Alone in the Dark review: an unabashed ode to a ’90s horror classic

Alone in the Dark MSRP $60.00 Score Details Pros

Delightfully hammy voice acting
Space-bending environments
Jazzy score is a welcome throwback
Classic exploration hook
Useful difficulty tools

Cons

Flat story
Clumsy combat
Unmemorable monsters

As I rolled the end credits onAlone in the Dark, the new remake of a foundational 1992 horror classic, I watched on like a puzzled detective. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy my stay in the creepy Derceto Manor. Quite the contrary — I had enjoyed the campy six-hour adventure filled with hammy voice acting and old-school exploration. It felt like a fitting throwback, capturing the endearing sloppiness of 1990s games in a big-budget modern production. But there was one question remaining: Was that developer Pieces Interactive’s intent, or a happy accident born from a clumsy game with an unconvincing serious face?

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I’d have my eureka moment as soon as I began my second playthrough. After choosing my hero, the Jodie Comer-voiced Emily Hartwood, I popped into the settings menu to toy around with some of the remake’s bonus features. There, I’d find a Bonus menu. I’d enable an 8-bit filter and a skin for Hartwood that turned her into a blocky mess of polygons pulled right from the 1992 game. As soon as I unpaused, I laughed out loud at the absurd sight of it all.

It was the missing piece of the puzzle. Everything that one might call “outdated” was indeed the point; I had just played an unabashedly sincere ode to 1990s silliness.

Alone in the Dark’s clumsy action and boilerplate occult story may be off-putting to new players hoping for a Resident Evil-like glow-up. Meet the remake on its own terms, though, and you’ll find a charming ’90s horror homage that doesn’t turn its nose up at gaming’s roots. It revels in its