The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil in Me PS5 Review – Are you ready to enter the Murder Castle?

The Devil in Me PS5 Review – This is the first time that I have been lucky enough to score a review copy of any of The Dark Pictures Anthology games, but that certainly hasn’t stopped me from being a huge fan of the titles over the years as I own them all on physical release.

As this title is the last in the anthology by Supermassive games, I was going to get my hands on it either way and will still be making the physical purchase to keep my collection up to date. The question is, was it really worth the wait to play?

The Devil in Me PS5 Review – Horror Galore

For those of you that aren’t fully aware of the anthology its quite simple. Supermassive Games have brought out a series of narrative driven Horror games. Think of them like a bad horror movie where you spend more time shouting at the TV telling people what they should be doing and rolling your eyes when they always make the obvious mistakes.

These games take that idea and allow you to make the critical decisions which will nearly always lead to a butterfly effect later in the game. You are left sometimes having made the wrong decision a while before wondering how you could change the action that unfolds before you. These games can be played with numerous decisions throughout all affecting outcomes to your heroes.

With action sequences played out in front of you, you will need to react quickly to button presses, timing a button press to a heart rate shown on screen to keep quiet, button mashing as well as having to make important decisions; some of which may even be better to not make a decision at all.

The first release was Until Dawn way back in 2015 and (for me) was perfected as a narrative driven horror game. After that came the Anthology releases, premiering with The Man of Medan in 2019, then Little Hope in 2020 and finally House of Ashes last year. All of the titles stand separately and don’t follow on from each other apart from them being in the anthology.

They all come with a multiplayer option allowing each player to control a character, something that I have tried to play but have never been able to find anyone online to join.

The Devil in Me PS5 Review – Are you sitting comfortably?

The Devil in Me is by far the strongest title from the anthology yet none of the games seem to have been able to live up to the legacy that Until Dawn left.

Players take on the role of a group of documentary film makers working on a docuseries based upon the life of H.H. Holmes. Holmes is known as America’s first serial killer and is believed to have killed more than 200 people thanks to urban myths in American Culture at that time. The film makers travel to a modern-day replica of Holmes’ “Murder Castle” and I’m sure you can guess what happens next.

The great thing is that the Murder Castle is an amazing setting for this title, unlike other games in the anthology this isn’t as open world as previous releases, and you soon realise that the Claustrophobic and dark corridors are not always what they seem and easily getting lost is all part of the experience. The feeling of isolation is nothing new in horror titles and films, but The Devil in Me really does perfect this in its setting.

The atmosphere of the game is strengthened by the overarching plot. Easily the best in the series, but that was to be expected for the final title in this Anthology. The thing here is that it could quite be one of the best in horror history in the game genre at least. You can feel inspirations coming from the likes of The Shining, Saw and Halloween. The result of which is a terrifying and entertaining horror that leaves you wanting to scream at the TV, ‘DONT GO IN THERE!’.

The Devil in Me PS5 Review – ‘Here’s Jonny’

Scattered around the game are various collectables, some of which will give you a glimpse into a possible future event. I say possible because things are not always what they seem, and it also depends on how you play the game and decisions that you make throughout. It leaves you wondering whether or not you can trust something simple in a room or if you need to keep your eyes out for a certain area in the game

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As you would expect from any horror title, death is inevitable, but the idea of these games is to make it out alive with all your characters in one piece, something that is not easy to do and believe me when I say that the deaths involved are brilliant. Not only the spectacle of the death but also the writing within the game.

The joy of Supermassive Games is that they always bring a star actor into the game and The Devil in Me is no different. This entry sees Jessie Buckley playing Kate Wilder not only lending her voice, but also having herself digitally scanned on to the character. Each character of course all have their own traits which makes them all individual from one another.

The Devil in Me PS5 Review – Puzzling Times

As well as the Quick Time Events as I mentioned above there are puzzles to be solved. The puzzles do add a nice factor to the game, but unfortunately, they are nothing new or innovative. I don’t think that games have incorporated puzzles to the effect that the early Silent Hill titles did and I’m also not sure that any game will be able to pull that off either. The more titles that are released and given to us, the more we get used to seeing repetitive puzzles used over and over in games.

New features have been added to the game and I’m not sure they should have just yet. The game should run along the same lines as previous entries for me and with the addition of player inventories it does feel like it is trying a little too hard. This should have been something that was left for the next anthology release which I am 99% sure will come.

They also haven’t really been used fully. A character will find a key, add it to their inventory but then use it straight away rather than carry it around with them for a while until you discover where to use it. The extra addition of controls such as jumping, balancing and crawling do feel like first iterations that need work. You do notice that they don’t really seem to work very well.

The Devil in Me – A Cult Title?

One thing that jumped out at me was with the graphics of the game. I played on the PS5, and the graphics just didn’t live up to expectation of previous releases. Even the original 2 games in the anthology have had a next gen upgrade and those graphics felt amazing. This time round they didn’t feel anywhere near as good, and it was noticeable for me.

This is even more noticeable in cut scenes. One minute the characters will feel incredibly detailed and the next time the detail has gone. It screams inconsistent. It is not just limited to the graphics unfortunately, there are bugs in the audio as well. It may be a strange thing to say, but it feels like you are playing numerous different games within The Devil in Me. I am hoping that this is fixed by way of a patch as at the moment it does take quite a bit from the game.

The issue I have with this game is that although it is a ton of fun and if you own the rest of the anthology, it is a must addition, it feels rushed to get it out on time. There doesn’t seem to be the care taken over it like Supermassive Games have in the past and it left me feeling slightly dejected after waiting so long to complete the anthology The Devil in Me just isn’t quite up to scratch.

The Devil in Me does package up well the stories of true crime, a killer that you do actually start to like as well as a horror title that you feel could easily be made into a film. It will leave you wanting more and wanting to play through numerous times to make sure you get everyone out alive and to clean up on missing items through your time in the Murder Castle.