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[jshackles]

Welcome to The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes NeoGAF OT

In House of Ashes, at the close of the Iraq War, Special Forces hunting for weapons of mass destruction unearth something far deadlier – a buried Sumerian temple containing a nest of unearthly creatures. To survive the night below, they must forge a brotherhood with their enemies from the world above.

Navigate the underworld and escape a terrifying threat
Fight your way out of a buried Sumerian temple against hordes of deadly monsters that have claimed you as prey.

The enemy of your enemy is your friend
This time, your crew is composed of 2 opposing factions that rarely see eye to eye. Can you put aside your characters' rivalries to fight together as one?

Don't play alone
The two critically acclaimed multiplayer modes are back. Share your story online with a friend or aim for safety in numbers through the offline 5-player pass-the-pad mode.

Characters:

Trailers:







Buy:

The Dark Pictures

The Dark Pictures Anthology — a series of standalone horror games.

www.thedarkpictures.com

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes PS4 & PS5

All Hell Breaks Loose

www.playstation.com

Buy The Dark Pictures Anthology House of Ashes Pre-Order - Microsoft Store

The Dark Pictures Anthology is a series of standalone, cinematic branching horror games where the decisions you make in the game determine the story you receive. House of Ashes is the third game in the series. At the close of the Iraq War, Special Forces hunting for weapons of mass destruction...

www.microsoft.com

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08N3DCHLS/?tag=neogaf0e-20

 

[kiphalfton]

Feel like these guys are wasting their talent on these type of games. After playing Until Dawn, I am convinced they would be a great candidate for bringing back the fixed-camera RE/SH type games with gunplay/combat. The fixed camera work in Until Dawn is top notch, however, it seems they ditched that in this game. Bad choice imo.

 

[jshackles]

Feel like these guys are wasting their talent on these type of games. After playing Until Dawn, I am convinced they would be a great candidate for bringing back the fixed-camera RE/SH type games with gunplay/combat. The fixed camera work in Until Dawn is top notch, however, it seems they ditched that in this game. Bad choice imo.

I could definitely see something like that being popular in the AA space these games kinda occupy.

But I don't think Super Massive is the right developer to do it - they're more storytellers than masters of combat gameplay. It'd be like if Telltale games had made the Batman Arkham games, they would have been very different.

But I agree - I hope we see the return of fixed camera horror action titles like Silent Hill.

 

[yurinka]

How many games is going to have this collection? I'd like to see this guys back to work with Sony again in Until Dawn 2 or a similar game. I loved Until Dawn but I heard these The Dark Pictures games aren't that good.

 

[Danteyke223]

How many games is going to have this collection? I'd like to see this guys back to work with Sony again in Until Dawn 2 or a similar game. I loved Until Dawn but I heard these The Dark Pictures games aren't that good.

Four , the next one was already announced and has a name : The Devil Inside Me . There’s a trailer for it.
That will be the last one for Season 1

 

[jshackles]

Anyone playing this when it unlocks later tonight?

 

[Badlucktroll]

Preloaded and ready to go!

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

How many games is going to have this collection? I'd like to see this guys back to work with Sony again in Until Dawn 2 or a similar game. I loved Until Dawn but I heard these The Dark Pictures games aren't that good.

They're still very good. If you liked Until dawn they are the same game with different story. Only knock on it is maybe it's harder to tell a good story with these shorter games. There's some jank in the animation quality but the graphics are still really good. The lighting in these games is awesome.

 

[Feel Like I'm On 42]

I want to know I'd there any difference between ps4 and ps5 versions outside of resolution and framerate. Would be disappointing if not since this is their first game with a native ps5 version.

 

[Miyazaki’s Slave]

Thanks for the OT jshackles , great work!
Ready to play through this Tomorrow and Saturday.

Worth picking up and playing through with a friend/co-op imo.

 

[Dthomp]

Too tired to start up tonight, will likely fire it up tomorrow afternoon/evening. I wish they'd return to a bigger budget release like Until Dawn then these small scale ones (As they've been pretty miss on the hit or miss scale so far). I was gonna wait, and just flat out the lack of anything interesting to play these days made me cave and preorder/dl last night on PS5, hope it's got some spooky shit and is more close to UD or even Little Hope, and less the realish type setting that it may have similar to Man of Medan.

 

[Rayderism]

One thing I like is that they are listening to feedback to improve each sequel in the series. Man of Medan was OK, but after learning the plot twist, replays were less fun because you pretty much knew what choices to make in replays. Little Hope was better because even after learning the plot twist, choices were still interesting to explore in replays. I'm hoping House of Ashes obscures your choices even further to make replays more enticing.

Plan to play at least an hour or two of HoA when it unlocks in about 20 minutes.

 

[Classicrockfan]

Do you have to play the other games to understand this?

 

[KyoZz]

About 1 hour in, so far it's ok. Already feels better and more interesting than the previous entry which is not something really hard to accomplish imo.
One thing I don't like: the dynamic between the 2 wedded as it is super cliché already. but we'll see.

