Dead of Darkness
Developer: Retrofiction Games
Publisher: EastAsiaSoft
Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S (Reviewed), PC
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $15.99 USD – Available Here
Overview
When it comes to horror games there are hits and misses and while it only takes a few things right to properly nail the horror element, so many end up missing the mark, especially in the indie scene. That being said, for every five indie horror games that fail to muster enough scares or worthwhile gameplay to keep players interested, there is at least one that manages to pull it off in its own way. Dead of Darkness just so happens to be one of those. An indie survival horror game designed with a retro-pixel aesthetic, there are many aspects of the game that harken back to some classics and even a rather surprising element that rarely is used much despite its popularity in retrospect, but has it come together to deliver a solid game when everything is said and done?
Story
Set in the year 1985 a worn out Private Investigator named Miles Windham receives a strange cassette in the mail from the owner of a massive estate on Velvet Island, a mysterious but well known island in the Celtic Sea near Ireland. While Miles would have likely ignored this tape given its strange origins, the sender claims to have information about his wife and daughter that were presumed dead in a fire that happened years prior and still haunts Miles to this day. With the potential for answers at hand, Miles sets out and joins a blonde woman named Olivia as they take the ferry to the island only to immediately find that something strange is going on as the pair come across a large pool of blood and many members of the staff acting suspicious.
When Miles is told that Charles, the man who sent for him, hasn’t been seen in days and he is sent to wait in the Guest House until they can figure out more, all hell starts to break loose as a guard stumbles in nearly torn to shreds. Olivia, who happened to be at the scene at the time, gives Miles his gun to try and find help at the main mansion only to immediately step outside and find that the island has begun to be overrun with Ghouls and nearly every generic maid or security guard he has come across has died. With very little to go on and plenty of puzzles and twisted monsters in his way, Miles must get to the heart of the mystery within Velvet Island if it means learning the truth about his family.
Dead of Darkness tells a satisfyingly dark and twisted tale that isn’t afraid to shift genre a bit here and there with where it wants to draw its horror aspects from or shift perspective from time to time. While we won’t spoil it here, players will find themselves thinking it may have to do with a certain company only to find out how much more sinister everything truly is, especially if players take the time to find, and read, all of the information logs scattered throughout the game. That being said, the pacing for the storyline feels a bit all over the place and a few of notes players can find are incredibly long to the point players will need to ensure they are in a safe place to actually read them since time doesn’t pause in the inventory screen..That being said, some of this information included in these lengthier optional collectibles are quite enlightening when it involves the island and its history, especially revealing elements that tie into the main storyline as early hints.
Dead of Darkness begins with a lengthy introduction, foreshadowing and introduction sequence before dropping players into the mansion where, outside of the aforementioned notes, the story slows to a crawl. In fact it is only really until players get past the mansion initially and the first couple of extra areas that the story then starts kicking back up. Ironically, it is only in the final three-quarters of this roughly eight hour game that the story really starts to show its true colors, making us wish that the game hadn’t just led bread crumbs as top just how twisted things were until so close to the end.
Gameplay
Dead of Darkness immediately wears its inspirations on its sleeve but does so through a far more retro style than even the games it is taking inspiration from. Players will find themselves playing from a top-down sort of view where they will be able to control Miles, or someone else, along an eight directional path with the ability to run, walk, and stand still and aim in these eight directions to fire a weapon or slash with a knife. Similar to the games that inspired it, players will be always limited to an eight inventory limit slot, which means carrying around a handgun, bullets, and some healing items already means nearly half of your inventory is gone and when players factor in the fact that there are various status ailments they can be afflicted with as well as the need to carry quest items or keys to and fro, there is a lot of item management here and backtracking back and forth to the box, which surprisingly also has a limited amount of space.
In many ways, this backtracking is both tedious but also useful as Dead of Darkness immediately warns players that it does not make use of auto saves in any way and relies on the classic save room system using a diary. Thankfully, not only are there multiple save slots but the title does not punish players for saving frequently, almost encouraging them too when completing significant puzzles or challenging areas since, at least for a good while until new enemies are triggered, anything the player kills stays gone. Healing items are also handled in an interesting fashion as players can use painkillers to heal but they will lose efficiency over time apparently, though while playing on the default Moderate setting we never really noticed an issue. The same can be said about antipsychotics but more on that a bit later, though it is worth noting that using limited “Health Kit”s that are spread throughout the game will not only heal the player and cure them of any ailment, but also restore the efficiency of smaller healing items as well. Various status effects such as poison, bleeding, and even stun can be cured through using antivenom and bandages respectively but these also take up limited inventory space, making players need to balance what they feel is necessary for their next trip and take some risks at times.
