| “ | A military unit searching for chemical weapons unearths something far deadlier.
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House of Ashes is the third installment of the first season of The Dark Pictures Anthology series, and the third installment overall.
It is an interactive drama survival horror video game with sci-fi and action horror elements developed by Supermassive Games and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment for a multi-platform release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and, for the first time, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on October 22, 2021.
The game is based on the kingdom of Akkad during the reign of Naram-Sin, particularly the story Curse of Akkad.
Synopsis[]
A military unit searching for chemical weapons unearth something far deadlier. In the ruins of a buried Sumerian temple deep beneath the Arabian desert something evil is awakened. Savage and unstoppable, a nest of ancient and unearthly creatures has found a new prey to hunt...
Horrific discoveries and impossible decisions face the Unit as they strive to navigate a subterranean labyrinth and escape the terrifying threat. Will they each prioritise their own survival, or put aside their fears and their personal rivalries to fight together as one?
Plot[]
PrologueOn May 17, 2231 BC, there is a war between the Akkadians and the Gutians in the ancient empire of Akkad. The Akkadian Balathu is about to kill Gutian Kurum as another sacrifice when he is summoned to King Naram-Sin. He informs the general that the gods have sent an army of Gutians and they must prepare for battle, whereupon Balathu departs to his troops. Meanwhile, Kurum is sent back to his prison cell, but he manages to escape. An eclipse begins, and along with it comes a bloody battle, turning into a massacre upon awakening of something sinister underground. Both Akkadians and Gutians end up slaughtered, except Balathu and Kurum, who decide to put aside their differences and form an alliance in order to survive. They try to escape into the catacombs, where, however, a monster already awaits them. The warriors try to fight back but ultimately lose, with their fate left unknown. Main StoryAs the prologue ends, the player enters the repository, where they are met by the Curator. He coldly explains his role as a recorder of the player's story and talks about basic gameplay mechanics before saying goodbye, wishing the player good luck on their journey underground. Throughout the game, the player interacts several times with the Curator, who summarizes the decisions made by them and offers them hints. Act 1 On May 30, 2003, the Iraq War is in progress. The U.S. military (Lieutenant Colonel Eric, CIA field officer Rachel (who is also Eric's wife), Sergeant Nick (who is also Rachel's secret lover), First Lieutenant Jason, Corporal Merwin, Lance Corporal Joey and Eric's assistant Dr. Clarice) gathers at Camp Slayer. During the briefing, Eric reports that Caelus, the satellite program he developed, has spotted some kind of an underground complex in the Zagros Mountains, which they suspect contains chemical weapons. Upon arriving at the site, however, the unit encounters an Iraqi patrol, among them Iraqi Lieutenant Salim and Captain Dar, who already knew the Americans had arrived. A firefight ensues in which Joey is killed, followed by an unexpected earthquake.Both Americans and Iraqis fall underground and, trying to get out, they got attacked by sinister creatures which drag Clarice away and may kill Merwin. Meanwhile, Rachel and Eric stumble upon Naram-Sin's temple and discover the remains of a group of British archaeologists known as "The Hodgson Expedition". The two then are attacked by Dar and, trying to escape, Rachel falls into the chasm while Eric may be killed. Act 2 Eric reunites with the arriving Jason and Nick, after which the trio goes back in the temple. Exploring the building, the boys hear Joey screaming in the caves and go there only to be ambushed by Dar. Nick separates from the group and, trying to reunite with them, finds another creature and even meets Salim. The two team up to kill the creature, after which Salim escapes while Nick is found by his comrades. Rachel is shown surviving the fall by landing in a pit of blood. Trying to escape, Rachel is chased by a creature, but luckily Clarice saves her. However, as the girls climb out of the abyss, Clarice is revealed to have been infected by one of the creatures, causing Rachel to leave her behind or take her with her anyway. Meanwhile, Nick and Jason examine the outside of the temple when they are attacked by a reanimated Joey, who turned into one of the creatures. Eric arrives to help the boys and together they throw Joey into the chasm. Continuing to patrol the perimeter, Nick finds the archaeologists' radio. The trio are trying to fix the radio to call for air support (which will work if Merwin is alive) when they are attacked yet again by Dar, who kills Merwin and possibly Eric