The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes

 PlayStation 5
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 188 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 142 out of 188
  2. Mixed: 26 out of 188
  3. Negative: 20 out of 188
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  1. KayVen17
    Dec 28, 2021
    7
    Wie alle Teile der Dark Anthology ist dieser ein kurzweiliger Spaß der am meisten mit Freunden Spaß macht. Auch wenn es mehrere Enden gibt, ist der Wiederspielwert sehr gering. Das erste Mal zündet hier am meisten. Trotzdem war ich gut unterhalten. Es ist weit weg von einem Meisterwerk, aber wer mit "Man of Medan" oder "Little Hope" seinen Spaß hatte wird hier genauso Spaß haben.
  2. deplorable
    Nov 4, 2021
    5
    With the last game being so much better than Man of Medan. We now return to a subpar performance from the developer. All these games do is make you wish you were playing Until Dawn again for the first time.

    In fact i'd rather they abandoned all three and created one game with a fantastic immersive experience. because the three combined are hollow, repetitive, one dimensional affairs    With the last game being so much better than Man of Medan. We now return to a subpar performance from the developer. All these games do is make you wish you were playing Until Dawn again for the first time.

    In fact i'd rather they abandoned all three and created one game with a fantastic immersive experience. because the three combined are hollow, repetitive, one dimensional affairs with a story line that feels it was taken from Nickelodeon "are you afraid of the dark?", R. L. Stine's goosebumps or the trying to be edgy 90's the outer limits.

    Let's get the worst parts out of the way. Unskippable cutscenes. So if you make a mistake well you can either play a 30-45 minute scene from scratch or the game from scratch. Not anyone's idea of fun. There's a lot of walking which serves no purpose than to pick up or look at "stuff".

    With the trophies etc aligned the way they are, they really do want you to play through multiple times. Unlike previous games, unless you specifically did things hours before, there's one part where you hold them off and it can all be for naught. Not that you aware of it until it happens. Just leaves a chalky taste in your mouth, because there are a lot of events which feel like they'd be part of the gameplay and they're not. There's more than one way to kill of a character, but sometimes that characters death feels cheap. As if the choice itself didn't matter, some deaths feel forced and then they use the choice as an excuse.

    I had high hopes after the witches, but this was mediocre at best. Don't expect any suspense they pretty much show you the monsters in the first 10 minutes during a prologue. This just kills the entire game off before you start, a prologue was not needed (there's even damn relationship points to be had which would have made telltale blush). There's no thread, no real backdrop story line that keeps you invested.

    Everything is already handed to you. So reading through anything feels more like a chore than enjoying the information. Games have done this well in the past. Resident Evil let the zombie out of the bag almost instantly. But you still enjoyed finding books, and notes because they gave you solid foundations on how the event transpired and keep you hooked as you delved in. This... does not. This is not how you do it. They did try with a British archaeological dig being found, but again it feels forced rather than natural.

    The characters feel one dimensional, and you don't really care about their survival anyway. Until dawn it took a while for some characters to shine, but you wanted to see what happened. Although some you still didn't care about. In the past 3 games, I've cared about none of the characters at all due to the writing that even the bbc would reject and shortness of the games.

    There's not much good to talk about. It doesn't reinvent the wheel. And it's enjoyable to play through once. But not something you'd want to come back too, or remember fondly. It's not scary. It's not good looking. The characters are bland american marines and one iraqi soldier (he has a son, that's his whole backstory). It's terrible.

    If it was a movie, and someone paid enough money to have the thing released. It'd be just dvd and cost you the price of a chocolate bar. The dvd would be best served as a coaster. There are no redeeming features here.

    Please stop making them. And go back to proper games with well thought out dialogue, inventive gameplay and make them fun; without falling into more tropes than a kids animation movie.    … Expand
  3. SuperkenGaming
    Oct 24, 2021
    6
    The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
    Not that scary
    Oksay look, These Dark Pictures games are hard to review Why? Because theyre basically just interactive movies. So im goingto tell you right now I did not like this game as much as everyone else, so for the first time ever im going to encourage you to watch more reviews than just mine as these are some of the most subjective    The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
    Not that scary
    Oksay look, These Dark Pictures games are hard to review
    Why? Because theyre basically just interactive movies.
    So im goingto tell you right now I did not like this game as much as everyone else, so for the first time ever im going to encourage you to watch more reviews than just mine as these are some of the most subjective games there are.
    House of Ashes is a 5 and a half hour long action thriller, not really a horror game.. here you play as a group of marines during the war in iraq 2003, youre looking for nuclear weapons but what do you stumble on instead?
    Giant bats,
    Leading to a game of oh no were split up lets all get back together while these bats try and kill us, theres marriage problems, theres Ashley tisdale.. . and I honestly couldn’t care less about the entire story..
    I was bored out of my mind from start to finish, I am also not really into more action based horror, I like slow and creepy… in a way Hosue of Ashes reminded me a lot of the second half of Until Dawn, which I wasn’t a fan of either.. walking around these rooms trying to figure out what to interact with to progress the story and trying to get back together and escape.. all while these monsters are hunting you down… Like the other games your charcters can die at anymoment, so there are multiple endings to unlock..
    But the setting stays the same, this ancient egypt like temple, youll occasionnaly be in quick time shooting events, but yeah.. The story bored me, all the hcarcaters were unlikable..
    But I seem to be in the minority here..
    If youre not into action thrillers and military stuff, House of Ashes wont change your mind, but if you are go watch another review and see if they can sell you on what is probably my least favorite game out of season 1 so far.
    At least the season finale looks interesting.
    I give The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes
    a 6/10    … Expand
  4. M-Reviews
    Nov 7, 2021
    5
    "The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes" is indeed a game full of horrors - unfortunately, you may just not find it where you´d really expect it. Mostly uninteresting characters and a boring story without any notable scares make the third entry in the series the weakest to date. It´s really hard to imagine how the franchise is attempting to survive another five years of sequels when"The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes" is indeed a game full of horrors - unfortunately, you may just not find it where you´d really expect it. Mostly uninteresting characters and a boring story without any notable scares make the third entry in the series the weakest to date. It´s really hard to imagine how the franchise is attempting to survive another five years of sequels when it´s already suffering from a complete lack of new ideas right now.… Expand
  5. 5atmart
    Oct 28, 2021
    6
    Supermassive showed its "weakness" in season 3 of The Dark Pictures Anthology series. Although he still knows how to choose a clever story, interesting leadership, and a good plot pace, his reticence in applying more groundbreaking ideas, as well as repetitive flaws Again, House of Ashes will probably disappoint fans of the series, although if you're new to the series, you'll still love itSupermassive showed its "weakness" in season 3 of The Dark Pictures Anthology series. Although he still knows how to choose a clever story, interesting leadership, and a good plot pace, his reticence in applying more groundbreaking ideas, as well as repetitive flaws Again, House of Ashes will probably disappoint fans of the series, although if you're new to the series, you'll still love it to a certain extent.