That being said, combat itself is something of a mixed bag. It works quite well as stopping to aim and shoot is a tried and true tradition for survival horror but it is also rather limiting in the fact that players really only have a pistol and knife to work with for the early part of the game and gain access to a shotgun soon after, but that’s it. As they advance keen eyed players will gather upgrade parts to improve the damage dealing capabilities of their handgun and shotgun (and immensely for the knife if they take on a secret trial) to take on the ever increasing danger of enemy types they encounter. Initially, the only enemy players will need to deal with are shambling ghouls that can be dodged to avoid wasting ammo with some strategic maneuvering but eventually even more dangerous monstrosities with longer reach and capable of inflicting status ailments will appear and while players can leave and re-enter a room to reset their position, they’ll often need to eliminate them to advance.
That is where some of the survival horror aspect comes in, where players need to judge when to take a risky hit or take down an enemy or, in more than a few cases, get jumped by enemies smashing through a window to try and catch them by surprise. That being said, nearly every single enemy in the game can be “kited” to avoid taking damage and picking away at their health when they have enough distance or put an object between them. The same can even be said about bosses as many tend to have simple attack patterns or, if players simply want to “duke it out” on Moderate with a properly upgraded shotgun, simply blast away and most often than not slay early bosses before they have a chance.
Where some of the cheap aspects of Dead of Darkness come into play are the instant-kill elements and also an essential reason why players should often backtrack and save in this game. Not only do some bosses have instant-kill attacks but there is even a standard enemy type that will instantly kill the player if touched, something that is genuinely annoying and cheap during a few locations that are only lit by lamplight. Plus there is an entire maze-like dark location that features an invulnerable instant-kill boss far separated from the save room and the many switches players must hit to advance. In similar fashion, the game also features spike traps and… glowing red beams? that deal massive damage and status effects though the latter only appears in one location. These spikes are instant kill no matter what and while they aren’t an issue most of the time, players are tasked more than once to run an entire gauntlet of instant kill traps with only a simple save between, leading to plenty of re-runs through hoping this next time will be the one. No one likes an instant kill, and even if players choose to bump the difficulty down from the Moderate to Easy or even Very Easy, it doesn’t stop these spikes and monsters from being instant kills.
One thing that we mentioned earlier that is quite neat and does come into play if players let it slip far enough is a character’s sanity gauge. As players are hit or grabbed by enemies, they’ll not only lose health but a white light beneath their health will start to darken. The darker this light dims, the more possibilities there are for having something strange happen and even downright kill the player if blackened entirely. As mentioned before, taking antipsychotics will restore this light but some of the effects of low sanity are quite interesting. They can range from simply reversing the map if players look at it, swapping the direction of the controls, to even triggering a satanic anonymous phone call. These elements are reminiscent of Eternal Darkness a bit and add an extra little layer.
Speaking of layers, one other interesting aspect are “Clues” that players can find. These clues are used to help solve the countless puzzles that players come across. They tend to involve finding a note, analyzing a clue obtained from a note or object in the environment, and then either combining it with an item or even another clue to come up with the solution and find what players need to properly progress. As for the game’s New Game+, players will be able to access Very Hard once they beat the title completely and the only thing that carries over will be the status of the players’ upgraded weapons, which will make things quite a bit easier at least at the start. The hardest difficulty is only available once players beat the game on Very Hard, though as mentioned before there is no actual difference or notable unlockable bonus for doing so.
Audio & Visuals
Dead of Darkness is designed with a full pixel aesthetic in mind when it comes to gameplay, with all of the game’s sprites being pixelated so even if players are coming across a maid torn in half or a headless torso of a guard, it’s minimized a bit by the style choice. Monster designs are quite solid once players get past the initial round of only having to face off against ghouls and many of the twisted designs that boss monsters take on really embody the “body horror” aspect that the plot starts to turn towards. The only part that takes a more modern turn are the oft lengthy dialogue sequences as these are presented in visual novel-esque form with character portraits fully drawn and given a number of expressions that change to match the tone. The true gruesome nature of some bosses are really showcased here as their twisted forms are even represented in their portraits.
As for the game, it surprisingly features an entire English voice track that works quite well for the most part. Given the game is set off the coast of the UK the voice acting and accents are matching though there are a couple of primary characters that sound a bit amateurish which is unfortunate. The soundtrack works quite well to provide some nice atmospheric moods to navigating the island and players will want to keep an ear out for the sound some monsters make as each is unique and can give an early warning if an enemy in a room might be as simple as a ghoul or as dangerous as an instant kill one.
Overall
Dead of Darkness manages to take its tributes to survival horror games of the past and create a great game that manages to not only to find its own identity through a solid storyline with plenty of twists, once it gets going, as well as some great designs. Combat is serviceable and the same can be said for the puzzles, though over-reliance on insta-kill situations do drag down the experience and rely on players backtracking to save rather than losing solid progress due to a cheapshot.
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