Yesterday my review of The Dark Pictures Anthology – House of Ashes came out. It is often difficult to review a story-driven game. The story is central to such a game, but for fear of spoilers you don’t want to go into it too deeply. This time, however, I’m in luck, as I can now use my column to dissect the House of Ashes story. I do recommend that you get my review read first so you have some context.
When I analyze a story, I often try to find a central idea first. What is the core of the story that hopefully all the other elements are linked to? A story feels most coherent when the maker(s) develop the storylines from one idea. In my opinion, that is largely the case at House of Ashes.
If I had to pick one sentence as the central idea, it would be see things from multiple perspectives. Now you can say that every game from Supermassive does this. You always play from the perspective of multiple characters. However, I think House of Ashes takes this even further. The game is largely set during the Iraq War in 2003. This allows us to see stories from the American and the Iraqi side. Rachel, Eric and the other Americans besides Salim, Dar and the other Iraqis. Both sides in the war have some nuance and depth. House of Ashes would be wise not to show either party as good or bad. They are both simply in a nasty situation that almost none of them asked for.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend
Okay, so the central idea seems to fit well with the bulk of the story. But it goes much further. The game’s prologue is set in the city of Akkad in 2231 BC. Here too, a war is taking place between two factions: the Akkadians and Gutians. The Akkadian Empire is ravaged by drought and famine, sparking a struggle for resources. It’s a clear link between this conflict and the Iraq War later in the game.
Supermassive Games lets characters from both time periods do the same things. In the Akkadia part of the game, we see Balathu and Kurum, two men who are each on different sides of the conflict. The looming threat of the monsters, which I’ll come back to later, forces these two enemies to work together. The same is happening in the Iraq part. In it, the American Josh and the Iraqi Salim also have to work together to fight against the monsters.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend. This quote comes up several times in the game. I think this is in line with my central idea for House of Ashes. You have to look at some things from multiple perspectives, even if you have to. It teaches you that we are all human too, even though some can doom many others.
bible verse
This reminds me of the quote House of Ashes puts on the screen at the very beginning.
“For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”
This is a verse from the Bible, specifically Hosea chapter 8, verse 7. It’s basically an old biblical version of “He who sows shall reap,” but mostly in a negative sense. Hosea is about the coming destruction of Israel because the Lord would consider them wicked. This seems to be in line with what happens to the Akkadian Empire in the game. The Akkadian king thinks that the Gods have cursed them with hunger and thirst.
The quote seems to be more of a summary of the gameplay than the story. You can make choices in House of Ashes that can lead to the death of your characters. Hosea 8:7 is a nice quote if you want to link it to the gameplay and the Akkadian story elements, but no more than that. Not bad as far as I’m concerned, but it could have been better.
Hodgson-expeditie
However, House of Ashes contains a third time period, one that you do not play yourself. As the soldiers venture through the underground ruins, they find evidence of an earlier expedition. Documents found show it to be the British Hodgson Expedition, which ended violently when the monsters killed the archaeologists. As far as I’m concerned, Supermassive misses a wonderful opportunity here.
The Hodgson Expedition is used to reveal information about the monsters in the game. However, it stays there. This storyline could have been used to show what happens when you do business not view from multiple perspectives. In fiction you can sometimes make a great point if characters don’t stick to the central idea. What if British archaeologists also had to work with people they deem less so? They were British in the 1940s, so there were plenty of colonized peoples to look down on. Supermassive could have used this to show how it had led the British to their downfall. A missed opportunity.
Turds and whales
Finally, I want to talk about the monsters themselves. Supermassive chose bat-like vampires. They turn it into a so-called proto-monster: creatures that were the basis for countless vampire myths around the world. In the beginning, I found the choice of these types of monsters a bit arbitrary. What exactly links these monsters to the central idea, I thought. The answer came at the end of the game. It is revealed that the monsters are actually aliens. Their spaceship, which I thought looked remarkably like an oblong turd, crashed on Earth millennia ago. Where you start as a player in the Iraqi countryside, you eventually end up in an underground spaceship full of cocoons and green lights.
This was why I like the end of House of Ashes out there described in my review. It was unexpected and entertaining, which of course is always a good thing. The icing on the cake, however, came when a revelation about the aliens was made. The aliens were not naturally aggressive and vampire-like, they became this thanks to a parasite they were infected with. The non-infected aliens were even seen as peaceful and beautiful. Their language consisted of beautiful, sung sounds, which made me mentally compare them to whales.
Here I found another link between the Iraq and Akkadia storylines. Throughout the game, as a player, I saw the monsters as enemies, while they were actually victims themselves. This is also what the American soldiers learned about the Iraqi Salim, and vice versa. If this was a conscious choice of Supermassive, then this is a strong piece of storytelling.
Worth the effort
There are more elements to be found that fit the central idea. However, this column is already approaching 1200 words, so I think it’s good to close. Anyway, I thought House of Ashes was the strongest episode in The Dark Pictures Anthology so far. The generally cunningly put together story is a major reason for that.
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