Alone in the Dark was before my time and I have never played a single game in the series. Honestly, this is probably the first time I've ever done a deep dive on the series just to know what it's all about. I've seen footage of the original game here and there before and everytime I see it, I can't help but laugh at how bad it looks. Didn't realize until today that Alone in the Dark was from 1992, which I guess for the time was pretty impressive.
But I can definitely see why the series was never able to keep up in a post Resident Evil world. My first exposure to the series was the 2008 game, so I was definitely bewildered by the stark contrast in atmosphere and tone the game had compared to its original which doesn't exactly seem fitting of the title "Alone in the Dark" and looks more like a game of Clue than a horror experience.
That's something I think this series has probably struggled with. It doesn't seem to have any kind of identity nor one that has stuck into the public consciousness the way Resident Evil and even the long dormant Silent Hill has. They did a whole trilogy set in the 1920s all with a similar style, but everything after that has been these completely different things starring a guy named Edward Carnby as either an alias or an immortal just to keep the story in the present. Yet they all seem like such drastic departures that don't quite understand what "Alone in the Dark" really means, and to be honest, I don't either. I think the last one was even a 4-player shooter or something.
I can see why they'd want to distance themselves from the original games, but they haven't successfully transitioned the series into something new while simultaneously staying faithful to the original idea of the series. This new game seems to be doing that far better than any of the others, but is lacking modern horror sensibilities and the polish and graphical detail of the other third-person survival horror games we've seen so far. I don't really see this being a hit or reviewing too spectacularly, but I'm definitely intrigued by its historical importance to the genre.
Apparently there was a cancelled remake of the first game around 2003 I think that was inspired by Resident Evil REmake. I thought it looked really good and I love the ways in which it utilizes the fixed camera perspective to create interesting scenarios to scare the player with.
Honestly, the creativity and abundance of ways to create tension and horror through fixed perspectives is what I really miss about classic survival horror games because they can only really be achieved with fixed cameras as opposed to staring at the character's back or viewing what's in front of you in first-person.
It's a shame the game didn't see the light of day as it was probably the most solid direction they ever had. However, combat did seem to be done entirely through quick time events which is a little strange, but also kind of gives the game a much more cinematic feel like those Quantic Dream games or those recent Dark Pictures Anthology games, which honestly seems like quite a clever evolution of the series.
As for this survival horror renaissance, as much as I'm excited to see what Capcom is gonna do with Resident Evil 4, and as cool as the Callisto Protocol and Dead Space look, I think the game I'm most excited for is Alan Wake II. Remedy just never misses. I was a big fan of the first one and it's been like 12 years since it came out and after how impressive Control was, I can't wait to see what they have in store for their first survival horror game. Survival horror fans have long talked about their enjoyment of Alan Wake despite being more of a psychological thriller than a survival horror game, so for Remedy to embrace survival horror is really cool and shows that they know their audience.
