PC Preview Code Provided by Bandai Namco
Coming back with the Season One finale title for The Dark Pictures Anthology, Bandai Namco and Supermassive Games are gearing up to release The Devil In Me. As a film crew heads into the historic Murder Castle to film an episode surrounding the terrible actions of serial killer H.H. Holmes, they find themselves in a situation they can’t walk away from.
Gameplay
Before getting into the details, I want to point out that the controls themselves are starting to feel so much cleaner than in the first few games. That was easily one of the first things I noticed when I played the preview because usually there is a clunky feeling to the controls but this time it wasn’t nearly as bad.
However, unlike the previous games, it seems that each character will have their own unique tools to utilize while they are roaming about the different sections of the hotel. Given that this is a film crew, it makes sense that each member would have a specific tool to use. While they haven’t all been shown off yet, you have options like a card to help unlock drawers, a boom stick to help get items that are out of reach, and a omni-directional microphone to help you hear through walls.
As characters have conversations and moments with each other, you will have a short window to pick the direction the dialogue will go. It seems this time they are mixing the systems of character-to-character relationship levels with the character trait system, so we will end up seeing how this plays out in the end. Those who played Little Hope may remember the back-and-forth within the community on whether the trait system leading to whether the characters live or die in the end being a good or a bad system.
Of course, you will also be faced with quick timed events and action choices as well, so be prepared to make choices throughout the entire narrative experience. Other than the narrative side of things, players will once again be moving objects around to form pathways, solving light puzzles in the area, finding secrets to help put all the pieces together, and finding premonitions to help them avoid the foretold outcome.
Expectations
I am going into this game expecting a lot of the same things I did in the original titles. I look forward to a good narrative story, a solid twist reveal near the end, the option to take hints from the narrator, a chance to save or kill off characters throughout the journey, and plenty of scary events to fill in the gaps. This preview build definitely shows a lot of good signs of what this game will hold and I hope this turns out to be their best title in the series yet.
Verdict
The Devil In Me definitely chose the best setting to have a murder series take place in! The Murder Castle is a classic true tale of a real serial killer with a really twisted reality behind him. The mannequins and animatronics definitely make for a nice touch and look forward to seeing what they do with them. They managed to make me uneasy in the preview demo alone a few times so I can only imagine what the full game will bring.
The Devil In Me is set to release on November 18th for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
