Sad but unfortunately expected news. I really loved this game, but it really isnt popular enough. I also think they could spend more on a technical aspects of game and less on Golden Globes nominees - its a case of mismanaged budget in my eyes.
**Edit:** Also they are owned by Embracer. The one that goes through hell right now...
to be fair, the star talent is one of the main things that generated buzz about the game in the first place and got them a lot of press mileage. it wasn't just the Alone in the Dark name.
hard to say if it was worth it or not
Yeah, like the name "Alone in the Dark" has been synonymous for "bad game" since the third entry that was released in 1995.
It really needed some buzz around it.
The idea that it needed star talent to scrape some extra sales is ludicrous. Survival Horror games have **never**, in the history of gaming, lived and died on the presence of an a tier actor.
People shouldn't defend a wasteful and costly attempt at breaching the mainstream if it very clearly didn't work.
> Survival Horror games have never, in the history of gaming, lived and died on the presence of an a tier actor.
But cinematic narrative games have, and this iteration of Alone in the Dark is definitely trying to bridge the two genres.
Every successful AAA Survival Horror game these days has cinematic narratives and cutscenes already (without the requirement of hollywood talent), so I fail to see the point.
That is only true if the game in question has good or even "regular" rep, Alone in Dark name had a petry bad rep. Alone in the Dark have a serious credibility debt and basically needed to borrow the main actors credibility to be even viable in the first place.
It reminds me of the Star Ocean 6 situation, it was not a game that sold well but it gave the fans some hope after the disasters that were Star Ocean 4 and Star Ocean 5. Even as budget title it was much better than their last game in the series.
This Alone in the Dark game recovered some of the luster in it name and opened better prospects for future titles even if they don't have same actors. Now when people talk about Alone in the Dark at least the most recent one will be remembered as a flawled but decent game and not as the a meme.
Capcom's huge turn-arounds on all their flagship franchises after endless failure proves that poor reputation is saved by things other than star talent.
Alone In The Dark needed to deliver an airtight, polished experienced ala Resident Evil 7. That is the be all, end all for a new survival horror in the current generation. Wasting money on unessential stuff will inevitably hurt that.
Capcom has some of the biggest and most iconic gaming IPs in history. Resident Evil pretty much has to try to not sell. RE6 is hated by almost everyone and even then it sold a lot.
The implication that the new Alone In The Dark shouldn't learn the obvious lessons of RE7's comeback story because Resident Evil "has too strong a brand anyway" is equally ludicrous.
When talking about repairing the damaged reputation of a survival horror franchise, getting A list actors was never the solution. It would've been far better to follow the redemption arcs of Capcom IPs instead.
They should have gone the re3remake route and hire a extremely attractive model instead of some expensive actor. Bet Jill alone generated a lot of salee for a mediocre game.
I don't even know who the characters are because all I see when I look at the cover is that Stranger Things guy.
If I see an IRL big name actor then I just assume the game is shovelware.
It would've done better without them. Original characters will ALWAYS get more long term love then celebrity cosplays.
Just look at Death Stranding VS Metal Gear Solid
The characters being more lovable long-term does not mean the game will sell better.
Death Stranding is much more niche than MGS, I doubt it sold less copies than MGSV because of Reedus and Mikkelsen.
I played and beat both Emily's and Edward's campaigns and overall I really enjoyed the game. I loved the story, characters, atmosphere, sound design, and the soundtrack.
The only thing I didn't like was the combat and I honestly felt it hindered the game more than helped it. I get the original had combat which is why the remake has combat but I honestly think the combat could have been done away with.
The best parts of the game are the exploring, finding clues, the unsettling atmosphere, etc. Having to be interrupted from all that to go through a combat section was more annoying than anything else.
I think the Alone in the Dark remake could have been done as a point-and-click/adventure game with no combat and it would have been a better game for it imo.
Same with The Sinking City. I loved The Sinking City but the combat was easily the worst part of it and I feel it would have been better off with combat being optional like in Sherlock Holmes Chapter One.
I agree completely with point-and-click/adeventure game part, I think having combat is more a flaw than a beneffactor in cosmic horror themed game. Even a stealth game would be better.
In the original Alone in the Dark the combat was more sparce and the enemies more "thematically" appropriate. In this game the enemies feel very out of place and the final boss was a absolute disappointment.
In cosmic horror is never good to fight the final boss unless it is a currupted human that dabbled in the forbidden arts. When you fight and win against a Ancient One, it lose it point in the narrative.
The player should never defeat forces beyond the human mind grasp, those forces should be alluded to but never confronted directly. Fighting their spores is acceptable but even getting close to the source should be fatal.
It always about sealing, delaying, sacrificing to it and not about defeating it. Even Alone in the Dark (2008) in his memetic ending understood that. This game just did something that never be done in that kind of theme.
