4/5 ★ – patjans5's review of The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes.

House of Ashes is the third entry in the Dark Pictures Anthology series, following Man of Medan and Little Hope, both games I was excited for, but ultimately felt let down by them. House of Ashes is honestly great though, and a huge step up from the first two games. First off, the story was a lot more engaging and interesting, I loved unraveling the secrets of this game, and I didn't feel bored at all playing through it. Like, I wouldn't mind a part 2 if they ever decided to do it. I doubt they would, but I'm just trying to say I enjoyed the story, it felt like a really good horror movie similar to the likes of The Descent. The characters were also better written and likeable. Like I legitimately cared about the safety of some of these characters, which made extremely tense and scary situations be all the more tense and scary. There's also some very human moments between these characters, it made you really think about the choices you make. The voice acting was also very much improved compared to the first two games. There's a line or two that was voiced sorta poorly at times, but that's it. And above all else, it was scary. While Man of Medan and Little Hope did nothing for me aside from some jump scares, House of Ashes had it all down. The lighting, the atmosphere, the realism to the world, and just the setting and monsters itself made the whole experience unnerving. There's a certain moment towards the end that made me afraid to progress forward, which is the one thing I look for in a horror game. I loved it, I really did. Speaking of the lighting and realism.. this game is stunning graphically. I expected a graphical jump every time for these games, not to mention House of Ashes is the first game in the series to have a next-gen version, but this game looked lifelike at times. Facial models are realistic, the lighting tiny details throughout felt real. Supermassive Games were always on top of their visuals, and this is the best they've produced so far. Gameplay is pretty much the same as the first two games and Until Dawn. Aside from times dialogue and choice-driven actions there's challenging timed button prompts that require super quick thinking. Honestly I wasn't ready for it after how Little Hope held your hand with it's prompts. One of my favorite additions though, which I've been waiting for all this time, is the ability to freely control your camera 360 degrees. The moment I figured out you could do that I was so happy, though my one complaint is that it was still weird to control in tight spaces. But overall this was a great game, and a huge step up from the first two in the series. Here's hoping the Dark Pictures Anthology continues to better itself with the next one.