The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me Xbox Series X Review 8/10 “Once you are in hell, only the devil can help you out” 🔪 @TheDarkPictures @SuperMGames #IndieGames #GameDev

While playing House of Ashes, I remember saying to my brother “I really hope the next instalment is more of a slasher - just a killer chasing you around”, so when I saw the trailer and read that The Devil in Me was inspired by America’s first serial killer H.H. Holmes with a bit of the saw films thrown in, I was excited, it was exactly what I wanted.

And so, come launch day - I gathered three fellow gamers to enter the horrors of the famous murder house… let the games begin.

The plot revolves around a film crew making a documentary on H.H. Holmes, the show is initially somewhat lacking until a mysterious man invites them to a replica of the murder house. Desperate for a chance to improve the failing documentary, they agree and are taken to a remote island where the house resides. Soon after arriving, they notice something is afoot and it becomes clear that everything is not as it seems. 

The first thing that becomes apparent is how much the crew really don’t get on, they have become fractured and now are at odds with each other. In House of Ashes and The Quarry I found most of the cast quite likeable, but here most of them are deeply unlikeable, which I didn’t mind.

We all played our characters differently, I played my character Charlie as a complete dickhead, and I quite enjoyed the change from the niceness I usually go for. One criticism I do have is the bickering couple who have recently split, it’s been in a couple of these Dark pictures Anthology games and is getting a bit tiresome now, I hope the next game doesn’t go back down this route. 

We all enjoyed the story, loving the traps and the chase scenes, all of us were trying to figure out who the mysterious killer was and their motives and we were actually pretty close in our final guess, a story is always good when you can piece it together with the clues that are available. Through the files and cut scenes, you get a clear idea of what’s happening, and why. 

The gameplay is typical Supermassive fare, if you have played any of the previous titles, it should be very familiar - lots of interactive cut scenes, some QTEs… you know the drill. The Devil in Me does have one change and it’s a more extended gameplay section. Previously, you would explore an area, pick up a few things - maybe do something like fix a generator - and then back to the interactive cut scenes.

In this game they have added expanded sections wherein you move boxes and shimmy through cracks, you know, all the fun bits of modern gaming - oh wait, no… I mean the really tedious stuff that every game I’ve played for the past god knows how many years thinks it desperately needs.

I loved the balance in the rest of the series, the gameplay sections were enough to break up the action and also to get a picture of your location, and the situation you are in - but not enough to detract from the pace. Here, the balance is disrupted and it has a knock-on effect, where before, you could plough through a game in four or five hours, it now takes about eight, which you think would be a positive, but the extra time means we had to gather everyone back in person for a 2nd session which isn’t always easy, and when one of us was moving boxes or doing the continuous video game shimmy, someone would make a sandwich or look at their phones because it's beyond uninteresting to play, never mind to watch someone doing it.

One thing I really think does need to be worked on is the dead-eyed stare when making a decision, it gave us all a chuckle at various points throughout the game, the photo-realistic models are good, but they do offer a downside, especially in the prologue - set in the original murder house in 1883 - which looks really under-polished and worse than the rest of the game. 

Luckily enough, good things offset this irritant, the murder house itself is enthralling, with moving walls and a real sense of threat. I loved the design of the killer, it was well thought-out and had the best scares of the anthology (my cousin let out an actual scream at one point).

The decisions were quite unclear, and we ended up making some very poor decisions - that’s not a negative, I love it when decisions aren’t super obvious. In the end, we had a couple of survivors left, a reason to tease my cousin (he got the first - and most - people killed), and also learnt that for some reason I still can’t do the breathing QTE, so now a third person has tragically lost their life because they couldn’t breathe under pressure. So, before Directive 8020, I’m going to practice pressing the ‘A’ button in a very gentle rhythm.