The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me

The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me is a 2022 interactive drama and survival horror video game with slasher horror elements developed by Supermassive Games and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment. It is the fourth installment in The Dark Pictures Anthology, after Man of Medan (2019), Little Hope (2020), and House of Ashes (2021). It is also the final game in the anthology's first season. Continuing the series' premise, the game features a cast of five playable protagonists and a multilinear narrative influenced by player choices. Its decision-making scenes can significantly alter the trajectory of the plot and change the relationships between the main characters; some can lead to the permanent death of the protagonists.
Staple mechanics of The Dark Pictures Anthology, such as quick time events (QTEs) and "pictures", collectable items that allow players to see visions of possible future events, appear again in The Devil in Me. The game also introduces new features, including an inventory system for the characters, tool-based puzzles, and new movement capabilities, including running, jumping, and climbing. Jason Graves, a long-time collaborator with Supermassive Games, returned to compose the game's soundtrack, having created music for the earlier games in the series.
The Devil in Me takes inspiration from H. H. Holmes and his "Murder Castle". The plot follows five members of a documentary film crew who are invited to a replica of Holmes' hotel on an island in Michigan so that they can film an episode of their series. It's not long before they discover their lives are at risk due to traps placed throughout the hotel and they must escape the island before Granthem Du'Met kills them. Jessie Buckley was marketed as the game's leading actress, marking the fourth time Supermassive Games cast a high-profile actor to portray a character for the series.
The game was released for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on 18 November 2022. Its sequel, Directive 8020, was announced without a release date and will be the first instalment of the series' second season. The Devil in Me garnered mixed reviews from critics.
Gameplay
The Devil in Me is an interactive drama and survival horror game with slasher horror elements that is presented from a third-person perspective, and claims to take place at a replica of H. H. Holmes' "Murder Castle".
The game introduces multiple new gameplay features that are a departure from the previous entries in The Dark Pictures Anthology. There is now an inventory feature for the characters, tool-based puzzles, as well as new movement capabilities including running, jumping, and climbing.
Players must make several choices that can have long-term consequences on the narrative's progression and the character's perceptions of each other. In these scenarios, there is a limited amount of time in which one can choose an action or a line of dialogue with which to respond. Protagonists may choose to say or do nothing when they are prompted to make a decision. An anatomical drawing of the brain and heart accompanies every choice in The Devil in Me, indicating that the player character may choose actions based on either rationality or emotion.
To track the narrative branches in one's playthrough, the game's menu has a butterfly effect system called "bearings", which lists all consequential courses of action associated with each branch and their eventual outcomes. The story is interspersed with cutscenes featuring an omnipresent observer called the Curator (Pip Torrens), a character who converses with players about the choices they have made and provides clues about what will happen next in the plot. The survival of all five protagonists depends on these critical decisions, and the game continues without the deceased characters.
Synopsis
Setting and prologue
The Devil in Me plot begins in Chicago where H. H. Holmes runs the World's Fair Hotel, which is full of traps for his unsuspecting guests. Construction on the Hotel began in 1887 and was completed in 1892. After Holmes was caught, he confessed to his murders by saying "I was born with the devil in me" and that he couldn't help the fact that he murdered people as a result. The game follows the myth of Holmes, as his crimes and story were likely exaggerated. His victims also weren't strangers that he lured to him, but instead they were people he befriended or romanced. The "Murder Castle" wasn't truly a hotel, as the first two floors (of three total) consisted of shops and long term rentals.
The prologue takes place in the time of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, where newlywed couple Jeff and Marie Whitman check into the World's Fair Hotel to celebrate their honeymoon. However, soon after the check in, both are murdered by the hotel's proprietor, Henry Howard Holmes.
Characters
The game's five protagonists include Kate Wilder (Jessie Buckley), an investigative journalist and the host of the documentary film show Architects of Murder. Also in the ensemble is Charles Lonnit (Paul Kaye), the director of Architects of Murder and the founder of Lonnit Entertainment. Rounding out the film crew are Kate's ex-boyfriend, and cameraman Mark Nestor (Fehinti Balogun), chief grip Jamie Tiergan (Gloria Obianyo), and intern sound engineer, Erin Keenan (Nikki Patel).