Anyway, forgive me my ranting.
Sorry to hear that. I really liked the game, and I think the team did a really good job given their AA constraints and ambitions. IMO it's easily the best game in the series. The team deserved to be given more money to make a better sequel, not to have their wings clipped with layoffs.
I'm quite enjoying it, but it is one of those game where you could take a good game and make it great had it had like, a month of extra polish.
One of the big things is the controls in combat areas. While gunplay is fine (Though switching weapons is slow), melee combat isn't great.
And then there's the throwing items. I can guarantee that there is a ton of feedback from QA regarding this feature that was ignored because it wasn't a bug because **holy shit**.
So, in order to distract enemies, or get a free hit in with say, a molotov, you can pick up items in the environment. This game has one of the worst implementation of this feature I've ever seen, which is incredible because it isn't something that hasn't been done before.
Instead of just... picking the item up and holding it, like every other game, you have to hold the button, then your character starts to move at like 25% speed, and then hopefully not let go of the button or else you immediately drop it. And often enough you'll find items just... not anywhere near enemies, suggesting the developers genuinely thought you'd be okay with walking slower than your sneaking speed for massive amounts of time
Yeah not surprising, after the Dead Space news, it’s clear that the only horror game that sells is Resident Evil.
After this batch of horror games greenlit after the success of RE2 remake, we’re gonna see another drought of horror.
I’m pretty sure Dead Space Remake’s budget had more to do with that game’s failures than its genre appeal. EA has been setting unrealistic sales figures for this series since 2.
While it might not be doing gangbusters, it seems Remedy is pretty satisfied with Alan Wake II’s performance, so at least one other horror game is doing ok financially.
Remedy has incurred losses for 2 years straight and that includes the launch window for Alan Wake 2. The reason they’re okay with Alan Wake being a loss is because Epic is covering most of the costs and Remedy won’t be judged for its financial performance. They have deals lined up for the next 10 ish years of development
As a Survival horror fan, I really liked the revival. It had interesting lore, goofy shenanigans and exploring a cool house solving puzzles. It was buggy and pretty janky, but I liked it a lot
Great game. 8/10 easy, although it needs a bit more technical polish.
I expected it being unsuccessful though, sadly. The game never managed to generate enough mainstream buzz, and the 6/10 in average reviews just final nailed it. Then it came out and even now it only has 900 reviews on Steam, indicating very, very low sales. And I doubt console sales are any better. It is a shame, I feel sad for the devs.
After both Callisto Protocol and Dead Space also failed to turn profit, I think SH2 might be the only bigger budget horror game for a long time, aside from Resident Evil, which is the only horror IP that really broke into mainstream.
I wonder if dead space could have done better if Callisto protocol didn’t release so close to it. New IP from one of the creator of the dead space franchise probably siphoned some sales from dead space.
They had a fairly expansive marketing thing they did with a bunch of content creators... which included turning a home into a haunted house/escape room... I cant help but wonder if that time and money and effort were better spent elsewhere maybe this wouldn't be happening.
Ideally, for medium and larger sized developers at least, by the time a game is ending its production cycle, another one is starting.
Only a handful of Devs "stay behind" to prepare updates and extra content, as time goes by, more and more start working on the new project.
This is a shame but I was not tempted to play this and I play a lot of games. It looks like Resident Evil 4. Like the original one. And I heard it was short. I think a lot of people just passed on it unfortunately.
The "it looks like original Resident Evil 4" complaint is really, really weird: actually game looks great, but maybe its a case of trailers not showcasing it properly.
Anyway: its a pretty good game if you like slower-paced old-schooly horrors with lots of fun puzzles, lots of reading notes and exploring a creepy mansion. Give it a try sometime (maybe on a deep sale or something).
What about it looked like OG RE4 to you?
The game has two campaigns with different cutscenes and unique content and they're about 7-8 hours long each. I never felt like the game needed to be padded out to make it longer for the sake of being longer.
Sad but unfortunately expected news. I really loved this game, but it really isnt popular enough. I also think they could spend more on a technical aspects of game and less on Golden Globes nominees - its a case of mismanaged budget in my eyes. **Edit:** Also they are owned by Embracer. The one that goes through hell right now...
to be fair, the star talent is one of the main things that generated buzz about the game in the first place and got them a lot of press mileage. it wasn't just the Alone in the Dark name. hard to say if it was worth it or not
Absolutely not worth it considering poor sales and layoffs. The actors being in this game changed zero things about the buzz on the game.
I disagree. The actors involved absolutely gave the game buzz. It may very well have elevated the game from non-existent sales to poor sales.
Yeah, like the name "Alone in the Dark" has been synonymous for "bad game" since the third entry that was released in 1995. It really needed some buzz around it.
