After an incredible year for indie horror in 2024, Dead of Darkness looks to continue the genre’s resurgence in the new year. At first sight, Dead of Darkness looks like it might be paying tribute to Konami’s classic series Silent Hill, with main character Miles sporting the obligatory grieving Dad uniform of beige jacket, jeans, and floppy hair parting, but the game itself is far more inspired by Capcom’s earlier Resident Evil.
You begin the game as burned out PI Miles Windham. After receiving a mysterious message recorded on a cassette (the game takes place in 1985) he sets out for Velvet Island in the Celtic Sea off the coast of Ireland. His unknown messenger claims to have information about the tragic fire that claimed the lives of Miles’ family. Mysterious and tragic backstory – check; unexpected journey to an isolated mansion – check; immediate meeting with a blonde woman who will probably be more than she first appears – hell yeah. This opening sounds clichéd but I think it’s more correct to consider it deliberate homage to the genre traditions. Dead of Darkness is clearly deeply immersed in the world of survival horror for better or for worse.
Dead of Darkness has a distinctive top down pixel aesthetic that feels straight out of the Super Nintendo days. The resultant lack of clear detail in the backgrounds is alleviated by the use of shiny circles to show where collectable items can be found – ironically the same tactic used in the highly detailed pre-rendered PS1 games.
While initially enemies are entirely made up of identical zombies, as the game progresses there are some wonderfully disgusting creatures waiting to eat your face off. The characters are nicely designed and the static figures used in dialogue sections look good too.
Audio is solid with suitably creepy moans and screams and a surprising amount of voice acting. I was taken aback, though, by how foul-mouthed the script is, with some characters throwing out the C-word like they’re auditioning for an Irish sequel to Still Wakes the Deep. I have no problem with strong language, but wasn’t expecting it here.
It doesn’t take long for Mile’s trip to take a turn for the worse and you quickly obtain a pistol that will be your main weapon for much of the game. Later on you’ll also obtain a shotgun, but I would have liked a little more variety in your arsenal beyond this. There are upgrades for both weapons which you’ll need to take out the more dangerous foes towards the end of the game. The positive to this limited arsenal is that it does help reduce the inventory management that is such a core aspect of the genre. Aside from some quests that require you to carry multiple items you can generally get by having both pistol, shotgun, and healing items at all times.
What initially seems to be a standard retread of familiar spooky mansion shenanigans becomes something far more interesting as the storyline develops. Yes, you have the inevitable sinister Umbrella-analogue corporation, but there is also a backstory that feels closer to folk and cosmic horror.
Alongside a lot of combat (with many narrow corridors not making evasion a workable strategy) there is the usual gamut of puzzles and key fetch quests. One neat addition here though is the use of Clues. Reading some files and notes can unlock Clues which you can use like objects to interact with the environment or your inventory. This is a great way to incentivise actually reading the notes and really brings the world of the game to life.
Less welcome are a bunch of instadeath timing puzzles that don’t quite gel with the top down perspective. Moving up the screen across retracting spikes when your character obscures the view is less than ideal, with one very late-game area being a particularly egregious example. I would also put the instadeath enemies in the bin as well, especially when the shotgun sometimes seems to fire through them and necessitate a game reload.
