If anyone felt like Man of Medan, the first entry in Supermassive Games’ The Dark Pictures Anthology series, was not quite close enough thematically to the studio’s breakout hit Until Dawn, then perhaps the next entry might do the job? After all, we’re heading back into the realms of creepy goings-on in the woods.
Little Hope does indeed take us back to the kind of forest frights that made up so much of Until Dawn’s early hours, plus it once again includes a selection of playable protagonists alongside a story made from a blend of folk tale and horror sub-genres found in both Until Dawn and Man of Medan. It holds familiar promise, but has it got enough to stand out as its own slice of interactive terror?
The titular Little Hope is an isolated New England town where a college professor and four students find themselves stranded after a mysterious figure causes their bus to crash. It’s bad enough that they are stuck in the middle of nowhere, but the group soon discovers that this little town has a rather sordid history with the occult and Witch Trials. In order to escape a waking nightmare, the group must delve into the cryptic and sinister past of Little Hope, and avoid the stalking evil forces that haunt their every step.
As with Supermassive’s previous work, it’s taking familiar horror movie tropes and plots, then mixing them up into a bubbling stew of interactive horror replete with branching story paths and the promise that any and all of the five protagonists can be eradicated before the credits finally roll.
The overlying template of this anthology series also means we see the return of Pip Torrens as the Rod Serling-esque Curator, as well as the multiplayer modes that helped differentiate this series from Until Dawn.
Some of the influences are clear straight away from a mere glimpse of the game’s trailer. There’s a dash of possession-based horror such as Evil Dead (both Sam Raimi and Fede Alverez’ versions), a smattering of Robert Egger’s The Witch and of course, more than a little of every Blair Witch film (especially Book of Shadows), but as with Man of Medan. There are clearly some deeper nods to horror films and sub-genres beyond those, but what’s important is that we know this is, on the surface at least, a tale of the occult in an isolated spooky town, and frankly, that’s an improvement on a mixture of home invasions and ghost ships.
That’s how I feel anyway. On a personal level, there’s just more that interests me here than with Man of Medan’s plot, as much as I liked it, I have a greater fondness for woodland and occult-based horror. Now while there’s a clear pattern of attempts to subvert what you think Supermassive’s stories will actually be about, there’s already plenty of proof that this is a core focus of Little Hope’s story, however it may eventually unfurl and be explained.
Interestingly, Little Hope appears to expand on Man of Medan’s time-hopping narrative, but whereas the previous game only did so in a straightforward prologue, the opening for Little Hope flits from one time period to another, explaining in greater detail how the modern-day group ended up stranded in the New England town. The demo ends with some intriguing revelations that show exactly where Little Hope skews a seemingly familiar tale into another.
The demo presentation showed some refinements on the mechanics, including better use of lighting and improved QTEs, and these are on display from the word go. The opening sets out its stall with great impact, as demonstrated by some grisly deaths (including an appreciative nod towards a famous death scene in The Omen) and arguably better pacing than that of the opening to Man of Medan. Given there are a few hours to go beyond what we saw in the demo presentation, the events of this prologue should put the rest of the game on solid footing.
The story is enticing then, but what also matters is the glee of joining friends in steering the story and indeed the characters themselves, in various, often disastrous, directions. That’s the big hook of The Dark Pictures anthology series and hopefully, the work started in Man of Medan can be further improved in Little Hope.
As entertaining and discussion-worthy as multiplayer was in last year’s game, there were definitely places where the decision-making of other people didn’t always gel particularly well with how you wanted the story to go. When it worked, and you saw or heard what your partner had in their side of the playthrough, it was simply brilliant., but there was occasionally a moment where your interpretation of what was happening caused the overall story to feel disjointed. Being able to interpret a story differently and go back and forth in shaping how it plays out can absolutely be fascinating in its own right, but it’s clearly a tricky thing to balance.
Supermassive Games seem to have worked out a few of the kinks from the initial episode, and Little Hope looks set to reap the rewards. I’m certainly looking forward to finding out more when it arrives in the Summer.
The Dark Pictures: Little Hope is set for release Summer 2020 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.