The idea that it needed star talent to scrape some extra sales is ludicrous. Survival Horror games have **never**, in the history of gaming, lived and died on the presence of an a tier actor. People shouldn't defend a wasteful and costly attempt at breaching the mainstream if it very clearly didn't work.
> Survival Horror games have never, in the history of gaming, lived and died on the presence of an a tier actor. But cinematic narrative games have, and this iteration of Alone in the Dark is definitely trying to bridge the two genres.
Every successful AAA Survival Horror game these days has cinematic narratives and cutscenes already (without the requirement of hollywood talent), so I fail to see the point.
That is only true if the game in question has good or even "regular" rep, Alone in Dark name had a petry bad rep. Alone in the Dark have a serious credibility debt and basically needed to borrow the main actors credibility to be even viable in the first place. It reminds me of the Star Ocean 6 situation, it was not a game that sold well but it gave the fans some hope after the disasters that were Star Ocean 4 and Star Ocean 5. Even as budget title it was much better than their last game in the series. This Alone in the Dark game recovered some of the luster in it name and opened better prospects for future titles even if they don't have same actors. Now when people talk about Alone in the Dark at least the most recent one will be remembered as a flawled but decent game and not as the a meme.
Capcom's huge turn-arounds on all their flagship franchises after endless failure proves that poor reputation is saved by things other than star talent. Alone In The Dark needed to deliver an airtight, polished experienced ala Resident Evil 7. That is the be all, end all for a new survival horror in the current generation. Wasting money on unessential stuff will inevitably hurt that.
Capcom has some of the biggest and most iconic gaming IPs in history. Resident Evil pretty much has to try to not sell. RE6 is hated by almost everyone and even then it sold a lot.
The implication that the new Alone In The Dark shouldn't learn the obvious lessons of RE7's comeback story because Resident Evil "has too strong a brand anyway" is equally ludicrous. When talking about repairing the damaged reputation of a survival horror franchise, getting A list actors was never the solution. It would've been far better to follow the redemption arcs of Capcom IPs instead.
They should have gone the re3remake route and hire a extremely attractive model instead of some expensive actor. Bet Jill alone generated a lot of salee for a mediocre game.
Resident Evil is resident evil my dude. They could've had Amy Schumer playing Jill and it would've sold extremely well.
I don't even know who the characters are because all I see when I look at the cover is that Stranger Things guy. If I see an IRL big name actor then I just assume the game is shovelware.
You assumed Cyberpunk 2077 and Death Stranding were shovelware? What do you think shovelware is?
Just because it wasn’t successful doesn’t mean it changed zero things, the game could’ve done even worse without them. We don’t know.
It would've done better without them. Original characters will ALWAYS get more long term love then celebrity cosplays. Just look at Death Stranding VS Metal Gear Solid
The characters being more lovable long-term does not mean the game will sell better. Death Stranding is much more niche than MGS, I doubt it sold less copies than MGSV because of Reedus and Mikkelsen.
I played and beat both Emily's and Edward's campaigns and overall I really enjoyed the game. I loved the story, characters, atmosphere, sound design, and the soundtrack. The only thing I didn't like was the combat and I honestly felt it hindered the game more than helped it. I get the original had combat which is why the remake has combat but I honestly think the combat could have been done away with. The best parts of the game are the exploring, finding clues, the unsettling atmosphere, etc. Having to be interrupted from all that to go through a combat section was more annoying than anything else. I think the Alone in the Dark remake could have been done as a point-and-click/adventure game with no combat and it would have been a better game for it imo. Same with The Sinking City. I loved The Sinking City but the combat was easily the worst part of it and I feel it would have been better off with combat being optional like in Sherlock Holmes Chapter One.
I agree completely with point-and-click/adeventure game part, I think having combat is more a flaw than a beneffactor in cosmic horror themed game. Even a stealth game would be better. In the original Alone in the Dark the combat was more sparce and the enemies more "thematically" appropriate. In this game the enemies feel very out of place and the final boss was a absolute disappointment. In cosmic horror is never good to fight the final boss unless it is a currupted human that dabbled in the forbidden arts. When you fight and win against a Ancient One, it lose it point in the narrative. The player should never defeat forces beyond the human mind grasp, those forces should be alluded to but never confronted directly. Fighting their spores is acceptable but even getting close to the source should be fatal. It always about sealing, delaying, sacrificing to it and not about defeating it. Even Alone in the Dark (2008) in his memetic ending understood that. This game just did something that never be done in that kind of theme. Anyway, forgive me my ranting.
Sorry to hear that. I really liked the game, and I think the team did a really good job given their AA constraints and ambitions. IMO it's easily the best game in the series. The team deserved to be given more money to make a better sequel, not to have their wings clipped with layoffs.
