THQ Nordic has revealed more on the upcoming Alone in the Dark reboot, including a release date and the fact they’ve bagged Hollywood stars David Harbour and Jodie Comer to star as the game’s lead roles.
A packed Alone in the Dark Spotlight broadcast revealed that Harbour – from Stranger Things and the upcoming Gran Turismo movie – will be playing series mainstay, Edward Carnaby, while Comer of Free Guy and Killing Eve fame is playing the game’s second playable character Emily Hartwood. Both actors are providing not only their voices, but they’ve been given the full facial mocap treatment for the game – which the team at Pieces Interactive are calling a love letter to the 1992 original.
On top of the gameplay, and the release date – we also got fresh word about the Alone in the Dark playable teaser Prologue that we were previously told about at Gamescom last year. That Prologue, in fact, is out now as a free download across PC, Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 – and will see you play as Grace, an important character in the game. There’s no combat in the game – given Grace is a child – but the team say it’ll give players a good idea of the atmosphere and feel of what players can come to expect when the game arrives in October.
Ahead of the Spotlight, we were fortunate enough to be invited to a preview of the event and were given the opportunity to ask publisher THQ Nordic about the game. “When developing the game we took most of our cues from the 1992 original and tried to preserve as much as possible while still making it a modern experience. This modernization goes hand in hand with, for instance, an over-the-shoulder-camera and a control scheme that has become standard.”
“If you follow the story of our re-imagination closely, you will find numerous callbacks to the original game and their characters, as well as some almost post-modern reflections on the nature of remakes. What, for instance, changes if Jeremy, the character that kickstarts the story with his letter, didn’t kill himself (as he did in the original) but instead sought therapy? In that sense the question of whether history is doomed to repeat itself has been very much on the developers’ minds.”
There’ll also be some preorder bonuses for eager players, including the opportunity to swap out the player character models for polygonal ones based on the 1992 original. We asked if there’d be more light-hearted aspects to the game, to which they responded “We feel that Alone in the Dark has a great potential for a varied approach to gameplay and story – while being, at its core, a scary story, there is also room for humour and some… weirdness (in a good way). So indeed, there are lighter and pastiche-y moments in our game as well. Our approach to DLCs, as you mentioned, is a good example of that.”
So plenty to look forward to then. Alone in the Dark arrives on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC on October 25, 2023 – and the Alone in the Dark Prologue is available on those formats right now.
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