Main plot
The present day is set in October 2022 and focuses on the film crew Lonnit Entertainment, which consists of director Charlie Lonnit (Paul Kaye), reporter Kate Wilder (Jessie Buckley), cameraman Mark Nestor (Fehinti Balogun), lighting technician Jamie Tiergan (Gloria Obianyo), and intern Erin Keenan (Nikki Patel). The crew are desperately searching for ideas to finish their first season of a series about famous murderers, the success of which has begun to wane. They plan for their season finale to cover Holmes, but are disappointed with their current progress. A mysterious benefactor, claiming to be a certain Granthem Du'Met (Abdul Salis), invites the crew to shoot at his estate, a perfect replica of the Murder Castle with several artifacts related to Holmes' series of murders. While the rest of the crew is cautious, Charlie readily agrees, convinced it will save their show.
They are taken to the estate, located on an island in Lake Michigan, via ferry. The crew takes notice of Du'Met's suspiciously hasty behavior; Jamie witnesses him and a little girl hurriedly leave on the ferry, effectively stranding them on the island, and Erin finds herself in a life-threatening situation when a mysterious figure traps her in a dusty room. Conflict arises between the crew, with Charlie refusing to cancel their shooting and Kate insisting they leave the island for their safety. The same figure starts building animatronics that resemble the crew members, as the crew set up their equipment and decides to begin shooting in Du'Met's absence. In a search for him, Charlie and Jamie stumble into a booby trap. They encounter a man dressed as Holmes, surmising that he was behind the trap, he is the real Du'Met, and the man from the call was an impostor.
Shortly after, the estate is locked shut. The crew is separated, forced to avoid Du'Met, and survive his traps, including a set of mannequins arranged to gouge someone's eyes, chambers that can be deprived of air or set ablaze by a mannequin, and a moving glass wall that can crush one of two people. Along the way, characters can uncover clues revealing that Du'Met's original identity was Hector Munday. Munday was an FBI agent tasked to profile a serial killer, Manny Sherman, who convinced him to become a serial killer himself. They can also discover that the impostor and the little girl was the true crime author Joseph Morello and his daughter. Morello, similarly fixated on Holmes, was part of the previous five-person group that became trapped in the estate.
The survivors decide the best way to survive the night is activating the island's lighthouse to signal for help. What happens next is determined by player choice. If Kate and Mark are the only survivors and are captured by Du'Met, he shows them a video of Morello explaining his modus operandi of baiting groups to the island, and instructs Mark to pose as Du'Met and lure the next group to the island in exchange for their freedom, lest they die from their trap. Whether Mark complies or refuses, Du'Met has him and Kate killed. Otherwise, a policeman arrives on the island to search for the survivors, only for Du'Met to promptly kill him. The survivors attempt to escape the island by boat, but Du'Met sneaks onboard for a final showdown. Any surviving crew members are rescued by a truck driver after swimming to shore, and the authorities begin investigating Lonnit Entertainment's disappearance.
Development and release
Gameplay and story
The Devil in Me is the fourth game in a series of eight planned for The Dark Pictures Anthology. The game was released on 18 November 2022.
Reception
The PC and PlayStation 5 versions of The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me received "mixed or average" reviews on Metacritic, while the Xbox Series X version has received "generally favorable reviews".
Sequel
The next game in the series was a spin-off titled The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, which was announced in November 2022. The game is a fast-paced roller coaster action-horror shooter and a spiritual successor to Until Dawn: Rush of Blood. It features locations and elements from the four games comprising the first season of the anthology. Switchback VR was released on 16 March 2023 for PlayStation VR2.
The series' next main entry game is The Dark Pictures Anthology: Directive 8020, which will be the first game in The Dark Pictures second season. The first trailer was shown at the end of The Devil in Me. Directive 8020 will feature a science fiction theme and will be set in outer space. No release date or platforms have been announced.
References
External links
2022 video games
Bandai Namco games
2020s horror video games
Interactive movie video games
Multiplayer and single-player video games
PlayStation 4 games
PlayStation 4 Pro enhanced games
PlayStation 5 games
Supermassive Games
Unreal Engine games
Video game sequels
Video games set in Chicago
Video games developed in the United Kingdom
Video games featuring black protagonists
Video games featuring female protagonists
Windows games
Xbox One games
Xbox One X enhanced games
Xbox Series X and Series S games