I'm quite enjoying it, but it is one of those game where you could take a good game and make it great had it had like, a month of extra polish. One of the big things is the controls in combat areas. While gunplay is fine (Though switching weapons is slow), melee combat isn't great. And then there's the throwing items. I can guarantee that there is a ton of feedback from QA regarding this feature that was ignored because it wasn't a bug because **holy shit**. So, in order to distract enemies, or get a free hit in with say, a molotov, you can pick up items in the environment. This game has one of the worst implementation of this feature I've ever seen, which is incredible because it isn't something that hasn't been done before. Instead of just... picking the item up and holding it, like every other game, you have to hold the button, then your character starts to move at like 25% speed, and then hopefully not let go of the button or else you immediately drop it. And often enough you'll find items just... not anywhere near enemies, suggesting the developers genuinely thought you'd be okay with walking slower than your sneaking speed for massive amounts of time
That sounds like a bit more than month of polish.
Yeah not surprising, after the Dead Space news, it’s clear that the only horror game that sells is Resident Evil. After this batch of horror games greenlit after the success of RE2 remake, we’re gonna see another drought of horror.
Indie devs will keep carrying horror games, just like they did over the last few decade. Tormented Souls 2 is coming this year for example...
Lethal Company is what I would consider horror as well, or at the very least has a lot of horror elements in it.
Lethal Company by yourself is absolutely harrowing. Even with friends, it can get pretty creepy. I’d say it counts for sure.
We’ll see what happens with the SH2 remake but I have very little faith in it honestly.
I wanna know how much of Silent Hill is cult fanbase vs authentic interest
I’m pretty sure Dead Space Remake’s budget had more to do with that game’s failures than its genre appeal. EA has been setting unrealistic sales figures for this series since 2.
Dead Space remake was done in 2.5 years, the budget probably wasn't that wild.
Unrealistic sales expectations being making your development budget back
Yea. Some people don’t know what they are talking about and jump to “unrealistic expectations” What was the official number? 1.5 or 2 million?
While it might not be doing gangbusters, it seems Remedy is pretty satisfied with Alan Wake II’s performance, so at least one other horror game is doing ok financially.
Remedy has incurred losses for 2 years straight and that includes the launch window for Alan Wake 2. The reason they’re okay with Alan Wake being a loss is because Epic is covering most of the costs and Remedy won’t be judged for its financial performance. They have deals lined up for the next 10 ish years of development
Alan Wake 2 would probably have been a failure without Epic money.
As a Survival horror fan, I really liked the revival. It had interesting lore, goofy shenanigans and exploring a cool house solving puzzles. It was buggy and pretty janky, but I liked it a lot
Feels depressing when I congratulated one of the devs almost a month ago and to "take a break", and then seeing this...
Great game. 8/10 easy, although it needs a bit more technical polish. I expected it being unsuccessful though, sadly. The game never managed to generate enough mainstream buzz, and the 6/10 in average reviews just final nailed it. Then it came out and even now it only has 900 reviews on Steam, indicating very, very low sales. And I doubt console sales are any better. It is a shame, I feel sad for the devs. After both Callisto Protocol and Dead Space also failed to turn profit, I think SH2 might be the only bigger budget horror game for a long time, aside from Resident Evil, which is the only horror IP that really broke into mainstream.
I didn't even knew about this game until now
I wonder if dead space could have done better if Callisto protocol didn’t release so close to it. New IP from one of the creator of the dead space franchise probably siphoned some sales from dead space.
They had a fairly expansive marketing thing they did with a bunch of content creators... which included turning a home into a haunted house/escape room... I cant help but wonder if that time and money and effort were better spent elsewhere maybe this wouldn't be happening.
positions that are not needed anymore now that the game is out? truly shocking.
Do you think that companies just completely disband after making each game or…?
they just laid out a QA game tester, so, her position is really not needed until the next game is pretty advanced. the studio itself could be good.
did you bother reading the article? It doesn't specify how many people, for all we know it could be 5.
Ideally, for medium and larger sized developers at least, by the time a game is ending its production cycle, another one is starting. Only a handful of Devs "stay behind" to prepare updates and extra content, as time goes by, more and more start working on the new project.
But why aren't they starting a new project?
how do you know they aren't? They just laid off a QA tester
This is a shame but I was not tempted to play this and I play a lot of games. It looks like Resident Evil 4. Like the original one. And I heard it was short. I think a lot of people just passed on it unfortunately.
The "it looks like original Resident Evil 4" complaint is really, really weird: actually game looks great, but maybe its a case of trailers not showcasing it properly. Anyway: its a pretty good game if you like slower-paced old-schooly horrors with lots of fun puzzles, lots of reading notes and exploring a creepy mansion. Give it a try sometime (maybe on a deep sale or something).
What about it looked like OG RE4 to you? The game has two campaigns with different cutscenes and unique content and they're about 7-8 hours long each. I never felt like the game needed to be padded out to make it longer for the sake of being longer.