One Avocadoan’s journey delving into the realm of survival horror.
Back in the comments to my review of Cronos, I indicated that I was canceling ‘Afraid and Alone’ due to burnout. Now that I’ve had a month to think about it, I think that decision might have been a little hasty. I’ve missed writing these, and I think the problem had ultimately come down to two factors – (1) trying to do these on a bi-weekly schedule and (2) solely playing survival horror games. By working on these just when I feel like it, and by playing non-horror games in between, I believe I should be able to avoid the burnout that plagued me earlier; at the very least, I’d like to try continuing this column for a little longer (just with more time between installments). Anyway…
The term ‘survival horror’ may have originated as a way to market the first Resident Evil game, but the genre arguably existed before that point. In particular, games like Sweet Home (1989) and Alone in the Dark (1992) served as heavy inspirations for the early RE games.1 Originally intended as a Call of Cthulhu adaptation (until the license was pulled for straying too far from the property), Alone in the Dark was developed and released by French studio Infogrames2 and was revolutionary in its use of 3D characters on pre-rendered backgrounds, eventually gaining the moniker of “First 3D Survival Horror Game”.3 Achieving much critical and commercial success (with sales surpassing 2.5 million units),4 Alone in the Dark spawned two immediate sequels in the mid-90s followed by three more mainline games between 2001 and 2024.
Alone in the Dark takes place in Derceto, an old and decaying mansion in 1920s Louisiana whose owner, Jeremy Hartwood, has just died. The player chooses between two characters – Edward Carnby, a private investigator hired by an antiques dealer to find a valuable piano in the mansion’s loft, and Emily Hartwood, Jeremy’s niece who is looking into her uncle’s death. (I chose Carnby.) As the player delves into Derceto, it quickly becomes evident that the mansion has been steeped in the occult for a long, long time. If they want to escape with their lives, they’ll have to get to the bottom of it before the ghouls and demons get to them.
So many of the gameplay elements that would come to define Resident Evil – and survival horror as a whole – are present in Alone in the Dark in one form or another. Tank controls, fixed camera angles and pre-rendered backgrounds, lore that is parceled out through documents that can be discovered and read, sometimes-obtuse puzzles requiring the player to find objects in one room and bring them to another, zombies and otherworldly monsters, firearms with limited ammo, it’s all there. The game even has its own version of a limited inventory, based on weight rather than discrete item slots. (I only ever ran up against the limit once, and I was easily able to discard some unneeded items to make room.) On top of all that, the main setting – an old, decaying mansion – directly brings to mind the Spencer Mansion from RE1.
Where Alone in the Dark differs from RE, however, is how it feels to play. The early RE games are no strangers to clunkiness, courtesy in part to their tank controls, but compared to AITD they play as smooth as butter. For one thing, Edward and Emily’s various actions are split up between different ‘modes’ that you have to change manually through the menu. If you want to take part in combat, you need to switch to ‘Fight’ mode. If you want to interact with an object – open a drawer, for example – you need to switch to ‘Open/Search’ mode. If you even want to close a door, you have to switch to ‘Close’ mode. This does keep the control scheme (which is never explained and I had to Google) relatively simple – there are only a couple action buttons – but having to constantly go into the menu for even simple things like that is annoying.
The bigger issue, though, is the combat. Firearms are easy to use, with surprisingly good aiming, but melee combat is some of the worst I’ve encountered in the genre so far. Early on, before you acquire any weapons, the player must rely on feet and fists. Every punch and kick takes forever to wind up, and enemy attacks both interrupt them and stun you for an unreasonably long time. Most enemies also seem to walk faster than Carnby, who is very slow (you can theoretically run by tapping the forward button twice, but whether that actually works is inconsistent), so it becomes incredibly easy to get stunlocked and die. The fact that they move close to or faster than Carnby’s walking speed also makes it difficult to avoid enemies, forcing you to waste bullets or health constantly trying to fight them off. While things get better once you have access to swords and knives, aiming swings can be a little wonky and whether or not a hit registers can feel erratic. A prime example is a sword duel you must have with a purple-clothed pirate, which entirely consists of standing in place holding the swing button for five minutes (not an exaggeration) while the game seems to have trouble deciding which hits make it through and which bounce off your opponent’s sword.