during the shootout. Nick and Jason successfully defeat the Iraqi, causing him to retreat, but during the firefight, they attracted the creatures' attention. The Americans run to lock themselves in the temple when Rachel and possibly Clarice catch up with them. Upon seeing an infected Clarice, Jason tries to kill her, though Rachel can dissuade him. Either way, the creatures infiltrate the temple, causing the group to flee into the catacombs, possibly losing the King spouses and Clarice. Upon reaching the sacrificial chamber, the Americans face the Iraqis again, but the groups decide to unite against the monsters. At first they successfully confront the swarm, but as The Ancient One, who is an infected Balathu/Kurum, joins the fight, the squad is quickly wiped out. The battle ends with Dar and Clarice dying (the latter meets Joey's fate and also becomes one of the creatures), the King spouses possibly dying as well, and the other protagonists fleeing. Act 3 Jason and Salim reunite and decide to keep working together to improve their chances of survival. Going deeper into the catacombs, they enter the caves and find an elevator leading deep down. Down below, the duo find themselves in a giant spaceship, in which both guys start to bond. Passing by a heap of cocoons, one of the vampires awakes and attacks the guys, but they are saved by the rest of the protagonists. After regrouping, the five take refuge in the Star Chamber, where they find out the secret about the creatures - turns out that they were aliens whose ship fell to Earth millions of years ago due to an invasion of bloodthirsty and infectious parasites that turned them into vampires. If Rachel was infected in the sacrificial chamber, she will become ill as the infection spreads. Depending on the player's decisions, her fate will include dying, being cocooned (as seen by Jason or Salim upon finding a living Balathu/Kurum preserved in a fluid), or extracting the parasite with an UV lamp. Either way, the five find a huge vault with thousands of vampire cocoons. Nick decides to go plant mines and finds the motherlode, which Nick can also plant mines on it, risking death, or retreat. Either way, the protagonists blow up the vault and run back to the elevator. On the way, however, Salim falls behind and is attacked by vampires, to which Jason can abandon him, wait by the elevator, or return and rescue his new comrade. As the earthquake begins, the survivors ascend back to the surface. Along the way, however, the two protagonists may be attacked by the vampire Clarice/Rachel and if three or more protagonists are alive, one of the two may die. Once on the surface, the relieved survivors rejoice, only to be immediately horrified by an upcoming eclipse, causing a swarm of vampires to rise from underground. The protagonists run into one of the huts, fighting for their lives against the vampires and possibly The Ancient One for a total of six minutes. Time runs out and the eclipse finally ends, burning the vampires under the revealed sun. The remaining survivors wait for air support and when the helicopter arrives, the group remains joyful and relieved as they fly off into the sun. EndingThe player meets with the Curator for the last time, where he comments on their ending and the number of survivors. The Curator bids the player farewell, promising to choose a more homely story next time, with a place where the player is guaranteed a decent night's sleep. During the credits, at Camp Slayer, arrive members of an unidentified United States government agency, among them being Agents Miller and Brooks. The two briefly go over the incident and examine the vampire remains. Meanwhile, each protagonist either participates in a debriefing where they talk about their experiences underground or their bodies laid inside a bodybag on the table. In the end, Miller and Brooks say they need to control the flow of information and make the world think nothing happened. This is followed by a short teaser announcing the fourth installment in the anthology and Season One finale, The Devil in Me. |
Gameplay[]
See The Dark Pictures Anthology#Gameplay for full gameplay of the anthology.
House of Ashes has a strict auto-save system that prevents the player from reloading the save file to an earlier point in the game if they want to change their decision. However, if previously the player had to start a new game or complete the game in order to select the desired chapter, now they are able to reload the file without a full playthrough.
To see all the content in the game, the player must pass it multiple times on different paths and scenarios. Moreover, the game involves a permanent death mechanic, which means the loss of a character forever if they died. Thus, House of Ashes provides numerous outcomes and endings for each character. The installment is slightly longer than its predecessors and take 5-6 hours to complete, though in Shared Story, it's slightly shorter due to players playing multiple chapters at the same time.
