supermassive Games has pulled the curtain back with an extensive gameplay demo.
Supermassive revealed some new gameplay footage of The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes that showed some early gameplay. In The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes, Ashley Tisdale's Rachel King and the other playable characters are fighting in the Iraq War in 2003. While exploring the desert, an earthquake opens up the ground beneath them, and they find themselves lost in a mysterious underground temple. This includes soldiers Nick and Jason, with players taking on the role of Nick early in the game.
In the new footage released by Supermassive Games, players see Nick exploring the temple, showing off the game's new 360 degree camera. One of the gameplay improvements in The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes is this revamped camera system, replacing the fixed camera angles that were used by Man of Medan and Little Hope. Otherwise, it's clear from the gameplay footage that The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes will be a faithful continuation of the previous games in the series.
This means that players will be making dialogue choices and other decisions to help steer the plot in different directions. Players will be able to impact the relationships between the different characters in the game, as well as determine their ultimate fate based on the choices that they make. In this particular section of The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes, players are given the opportunity to influence the relationship between Nick and Jason based on the dialogue choices that they select.
Besides selecting dialogue, The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes will have plenty of QTEs, which is typical of the series. One of the more intense QTEs shown in this new gameplay shows Nick and Jason try to rescue their fellow soldier Merwin, with the player having to mash a button to try to stop some bleeding. Ultimately, Merwin winds up dying, though one has to wonder if players would have been able to save him had they done things a little differently.
As seen in The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan and Little Hope, player choice is hugely important in these games, and so it will be in The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes as well. Fans will find out exactly how they can influence the story when they get their hands on the game later this year.
The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes launches later in 2021 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.