Once again we find ourselves in the world of retro-tinged horror, with 2024 being especially productive for developers exploring this style of horror. Among Ashes is the latest to enter the conversation as one of the best examples of the genre.
The recent trend towards PS1-era aesthetics is partly repeated here, but the unique selling point for Among Ashes is that it actually contains multiple different perspectives and game types within its four or five hour playtime. You begin by sitting at an in-game PC playing a horror-themed Doom clone before being interrupted by a friend on an instant messaging service that is deliberately designed to look like it’s ripped straight out of the early 2000s. This is an interesting choice of period setting and one that brought me right back to my undergraduate days. Your friend sends you a link to a creepy pasta style forum post about a supposedly haunted game mysteriously released by a solo developer. That game within a game, Night Call, becomes the main focus of your time.
Here you play as a police officer called to investigate strange noises coming from the Stoker house but soon upon arriving your partner is attacked by a zombie and things start to take a turn for the horrific.
Night Call takes on the PS1 blocky graphics and deliberately wooden voice acting of early survival horror, but relocates the traditional American setting to a distinctly British country house. The setting reminded me of the cult classic Clive Barker’s Undying at times, an influence that is replicated through the demonic enemies that plague your time exploring the ubiquitous mysterious mansion.
Navigating the house is done via a first person perspective which suits the 2000s PC setting. At first you’ll have to fend off enemies with a simple police baton (UK police not generally being armed with firearms) but you can use this to defend and block most incoming damage. As the game progresses you’ll find the usual pair of a pistol and shotgun, but ammo is relatively scarce a lot of the time and best saved for the occasional forced encounter. The main enemies you face can only be put down for a short time anyway so it is best to save your bullets.
Alongside the basic but era-appropriate combat you’ll have to solve a number of logic and environmental puzzles to get keys and venture deeper into the mansion. Some of these involve breaking the fourth wall of the game and looking up details on the in-game web browser or messaging your friend. One particular standout sees you having to complete a retro top down game within the game within the game in real Inception fashion, whilst another section involves being chased around a cave system by a terrifying instakill enemy.
The sheer variety of game styles and approaches here ensures that you always have something new to enjoy and nothing ever gets the chance to outstay its welcome. Perhaps the main exception here is that aforementioned cave chase which involved some quite counter-intuitive signposting in its pre-release build. I also encountered one or two minor bugs that were a little frustrating but the devs have been busily updating the game ready for release so these should be squashed.
So, Among Ashes features a number of meta-levels and games within games throughout but the framing narrative also becomes a game of its own. As you push deeper into the retro joys of Night Call, strange things start to happen in the real world of the game and you begin to suspect that the game is trying to communicate with you. Without spoiling anything, I can confirm that the different strands of the game do pull together as the game comes to a close and the result is a nicely balanced mixture of different realities.