Rachel must decide whether to help the infected Clarice or leave her behind.
Throughout the game, the player is constantly faced with moral dilemmas ranging from the usual dialogues to life and death situations (save or abandon, kill or spare, etc.). For these cases, the player has a moral compass that offers them two or three choices for the answer - act rationally ("Head"), act emotionally ("Heart"), or say/do nothing. However, the time to choose is limited, about 5-10 seconds depending on the situation. House of Ashes utilizes a system of "bearings" that record any choice of action made by the player, which may have great consequences later on and are able to affect the outcome of the game.
The gameplay is focused on exploration, quick-time events (usual and Keep Calm segments) and discovering collectibles. The latter include pictures that show possible future events and secrets that reveal the lore and help to reveal the tragedies of the past in the Zagros Mountains. An in-game system keeps track of all discovered collectibles, making them always available to the player, regardless of their current playthrough. Collecting all or specific secrets, as well as completing the game, rewards the player with bonus content that provides additional information about the game's lore and development.
As the first installment in the anthology to appear in the ninth generation consoles, House of Ashes features several new mechanics that will later be used in the next installments of the anthology:
- The difficulty levels have been added - Forgiving (Easy), Challenging (Normal), and Lethal (Hard) - which affects the speed of the QTEs and Keep Calm segments. The player can change the difficulty settings at any point in time while in a playthrough.
- The camera is now fully floating 360 and also has a flashlight function as the game takes place mostly underground.
- Aiming QTEs have been changed drastically - instead of aiming at a specific point on the target, the player now must figure out where to aim by using the crosshair which turns red upon landing on target.
Finally, House of Ashes offers players four game modes: single-player, which allows to play the game from a main (Theatrical Cut) or alternate (Curator's Cut) perspective, and multiplayer, which allows two players online (Shared Story) or two to five players offline (Movie Night) to play the game.
Characters[]
House of Ashes follows five representatives of military organizations (four Americans and one Iraqi), who fell underground during an unexpected earthquake and found themselves trapped in an ancient Sumerian temple. The supporting cast includes members of the American unit and Iraqi patrol, representatives of ancient Mesopotamian period, a group of shepherds, an expedition of British archaeologists and underground creatures living in the caves of the Zagros Mountains.
Protagonists[] |
Antagonists[] |
Supporting Characters[]
Soundtrack[]
In-Game Music[]
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Other Music[]
- Intro - A Conversation with Death
- Credits - Conversations with Death (by Bitter End)
- Character Introduction Trailer - Devil's Gonna Come (by Raphael Lake and Royal Baggs)
Development[]
The team took inspirations from Aliens, Predator, The Descent, and At the Mountains of Madness. The Plot is also similar to the 2005 horror movie: The Cave. In an interview with the Supermassive Games team, executive producer Dan McDonald claimed that while the game is set during the Iraq War, war and politics were "not intended" to be the primary focus[1], but they tried to treat the setting with respect nonetheless. Will Doyle thought movies depicting such conflicts dehumanize people from opposing nations, so they decided to add making one of the protagonist Iraqi to show both sides of the war in a nuanced light. To this end, Supermassive consulted with military experts and Arabic speakers to see if their portrayal of 2003's Iraq was "grounded in reality".
Supermassive Games attributed the decision to set the game in Iraq to the country's abundance in myths and folklore the team could incorporate into the story. The developers believed the 2003–2011 Iraq War would make an "interesting" departure point for the development of the five protagonists, allowing them the opportunity for character motivations, relationships and dynamics the developers found compelling, sympathetic and complex[2].
The role of lead character was taken by actress Ashley Tisdale, who gave her voice and likeness to Rachel. According to Tisdale, she accepted the role not only because she could portray a tough personality but simultaneously be able to show a soft side[3], but because she could expand her career experiences outside of her usual roles in comedy. During the filming process, Supermassive Games recorded Tisdale's physical movements and those of the game's other actors to create animations for the character models. To comply with social distancing protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic, actors had to avoid bodily contact with one another while enacting their scenes; their movements were digitally edited in post-production to give the impression of contact.