Do you have to play the other games to understand this?

Nop

 

[IbizaPocholo]

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes reviewed by Ricky Frech on PlayStation 5, also available on Xbox, PlayStation 4, and PC.

The newest Dark Pictures game is developer Supermassive's best horror game since Until Dawn made it famous.

 

[Cattlyst]

Definitely looking forward to playing this one. Loved Until Dawn. Man of Medan was a bit meh and I didn't even bother with Little Hope. House of Ashes really intrigues me though.

 

[Badlucktroll]

I wish i knew what Supermassive’s Silent Hill pitch was, and why Konami rejected it.

 

[Rick Dangerous]

Looking forward to play this. I enjoyed previous entries. I juste hope they get rid off the trick : what you see is not real. Enough of this.

 

[Beer Baelly]

I wish i knew what Supermassive’s Silent Hill pitch was, and why Konami rejected it.

After playing Man of Medan I think I know why

 

[RiccochetJ]

Oh! This sounds like it's actually good! I somewhat enjoyed Man of Medan, but was terribly let down by Little Hope. So much so that I wasn't going to get this one. Reviews are changing my mind.

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

I love that they have Quality and Performance modes.

I'll be playing on Quality unless there's bad frame pacing like Little Nightmares 2 (if you didn't know, Supermassive ported LN2 to PS5 and XSX).

 

[thatJohann]

Streaming Xbox series X in performance mode at 60fps if anyone is interested in seeing how it runs

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

Definitely looking forward to playing this one. Loved Until Dawn. Man of Medan was a bit meh and I didn't even bother with Little Hope. House of Ashes really intrigues me though.

Dude, little hope was awesome. I didn't even finish man of medan, but little hope was a good game.

 

[CitizenZ]

Like I did with their last game, Ill wait til its basically free. It was absolutely the worst choice driven story I have ever played.

 

[xion4360]

so this is the next one...and finale of this "season"

 

[ManaByte]

Picked this up tonight on PS5 (and Little Hope since that was one sale).

 

[jshackles]

I only got to play for about an hour last night. Doing movie night mode with my son and he's at work tonight.

But the setup here is really good and I'm already sucked in and invested.

 

[mcjmetroid]

I'm a a little bit into it.
It looks great gotta say especially with HDR.
Some of the faces/motion capture are unintentionally hilarious though. Could end up being a meme worthy game, you can kinda tell what characters are gonna get killed off first due to the effort put into those faces.

But I'm enjoying it so far. It's something different.I never got far into median but enjoyed Until Dawn.

Not sure if they other games had this but I like the target aiming quick time events like where you need to shoot something and a cursor will appear for you to aim and fire.

 

[Chris_Rivera]

I'm a a little bit into it.
It looks great gotta say especially with HDR.
Some of the faces/motion capture are unintentionally hilarious though. Could end up being a meme worthy game, you can kinda tell what characters are gonna get killed off first due to the effort put into those faces.

they unintentionally didn’t put much effort into some of the faces?

 

[Werewolf Jones]

Someone tell me if the monsters are actually real this time. Little Hope's twist was high key trash.

 

[EverythingsOverrated]

Guys, probably not a good idea to plainly post story spoilers to the last game(s) considering the story is the main reason to play these.

Looking forward to playing this despite being slightly disappointed with both Man of Median and Little Hope.

LH was great until the last 15 minutes or so whereas Man of Medan started off pretty slow. Hoping supermassive nails these last two in the anthology

 

[thatJohann]

Played a couple of hours on Xbox Series X. Very fun and some really impressive visuals. Runs silky smooth at 60fps in performance mode. Not a single frame drop a couple of hours in. What a fun Halloween treat. Good stuff!

 

[IbizaPocholo]

𝕱𝖔𝖗 𝖌𝖔𝖔𝖉 𝖔𝖗 𝖋𝖔𝖗 𝖎𝖑𝖑, 𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖎𝖗 𝖋𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝖗𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖘 𝖎𝖓 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖍𝖆𝖓𝖉𝖘.

Today, all hell breaks loose in House Of Ashes, now available.

 

[lillars]

I need to pick this up. I played the first a couple of months back (thanks Gamepass), and then bought and played the second one immediately afterwards. Both definitely scratched that scary Halloween itch.

 

[Airbus Jr]

 

[Rayderism]

At least this one is not just hallucinations and plot twists that you can see from a mile away.

One thing I've noticed with all three of these Dark Anthology games is the disparity between SDR and HDR.....SDR has oversaturated color, and HDR has under-saturated color. Kind of annoying, and it's something I don't experience with any other games. I end up just playing it in SDR instead of whacking out my TV settings just for HDR in this game. I spent weeks tweaking the settings when I first got the TV and feel like I've found the happy-medium that suits most all of my games. And I've never had this color saturation issue between SDR and HDR with any other games. The difference really is supermassive.

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

I played a little bit of this game so far on PS5 and I usually opt for quality/resolution modes at 30fps, but on this game in particular there's an issue with frame pacing when using Quality mode so I opted for Performance mode (there aren't a lot of shiny surfaces anyway) and I haven't seen a stutter since.

