It isn't what you see, but what you don't see. It's the suggestion; the subtle teasing of the subconscious; the lonely creaking of the floorboards resonating throughout an empty hallway; the slow advance around the corner; the swelling sense of dread as the ever-present evil that looms near refuses to reveal itself. Fear is not an adrenaline rush. It's that helpless feeling of being alone in the dark.
Frédérick Raynal's 1992 masterpiece is the textbook on horror. Seemingly overnight, it redefined the way action and adventure could be used to create suspense, and it went on to become not only a huge commercial success, but one of the most imitated games of the following decade. And with this ground-breaking success came pressure, impossible expectations, and a long struggle to recapture that early glory.
It has been re-imagined, rebuilt, traveled across media, and never quite zeroed in on exactly what made gamers quake in their boots all those years ago. And yet still, the name still means something. As Alone in the Dark is resurrected from the dead once more, IGN plumb the depths of its storied past.
Alone in the Dark developer Pieces Interactive has been hit with layoffs a month after its release, as per the latest information.
That genuinely, genuinely sucks. The reboot has clear flaws, but it really felt like a solid first step for this team to receive *greater* investment.
That's standard. Teams are together for a Project, after its done some..and sometimes most devs are fired until the next Project is in the works and people are needed again. Only the core members stay in the time between the hot phase of the game development.
What’s annoying is people don’t understand how contractors work, either. All of this is uninformed knee-jerk reactions without any understanding of how employment works in this industry. There are key developers and staff that stay with a studio/publisher, but often times it’s a hire per project and then seeking new employment for a project. That’s how it’s always been…
That's a fair point too. I would say that in light of its tepid critical/commercial response and ongoing mass layoffs across the industry I think it's understandable for fans to worry about the longer-term implications. We'll see how it plays out in the future.
VGChartz's Lee Mehr: "In one sense, it feels strange to even think Pieces Interactive had big shoes to fill with this series' legacy. Given what's come before, did it really? And yet, even when considering the last two flops over a two-decade span, there's still something about Alone in the Dark emblazoned on a title screen that carries a sense of revered history. In that respect, perhaps this reboot's best accomplishment is in honoring that spirit through its inventive world. It's also fair to emphasize knocks against its survival-horror design, some puzzle-solving, and so on; it certainly won't be considered a trendsetter like the 1992 classic. Still, the amount of goodwill wedded to its brighter qualities makes for something that dawdles the line between unfortunately-flawed and impressively-enticing."
The new Alone in the Dark remake doesn't do anything especially noteworthy, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's just... cromulent.
The only Alone in the dark game I have played is The New Nightmare and I was very impressed with it. In fact, no Resident Evil game was as close to capturing that gothic horror feel until the Cube remake of the first RE game. But it wasn't just a Lovecraftian kind of gothic horror. Games like Alone in the dark pre-date the art deco and 1950s attention to detail in games like Bioshock and Resident Evil picked up on these influences.
The New Nightmare got some quite high reviews but it has also had some haters who thought that it was too similar to RE. But Alone in the dark created the template for this particular type of game so it is excused and it came up with some new ideas like the flashlight.
I remember having the dreamcast version and I loved it. The only reason why RE got the reconition before Alone was RE was produced by Capcom who happens to be an bigger Company than the previous devolopers.