The first glimpse of the third installment in the anthology appeared in Little Hope's gold picture showing a woman (Rachel) rappelling into a chasm and screaming frantically as the rope holding her snapped. Moreover, as the credits end, the announcement trailer[4] is shown, revealing the identities and voices of some of the protagonists. After a while, the names of the main cast, being Rachel, Eric, Nick, Jason and Salim, were revealed.
The teaser opens with a group of helicopters flying and landing in the Zagros Mountains. The scene then switches to Nick and Jason shooting off in a dark cave. At the same time, a voice-over (Jason) tells someone (Eric) to start believing in God as they are attacked by an anomalous threat. Then the scene and the voice-over change to show Rachel, being in a huge pool of blood, finding a statue of Pazuzu. At the same time, a voice-over (Salim) tells that in Sumerian myths there is a House of Ashes - an underworld where the souls of the dead go to be tormented by demons. The teaser ends with Rachel hearing clicking noises behind her and turning in horror, followed by the title of the third installment and the year of release - House of Ashes, 2021.
The first activity about House of Ashes began on May 19 in the form of a short teaser trailer[5], promoting the first gameplay reveal[6] on May 27. The reveal began with an interview with Will Doyle, who briefly talked about the inspirations, setting, new mechanics, protagonists and threats, which since Man of Medan and Little Hope, were real. The gameplay itself was 8-minutes long and took place in one of the early chapters. In it, in addition to the already familiar Nick and Jason, the viewer was introduced to two new supporting characters, Clarice and Merwin.
On June 10, a short story trailer[7] was released, revealing the beginning of the setting and fully showing the main threat, as well as announcing the release date, October 22. Almost a week later, on June 16, an exclusive E3 Studio interview[8] was released where executive producer Dan McDonald went deeper into the setting, gameplay and characters.
The next spike in activity began in late August. In anticipation of House of Ashes, Supermassive Games created the "Caelus Files" site[9], which allowed the reader to learn more about the game's lore. To celebrate the involvement in Gamescom 2021, a short trailer[10] was released on August 25, featuring the theme of the game being "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." On September 3, a 40-50 minute demo of the game was released to various content creators and game reviewers. This demo allowed the players to not only play the shown 7-minute gameplay chapter, but also other additional three new chapters. Players were also able to play as each protagonist and even kill Merwin and Eric.
On September 22[11] and October 14[12], an exclusive two-part interview with main actress Ashley Tisdale, was released. In them, Ashley talked about what it was like to play Rachel and talked about the personality of her character. As House of Ashes was released on October 22, it was accompanied by a live action launch trailer[13] in which Pip Torrens, the actor who plays The Curator, took on the role of his character and chatted with the viewer in an in-game meeting style.
Reception[]
General reviews for House of Ashes
House of Ashes received "mixed or average" reviews from critics and "generally favorable" reviews from users according to Metacritic. It was widely regarded as the anthology's "best game yet" upon its release and as an improvement over the previous two entries, with a few reviews calling it a "step in the right direction" for the anthology.
The characters of House of Ashes were the subject of commentary for many critics. One of the protagonists, Salim, received widespread praise from audiences:
- Rachel Weber from GamesRadar+[14] wrote that some of the characters felt like good impressions of human beings, citing Salim as a character she really wanted to save.
- Richard Wakeling from GameSpot[15] commented that the developers did an excellent job at making Salim a sympathetic character and cited his character dynamics as being the game's best and most poignant moments.
- Jordan Devore from Destructoid[16] agreed and considered him as the most likeable and relatable of the cast, and he also calls Salim the most pragmatic due to his willingness to put aside conflict in order to escape the temple.
- Tom Orry from VG247[17] thought that Salim stood out from the cast due to his backstory and personality.
- Cass Marshall from Polygon[18] added that Salim's character motivation of returning home to his son throughout the story, his "enormous vampire kill count", and his relationship with Jason was what made him stand out.
