The Devil In Me: A Worthy Finale or Just Another Unfinished Game?

The Devil In Me, the finale in the Dark Pictures Anthology by Supermassive Games (published by Bandai Namco) makes it the fourth game in the installment. Its predecessors Man of Medan, Little Hope, and House of Ashes were great decision based making games that gained popularity and certainly geared attraction towards this newest release.

This game is based off of the true crime events of H.H. Holmes - Americas' first (recognized) serial killer. The story follows a group of filmmakers needing a break for their documentary series about American serial killers. This group of individuals are easily lured to a remote island, desperate to save their dying program. And in the midst of the recreated H.H. Holmes hotel, they end up becoming the very own victims that they cover in their show. With knowledge, trust, and bravery, they must find a way to escape the fanatically inspired killer.

CHARACTERS

Kate Wilder:

Kate is the host of the show "Architects of Murder." We later through choices find ou t that she is the ex lover of Mark Nestor. At first Kate is seen as stuck up and conceited, but through choices she is revealed to be compassionate and caring for those close to her. She is also one of the most daring of the leads.

Mark Nestor:

Mark is the cameraman, photographer, videographer. He appears to be a close confidant to Charlie and is the ex lover of Kate Wilder. He is a nervous bunch with a large fear of heights, but makes up for it with compassion and care. He is an indecisive person, but it is up to the player to either have him stay in his old ways or be a person who takes initiative.

Charlie Lonnet:

The man leading the bunch always with a pack of smokes in hand. Charlie is the leader of this film crew and it truly is up to the player whether or not he is made for said task. Just like Kate, he is a wild card that is easily likeable or you can gain much disdain for quite quickly. As stated, this depends on your playstyle.

Jamie Tiergan:

Likely the most bold and understandable of the bunch is Jamie. The light tech of the group is an overall enjoyable and least problematic character for the viewer. Though one must state that her relationship with Kate, which we find out later is affected by a misunderstanding, is rocky at best. It is definitely important on deciding whether you want her relationships with the other characters to be on good or worse terms. I would state that her character is one of the best and most relatable. Especially with her reactions to the sequence of events surrounding her.

Erin Keenan:

The shy, quirky, and breathless audio tech. With a bad case of asthma, Erin starts out strong appearing weak and frail throughout the opening sequences. While she can remain this way, she can also later appear to become less timid and more brave as the story continues. Though even with a bit of development from her, she is still unfortunately the weakest link. Regardless of this, I personally found it hard to dislike her after her (in)famous "don't be scared song." A sense of needing to protect appeared after hearing such.

OVERALL STORY & GAMEPLAY MECHANICS

The overall story for The Devil In Me was very immersive. To fully flesh out and become the most knowledgeable on its lore, it will require a bit of reading. With papers and secrets to be found all over the hotel estate, there is much depth put in. Especially with the flashbacks provided, it becomes fun to go down the rabbit hole of who the killer may or may not be. It seems pretty obvious as you go through said flashbacks, but one wonders whether it is too obvious. As Mark states later in the game, could there not be more than one killer? One will also think to themselves, what is the direct correlation with the curator? We see at the end a book that the curator is working on with the names of suspects we learn of during our gameplay, but why does he seem....aggravated? Is he not just an overseer?

As for the new and old mechanics of the game, they were not awful. The QTE's were enjoyable, but the difficulties felt like there was no real difference. As for the moving objects, breaker boxes, and personal items....I could do without. At times it was cool to have and I enjoyed having them there. For example, Erin and her inhaler only having a specific amount of uses. Though with the UI it was so hard to notice at times that I realized many people lost a character due to it. Many others, along with myself, were stuck finding a code for so long because it was not noticeable that Kate had a pencil! Another way in which it felt unneccessary was with Jamie and her breaker mehcanics. It was a decent idea to implement, but was not utilized fully. It was only done two or three times, but never was it under duress or used in a way that would actually affect the character(s). The only thing it would do was elongate the amount of time playing until figured out. The hiding mechanic was fun and that I believe was used quite well. In fact, I believe that could have been used more rather than having "run or hide" options. One thought that came across my mind was that these new mechanics could have waited until season two. People would have played this game regardless of these new mechanics. Many did not even know until the beta came out that they existed. Perhaps, having rather introduced this in season two would have given more time to perfect them and implement them better. Though hopefully with them being in this game, it can be counted as "experimental" and the developers will do more with them in the future.

SINGLE PLAYER & MULTIPLAYER

Single Player:

For the most part single player worked pretty well. There was the occasional head twist or pop up, but as of writing this review, it is the recommended playstyle. If you are not going to play single player mode, the best I could say would be couch mode co-op. This way you are less likely to face the same issues as those in regular online co-op. Some of those issues mentioned below. Though be careful with the heartbeat sequences as it is predestined for some individuals to fail it seems even after completing the prompt correctly.

Multiplayer:

I absolutely could not recommend this. At bare minimum this mode will likely require multiple restarts and will be the actual hardest most available. I would say your highest chance of getting a character killed would be playing online co-op. It is, I may even say, unplayable at this stage. Now, one can indeed finish the game with this playstyle, but it will almost guarantee a not-so-fun experience. Regardless of the bugs such as a occasional disappearing torso, or a character you thought dead appearing for a jump scare, it is just too much. Characters needlessly die, many cut scenes do not directly match, and the extra scenes with multiplayer that singles do not receive seem to be the worst part. For a game that is geared towards multiplayer, perhaps it should have followed The Quarry in releasing said option later. Or it could have simply pushed the release date back and worked on perfecting the game more.

FINAL THOUGHTS!

The only way I would recommend this game is if it went on sale, or if you purchase it to play single player/couch co-op. If you are looking to play this game with a buddy online, keep in mind that it may be better to wait for a patch update. That way your immersion is not totally lost and you can have a better experience. Overall, I did have fun. It was enjoyable and I definitely felt more of a need to keep my characters alive. The story was engaging as well with it not being directly supernatural (still questionable!) and realizing that unlike, say Little Hope, death is truly the end for this group. There is no hallucinating this time around. As for a season finale, I thought the premise was great and it was worthy. Especially when we leaned more into the curator. Unfortunately, it was not the best it could have been. And as stated, this was at no fault of the story or the characters. It is due to the mechanics and gameplay bugs/errors. If it was released in a more polished state, it would be that much more great. With so many other games this year, I was hoping that The Dark Pictures would not make the same mistake. Thankfully, we were granted a small preview into the season two premiere. Directive 8020. Let us hope that it will make up for where The Devil In Me lacked and make better use of the new mechanics!