Alone in the Dark, first released in 1992, is a Lovecraft-inspired adventure game often credited with inventing the survival horror genre. It was followed by annual sequels until the third game, which was about cowboys and no one wanted to talk about it, so the series came to an abrupt end. But that is not dead which can eternal lie, and seven years later, it was deemed time to awaken the Alone in the Dark franchise with a new game.
Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare was first released throughout Europe in May of 2001 and worldwide a month later, and to bury any risk that they might remind people of cowboy Carnby, it serves to reboot the franchise into a new continuity. In The New Nightmare, series staple Edward Carnby and newcomer Aline Cedrac are tasked with exploring the mysterious Shadow Island, each seeking to uncover the truth behind something in their personal lives while getting embroiled in the twisted machinations of the billionaires who own the island. The developers came up with clever tricks to do things rarely seen on PS1 hardware, but the release of the PS2 the previous year spelled doom for their efforts. An improved Dreamcast version was released soon after the PS1 version, but no one owned a Dreamcast, and ports of that version to the PC and PS2 introduced serious technical issues, with the PS2 version never seeing release outside of the PAL region.
For this LP, I’ll be going through both characters’ campaigns on the PS1 version with my friend Bec, who suggested I check out this game in the first place. Throughout the adventure, parts of the story will be told via extremely long documents, which I’ll endeavor to summarize in the videos but if you want to read their full text for whatever reason, I’ll be posting links to all new documents with each update. Please do not post spoilers tagged or otherwise, and since this is a seventeen year old game based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft, take particular note of the following:
Content Warnings: this game features jumpscares, sexism, and a very insensitive portrayal of Native Americans throughout. Individual episodes will have additional warnings tagged, including graphic animal abuse and body horror.
Updates:
Carnby 1: Beware of dogs [CW: graphic animal abuse]/Documents: 1
Documents:
Fiske’s notebook