There are a couple other gameplay issues as well. One is that key items remain in your inventory after use, unlike a lot of later games in the genre. That even includes keys meant only for a specific door. While some items you can easily tell can be discarded (an empty med kit, for example), it can be difficult sometimes to tell whether an object will be needed again or can be tossed. Another problem is jumping. For some reason, the developers decided to include some platforming sections in the late game – something that is very much not ideal for a game with fixed camera angles. I actually didn’t struggle too badly with these parts, but I have seen frequent complaints about how finicky they can be. Additionally, in order to jump you need to switch to ‘Jump’ mode, something that doesn’t even appear in the menu outside of the rooms where it is needed and isn’t telegraphed at all.
The game also struggles somewhat to settle on a tone. The documents and flavor text paint a very intriguing and unsettling picture of what is going on, but then so many things are brightly colored and the enemy models look kind of goofy, like they would be right at home in a mascot platformer. Even the aforementioned pirate was more wacky than sinister, pirouetting down the hallway in a garishly purple cloak. Again, this is almost certainly down in part to the limitations of the time, but it can still feel jarring at times.
There is a lot of charm present, though. I love the random frog jumpscare in the opening cutscene and the early shot from the villain’s point of view of the player walking up the drive (which appears to be one of the most iconic moments of the game). The way the first enemies enter the loft in the beginning was great, too – the bird-thing fluttering by the window a few times in the background before crashing through and the zombie slowly raising the trapdoor and climbing up. There are some fun puzzles here and there, like one that requires you to play the correct record to encourage some ghostly couples to dance out of the way. And there is one book in the library that upon reading will cause the player character to float up into the air and contort before dying, a surprisingly bone-chilling detail. The mansion comes across as a fully realized setting as well. And I thought it was cool that the game wasn’t just inspired by Lovecraft’s mythos – it straight up incorporates it, with direct mentions of Cthulhu and the Necronomicon, among others, which acts a fittingly creepy backdrop to the game’s events.
Really, Alone in the Dark is harder to rank than many of the other games I’ve played for this column. It’s kind of like Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 4 in that regard. It’s innovative in the survival horror space, there’s no doubt about that, and it certainly has its charms, but actually playing the game? Not the most fun experience in the world. In fact, I’d say it’s among the most frustrating survival horror games I’ve finished so far. Still, though, it is hard not to respect the developers for their ambition and what they were able to accomplish nearly four years before even Resident Evil had hit the scene.
Survival horror and adjacent games I hope to cover (in no particular order) – Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Resident Evil: Village, Amnesia: Rebirth, Amnesia: The Bunker, Tormented Souls, Alien Isolation, Yomawari: Midnight Shadows, The Evil Within, The Evil Within 2, Alisa, Dead Space (2008), Alone in the Dark 2, Alone in the Dark 3, Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, Curse: Eye of Isis, Dino Crisis, Darkwood, ObsCure, Cold Fear, Lempo, Stasis, Stasis Bone Totem, System Shock 1 and 2, Metro 2033, Look Outside, Fear the Spotlight, Heartworm, Little Goody Two-Shoes, SOMA, Empty Shell, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Clock Tower: Rewind, White Day: A Labyrinth Called School, Condemned: Criminal Origins, Sorry We’re Closed, Fragile Reflection, Bioshock 1, Bioshock 2, You Will Die Here Tonight, My Friendly Neighborhood, Conscript, The Callisto Protocol
My Current Survival Horror Ranking:
- Resident Evil (HD Remaster) (9.5/10)
- Silent Hill 2 Remake (9.5/10)
- Signalis (9/10)
- Cronos: The New Dawn (9/10)
- Resident Evil 2 Remake (9/10)
- Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (8.5/10)
- Crow Country (8.5/10)
- Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse (8/10)
- Silent Hill 4: The Room (8/10)
- Silent Hill f (8/10)
- Resident Evil 4 (7/10)
- Alone in the Dark (1992) (7/10)
DNF’d: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Header image courtesy of Steam.