The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes

The Dark Pictures Anthology still needs to iron out a few things before it can produce a truly classic entry, but thanks to a strong and fun story with a lot of twists, welcome difficulty options and stronger choice-based gameplay, House of Ashes shows the series is still striving to make notable improvements when it comes to crafting scary and entertaining tales.

In many respects, you know exactly what you’re getting with The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes. It’s a QTE-filled horrorfest that is often stretching against the limitations of its budget. The script could use some polish and the characters could be a little more outside the box. However, the claustrophobic scares work effectively, and the central mystery of House of Ashes signifies a return to what fans loved about Until Dawn. It gives us a tantalizing look at what could be coming in the future.

The last act gets pretty wild and is easily the best payoff Supermassive has set up so far, but the journey to get there is pretty damn compelling too. Like so much horror, it teeters on a perilous tightrope between stupid and cool, and it doesn't always land on the right side, but it's still fantastically entertaining even if it's making you groan.

As much as I feel like this series is stuck in the shadow of Until Dawn for a large part of the audience, collectively, The Dark Pictures Anthology is becoming something memorable in its own right. I’ll keep enjoying these games as long as I can, House of Ashes included.

House of Ashes is an impressive slice of horror. It's literal edge of your seat stuff for a large portion of its play time, and should you be interested, you can play cooperatively with friends as well as solo. There aren't big change-ups made in terms of gameplay, but there is a solid story here with some great writing and equally great performances - and that alone is worth an oo-rah.