Criticism was centered around the linearity surrounding the deaths of Jason, Salim, and Nick, with each character only being able to be killed in the final few chapters, and the love triangle between Rachel, Eric, and Nick. In the case of the former, many claimed that the deaths of the 3 characters only occurring in Act 3 significantly damaged the game's variation and main selling point of how anyone could die, while the latter was criticized for its poor execution in the story, dialogue, and significance of it concerning the characters' survival.
Compared with Little Hope, House of Ashes sold 27% fewer physical copies in the United Kingdom upon its debut. The game entered the UK boxed charts at number six, with 48% of boxed sales coming from PS5 users. The PS4 and Xbox versions made up 36% and 16% of physical sales at the time, respectively[19]. House of Ashes dropped to number 21 on the week of 30 October, denoting a 52% decrease in sales[20]. Factoring is both download and physical purchases, House of Ashes reached the GSD Top 20 Games monthly chart for October, where it was placed at number 11[21].
Awards[]
| Best Multiplayer Game | Nominated | ||
| Best Sony PlayStation Game | Nominated | ||
| Outstanding Camera Direction in a Game Engine | Nominated | ||
| Outstanding Direction in a Game Cinema | Nominated | ||
| Outstanding Game, Franchise Adventure | Nominated | ||
| Outstanding Lighting/Texturing | Nominated | ||
| Outstanding Sound Editing in a Game Cinema | Nominated |
Special Releases[]
Pazuzu Edition[]
The Pazuzu Edition is an exclusive edition release of House of Ashes. It features a copy of the game and a pre-order bonus with a vampire figurine, stickers, an eclipse pin, and an art print.
Triple Pack Edition[]
The Triple Pack Edition is a collection bundle featuring copies of Man of Medan, Little Hope, and House of Ashes, as well as pins (ship, poppet, and eclipse), a cloth map, and a 4-disc steelbook.
Volume 2 Edition[]
The Volume 2 Edition is a collection bundle featuring copies of both House of Ashes and The Devil in Me and a pre-order bonus with House of Ashes playing cards, the hotel's island map, and pins (eclipse and drawing compass).
System requirements[]
Trivia[]
References[]
- References to House of Ashes appear in other installments of The Dark Pictures Anthology:
- In Man of Medan: an article in the 1947 Newspaper about a missing expedition.
- In Little Hope: a set of coordinates from Occult Flyer; an article in the Newspaper: Cause of Fire about a reunion for veterans of 3rd Force Recon; the names of some pastors from a list.
- In The Devil in Me: The name "Jeff Kolchek."
- House of Ashes contains many references to other installments in The Dark Pictures Anthology:
- References to Little Hope: Eric's flashback; an advertisement for "The Singing Nickel" beer brand in a newspaper.
- References to The Devil in Me: an article in the War Newspaper about serial killer Manny Sherman; a book titled "Mind of a Killer"; the sweater pattern of the shepherds; Nick's shirt with the word Chicago.
- References to Directive 8020: The original home of the vampires being the Cetus constellation.
Other[]
- "HOUSE OF ASHES" logo is written in EUR42 font.
- House of Ashes is the first installment in the anthology to be available for the ninth generation of consoles.
- The title of the game is one of the names of the underworld. However, it is fictitious, with the real version commonly known as Kur or Irkalla.
- The title was trademarked before the release of Man of Medan, although its theme and arrival in the anthology were completely unknown.
- The skull in the game's cover has sharper incisors, which refers to the vampires who have the same incisors.
- Most of the characters are named after vampire-related famous writers and characters, although the names have been slightly changed.
- Clarice Stokes is named after Bram Stoker, who wrote the novel "Dracula".
- Jason Kolchek is named after Carl Kolchak, the protagonist of the TV show "Kolchak: The Night Stalker".
- Rachel King, Eric King, and Salim Othman are named after Stephen King and his novel "'Salem's Lot", respectively.
- House of Ashes will have a crossover with Glowstick Entertainment's Dark Deception, serving as one of the DLCs for its spin-off, Monsters and Mortals.
Gallery[]
Videos[]
References[]
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