Skip to main content

The Devil in Me is the most interactive Dark Pictures game yet

Each new entry in Supermassive Games’ and Bandai Namco’s The Dark Pictures Anthology is incrementally better than the last. Last year’s House of Ashes was the most enjoyable entry I’ve played thus far, as the game had noticeably improved lore and cast of characters. While it would have sufficed to tell another good story in The Devil in Me, Supermassive added one extra twist that makes the upcoming Dark Pictures entry much more engaging than the ones before.

Having played two hours of The Devil in Me, the standout feature is that characters can now move objects around in the environment and pick up tools. In previous games, this was mostly limited to just picking up collectibles and opening up doors. Moving around objects and picking up tools seem like inconsequential features since they’re pretty standard in most horror games, but their inclusion in this game feels like a big step forward for the series, adding a new dimension of horror.

Recommended Videos

New cast, new tricks

The Devil in Me follows five characters who are part of a documentary film company called Lonnit Entertainment. The crew is shooting the season finale of their documentary series that focuses on the serial killer H.H. Holmes. Coincidentally, the crew gets invited to a modern-day replica of the killer’s “Murder Castle” hotel.

The preview started with me controlling Charlie, Lonnit’s CEO. With him is Erin, an intern and sound engineer. Unfortunately, Erin lost Charlie’s cigarettes, so they venture farther into the hotel to find some. What’s particularly interesting about the five characters is that they all have unique abilities in the form of tools related to their specific profession. For example, Charlie, as the CEO, often has business cards on him. He can open up locked drawers by using his business cards as a makeshift lockpick. And Mark Nestor, the cameraman, can grab items from higher-up places using his camera stand.

Erin holds a microphone in The Devil in Me.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The implementation makes each character feel more distinguishable from the others, which is important because Supermassive reuses character likenesses and models from previous entries here. Mark’s face, for example, was used in Man of Medan for one of the game’s antagonists.

However, one tool stood out to me above the others, and that was Erin’s microphone. As the sound engineer, she comes equipped with a pair of headphones and a microphone that allows her to pick up noises. When I took control of her character, the hallways were dimly lit, and I was forced to rely on sound in order to navigate around. I heard someone scream, and the sound icon in the middle of the screen would fill up more as I got closer to the source.

This particular section with Erin had me dreading what was around the corner every time I turned. It ended with her being locked in a room, and with her having asthma, she began experiencing an attack. As the rest of the crew tried to get her out, a mysterious person wearing a mask appeared in the room with her, even offering her an inhaler. I was given the option to either attack them or grab the inhaler. I chose the latter, and the mystery person grabbed Erin and put a knife to her head. But he didn’t harm her and seemingly only cut off a piece of her hair.

What followed was another interesting wrinkle of the new tool system. I noticed the number 5 was attached to the inhaler, and it decreased by one as Erin used it to calm herself down — indicating that some items have limited uses. This inclusion required me to be tactful about the choices I make: I should probably avoid situations that potentially put Erin in harm’s way. Presumably, if the number of inhaler uses runs out, Erin could permanently die in my playthrough.

More interactions

With the new interactive elements, characters can now push items like carts around in their surroundings. Mark’s section in the preview demonstrated this mechanic the most. In a library-looking area, I pushed a big shelf into a gap that allowed me to cross over to the other side. It was reminiscent of the Resident Evil 2 remake’s library section with a similar puzzle.

Mark climbs a ladder in The Devil in Me.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

While these puzzles aren’t very challenging, what makes them frustrating is that sometimes it can be hard to see what you’re able to interact with. It wasn’t entirely clear to me that I was able to move that aforementioned shelf. I had an inkling that I could, but even standing directly in front of it, no button prompt showed up. So I walked around the area for five minutes, confused about how to progress. It wasn’t until I walked passed the shelf again that the prompt showed up — even though I was only a little farther away from the shelf than I was before.

Dark Pictures Anthology games have a good amount of accessibility options, including allowing players to hold down certain buttons to pass quick time events rather than repeatedly tapping them, or giving players additional time to make split-section decisions. All of those options are back in The Devil in Me, but it looks like there weren’t any additional accessibility options designed around the new interactive elements.

As laid out in the early impressions of God of War Ragnarok, I was able to apply high-contrast filters to interactive objects in my surroundings. If I got stuck on a puzzle, I was able to more easily figure out how to progress. I would’ve loved to have something similar to that for The Devil in Me so I wouldn’t be left wandering aimlessly trying to figure out exactly what to do next.

We hate Charlie

So far, though, The Devil in Me has me intrigued. It’s definitely much more grounded than previous entries, though it still has some mystical elements too. Animatronics seem to play a big role in this one, as there’s a bar area with a creepy bartender animatronic that lingered over Charlie as he was searching for a pack of cigarettes. At the beginning of Charlie’s section, an exact replica of his hat can be found hanging on a rack, and then in a later cutscene, a mysterious figure can be seen placing that hat on an animatronic that looks eerily similar to him.

An animatronic bartender in The Devil in Me.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

I’m interested to see how the H.H. Holmes-inspired setting turns out, as well as discover who the mysterious person is and their motivations. I do hope that the full game tones down the cheap jump scares, as I experienced about five of them during the preview. Oh, and as an aside: I’ve already had it with Charlie, as he incessantly whines about not having his smokes. The rest of the cast agrees with me too since they call him out for acting like a baby and having temper tantrums. He’s also the only one in the crew who dismisses the creepy occurrences going around at the hotel while everyone else is spooked and wants to find a way out.

I look forward to killing him off on purpose during my playthrough when The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me launches November 18 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

George Yang
George Yang is a freelance games writer for Digital Trends. He has written for places such as IGN, GameSpot, The Washington…
Topics
The best Zelda dungeons, ranked
Link and Zelda under Hyrule Castle in "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom."

There are a lot of metrics I could use to rank the best Zelda games. I could talk about the best Zelda bosses, the worlds, items, and more, but I believe the dungeons are the biggest individual factor in deciding how each game stacks up to the others. These are the meat of every Zelda game. All the combat and puzzle solving happens here, and the excitement of exploring each one is what pushes us to want to explore these worlds. The boss is the icing on the cake, but a good dungeon can be the highlight of the entire game. Looking back at all Zelda games, I have made some tough calls to bring you a list of the best Zelda dungeons, ranked.

#10 Eagle's Tower - Link's Awakening

Read more
We need to start having real conversations about AI in gaming
Copilot Quake II game.

AI has become a dirty word across almost every discipline over the past few years. As big corporations keep pushing this technology forward, a vocal resistance among creatives, critics, and passionate communities has risen up in opposition. While every creative medium is at risk of AI influence now, gamers are particularly sensitive about this technology sucking the creativity and human element from our beloved medium. Even the mere mention of AI being used in game development triggers a massive backlash, but we need to start being more nuanced in how we talk about the ways AI should and should not be used. Because, like it or not, AI is going to become more ubiquitous in gaming. We can't keep talking about AI as though it is a black-and-white thing. It is a tool, and like any tool, there are ways it can be used appropriately.

The question we need to ask ourselves now is, when is it ethical to use and what crosses the line?

Read more
Mecha Break is the closest I’ve felt to piloting a real Gundam outside Japan
Key art for Mecha Break.

In 2015, in a mostly-empty arcade in Fukuoka, I slid into the pilot seat of a Gundam.

I pulled the door down, watching as it seamlessly merged with the rest of the wall and turned into a display of my surroundings. As I pulled the earpiece down, the radio crackled to life as other pilots greeted me through comms.

Read more