4/5 ★ – Endless_backlog's review of The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes.

12hrs First of all, House of Ashes is the best instalment from supermassive games since Until Dawn, and remains so after playing The Quarry (yet to play Devil in Me). I can’t help but feel that both the prologue set in 2231 BC with the battle of the Akkadians and Gutians, and also the first exposition into the temple ruins in the 1940s would have gave so much more depth to the games environments. The archeologies should have been playable flashbacks as they would not have been equipped with any weapons unlike the loaded military we play as, and could have offered a stark contrast in facing the monsters, from all out shoot em up to stealth or creative battles in the past. In terms of gameplay there was a few glitchy moments where someone was levetating their gun etc or the faces didn’t quite look legit delivering dialogue. The game utilised over the shoulder camera angle and from distance to emphasis the claustrophobic feel of the caves. The only characters I particularly enjoyed were Jason and Salim. I actually tried to save Clarice as long as possible as I thought she’d turn and have some defining moment where vampire Clarice saves the gang and turns against the vampires. Looking forward to playing the curators cut and seeing how my story pans out controlling other characters in the same scenes we played through the first time round.