    Read more: https://5atm.art/game-console/danh-gia-the-dark-pictures-anthology-house-of-ashes/    … Expand
  6. marvsfontanilla
    May 6, 2022
    7
    Story: 7
    Graphics: 8
    Sound: 6
    Gameplay: 6
    Game Time: 10 Hours (Main Story + Extra)
  7. davidthesloth
    Jan 26, 2023
    7
    Definitely the best entry in the series so far. Better story, more interactive and overall looks better. Still lacking what Until Dawn had but this is still a good time despite the many texture pop-ins that would frequently break immersion.
  8. Zmastruz
    Jul 29, 2022
    7
    The Movement is ok, when you play with a friend the chars often blocking themselves. The Story is well written. After all, a solid Game.
  9. LANteRem
    Mar 4, 2023
    5
    The story is excellent. The graphics are also great, and the game seems to be improving in all areas compared to previous games in the series. However, as with the other games in the series, I cannot praise the game mechanics. The developers still persist with the impossibility of skipping individual scenes after the game has been finished. The worst of it is for players who are going forThe story is excellent. The graphics are also great, and the game seems to be improving in all areas compared to previous games in the series. However, as with the other games in the series, I cannot praise the game mechanics. The developers still persist with the impossibility of skipping individual scenes after the game has been finished. The worst of it is for players who are going for trophies, because they will be forced to endure hours of playing the same scenes over and over again in order to complete each challenge, and that is provided they do not make the wrong choice. Some of the trophies require the player to make an (uninformed) choice at the beginning of the game which will have an effect at the very end. This same decision also locks the player out of any other trophies. So, do the developers of the game really expect players to spend hours watching the same unskippable scenes for one different outcome which is completely unpredictable. The latter means that the story will have to be replayed from the beginning, which is just cruel in my opinion. I find this disregard for players time unacceptable and it certainly discourages me from buying any more games in The Dark Pictures Anthology series.… Expand
  10. Avey123Avey
    Mar 19, 2023
    5
    When played with someone else this can be a fun little guilty pleasure. The game is cheesy and has some satisfying sequences. Unfortunately it's gameplay is mostly QTE's and usually meaningless choices. It has no replay value, because even though the game has multiple end states. actually changing these involves playing the same sequences over and over with minorly different decisionsWhen played with someone else this can be a fun little guilty pleasure. The game is cheesy and has some satisfying sequences. Unfortunately it's gameplay is mostly QTE's and usually meaningless choices. It has no replay value, because even though the game has multiple end states. actually changing these involves playing the same sequences over and over with minorly different decisions which don't really add up to much… Expand

Awards & Rankings

80
#80 Best PlayStation 5 Game of 2021
40
#40 Most Discussed PlayStation 5 Game of 2021

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
72

Mixed or average reviews - based on 58 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 33 out of 58
  2. Mixed: 24 out of 58
  3. Negative: 1 out of 58
  1. Edge Magazine
    Dec 2, 2021
    60
    The promise of the Dark Pictures series remains fresh, then, but the systems supporting it are staring to creak with age. [Issue#366, p.119]
  2. PLAY
    Nov 17, 2021
    60
    It does look nice on PS5. Keeping the squad alive is a tense affair and the creature design is a highlight in the face of so much else that turns out to be toothless. [Issue#8, p.86]
  3. PLAY! Zine
    Nov 16, 2021
    80
    The third installment of The Dark Pictures Anthology brings a more action-packed story and a different kind of twist. If you liked the first two, you will probably enjoy this one at least as much. Just make sure to sharpen your reflexes, because this game is really unforgiving. Yet those that endure it will be left with an unforgettable horror experience.
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