The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes Gameplay Revealed

The first gameplay from Supermassive Games' next chapter in The Dark Pictures Anthology called House of Ashes was revealed this week to show off the new predicament players will find themselves in when the game launches. Like the other two games before it, Man of Medan and Little Hope, it'll feature a new cast of characters and tons of decisions to be made in intense situations. The game is scheduled to launch some time in 2021 but does not yet have an exact release date.

You can see the gameplay and much more below in the video shared by Bandai Namco on Thursday. It features Will Doyle, the game director at Supermassive Games, offering some insights into the world of House of Ashes and how this game will differ from the ones before it. We've seen some brief shots of House of Ashes from past trailers that show military forces moving into some ruins before being attacked from the dark by monsters, and before getting into the gameplay Doyle offered some context on how this scenario came about.

"House of Ashes is set back in 2003, at the close of hostilities in the Iraq war," Doyle said. "Hunting for weapons of mass destruction, a team comprising U.S. Special Forces, Air Force, and CIA is sent on a mission to unearth an underground chemical weapon that's been picked up on satellite. Arriving on the scene, they come under attack by holdout Iraqi forces, and during the firefight, an earthquake pitches both sides into the ground below, where they discover a vast underground temple dating back to the ancient kingdom of Akkad."

That's quite the setup compared to other Dark Pictures Anthology games, but it's where House of Ashes will begin. Doyle also confirmed that Ashley Tisdale is indeed in the game, a continuation of Supermassive's practice of getting well-known actors to play lead roles.

We didn't get to see much of the monsters themselves, but that's to be expected so as not to ruin the surprise. Doyle did say that the game takes inspiration from movies like Aliens, Predator, and The Descent which sounds promising. Doyle said there's a whole nest of those monsters waiting for players, and through motion capture and other work, he said they've created a believable and threatening sort of monster to stalk players.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes does not yet have a release date beyond some time in 2021.