Also, some of the character's movements are really janky and a lot of textures are just horribly low res. I guess that's what happens when you make cross-gen games. Oh well.

Can't wait for development to shift more towards UE5.

 

[John Marston]

The perfect game to play if you drink & smoke while playing and ignore the pause button.

 

[drotahorror]

Have played a couple hours with my wife and we think it sucks. It's slow, takes the controller away way more than previous games it seems. There's less interactivity, the QTE's are easier than ever, the scares are shit.

Looks good graphically. Wife hasn't played Until Dawn so I think I'm gonna just do that one next. We beat the others already.

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

Have played a couple hours with my wife and we think it sucks. It's slow, takes the controller away way more than previous games it seems. There's less interactivity, the QTE's are easier than ever, the scares are shit.

Looks good graphically. Wife hasn't played Until Dawn so I think I'm gonna just do that one next. We beat the others already.

Same. I just can't get myself to keep playing it. It's not scary, and it's not even interesting.

 

[fart town usa]

Man, I loved Until Dawn and bought Man of Medan when it released but didn't play much. Put a few hours into it the other week, what an awful game. Just absolutely truly awful and it's because of the characters, whoever wrote the script should be embarrassed. I just couldn't take it anymore and ended up deleting the game from my PS4 so I'd never play it again.

I was pretty interested in this new one but after playing Man of Medan, not so sure about it anymore. I'll have to watch some gameplay footage.

 

[drotahorror]

Man, I loved Until Dawn and bought Man of Medan when it released but didn't play much. Put a few hours into it the other week, what an awful game. Just absolutely truly awful and it's because of the characters, whoever wrote the script should be embarrassed. I just couldn't take it anymore and ended up deleting the game from my PS4 so I'd never play it again.

I was pretty interested in this new one but after playing Man of Medan, not so sure about it anymore. I'll have to watch some gameplay footage.

Bro, seeing people in this thread or maybe it was another one, but def on gaf, say House of Ashes was the 2nd best after Until Dawn got me a bit optimistic about this one. I feel like if you think Man of Medan was trash then you will hate HoA.

Personally, I thought Little Hope is 2nd best after UD. But Until Dawn is just on a such higher tier than all of them that, being second place isn't that great.

Either Sony money just did so much for UD or maybe I'm just jaded and UD wasn't even that good. I remember it being really good though.

 

[fart town usa]

Bro, seeing people in this thread or maybe it was another one, but def on gaf, say House of Ashes was the 2nd best after Until Dawn got me a bit optimistic about this one. I feel like if you think Man of Medan was trash then you will hate HoA.

Personally, I thought Little Hope is 2nd best after UD. But Until Dawn is just on a such higher tier than all of them that, being second place isn't that great.

Either Sony money just did so much for UD or maybe I'm just jaded and UD wasn't even that good. I remember it being really good though.

Appreciate the info. Especially your comment on LH cause that one is still on my radar. It's a bummer, it's not like I want to dump on Supermassive. Like most people point out, Until Dawn is fantastic and I just want to experience a solid script like that game did. I'm fine with their other games being smaller in scope but yea, MOM was just unbearable at a certain point.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

Check out the latest The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes trailer. The House of Ashes Curator's Cut is available now. The Dark Pictures Anthology Friend's Pass is also available for Man of Medan, Little Hope, and House of Ashes.

 

[Ryuji Goda]

Finished it last night. Played 'movie night' with my girlfriend. I (we) really enjoyed it.

Even though it is my least favourite of the bunch.

I would rank them as follows:

1. Until Dawn
2. Little Hope
3. Man of Medan
4. House of Ashes

 

[Dust-by-Monday]

Finished it last night. Played 'movie night' with my girlfriend. I (we) really enjoyed it.

Even though it is my least favourite of the bunch.

I would rank them as follows:

1. Until Dawn
2. Little Hope
3. Man of Medan
4. House of Ashes

My thoughts exactly. House of Ashes didn’t grab me and it felt very forced and the jokes were super lame. I didn’t find myself caring about that happened to any of the characters

 

[Pilgrimzero]

After 4 hours it got much better.

Lost one guy because I didnt find the med kit like 6 hours earlier. A tad unfair but whatever.

Lost another because I hit the wrong button in an action sequence right at the damn end. This one I felt was unfair.

Over all a good time. First 4 hours could be trimmed to 2 to get the ball rolling faster.

 

[Krathoon]

What is great about these games are that they are cheap and you do get a good sized game for your buck.

They are more like interactive films, so you don't have real elaborate gameplay. They are actually fun to play because of that.

 

[Krathoon]

If it is like Until Dawn, they usually set up a situation in the final act where allot of people can die.

It is like of like old laserdisc games, one slip up and you die.

 

[Krathoon]

It sounds like Little Hope is similar to Silent Hill, but with witchcraft.


It seems like a trope where you have a car wreck at a weird little town.