Dead of Darkness Review – Terror from the top down

thesixthaxis.com:

After an incredible year for indie horror in 2024, Dead of Darkness looks to continue the genre’s resurgence in the new year. At first sight, Dead of Darkness looks like it might be paying tribute to Konami’s classic series Silent Hill, with main character Miles sporting the obligatory grieving Dad uniform of beige jacket, jeans, and floppy hair parting, but the game itself is far more inspired by Capcom’s earlier Resident Evil.

You begin the game as burned out PI Miles Windham. After receiving a mysterious message recorded on a cassette (the game takes place in 1985) he sets out for Velvet Island in the Celtic Sea off the coast of Ireland. His unknown messenger claims to have information about the tragic fire that claimed the lives of Miles’ family. Mysterious and tragic backstory – check; unexpected journey to an isolated mansion – check; immediate meeting with a blonde woman who will probably be more than she first appears – hell yeah. This opening sounds clichéd but I think it’s more correct to consider it deliberate homage to the genre traditions. Dead of Darkness is clearly deeply immersed in the world of survival horror for better or for worse.

Dead of Darkness has a distinctive top down pixel aesthetic that feels straight out of the Super Nintendo days. The resultant lack of clear detail in the backgrounds is alleviated by the use of shiny circles to show where collectable items can be found – ironically the same tactic used in the highly detailed pre-rendered PS1 games.

While initially enemies are entirely made up of identical zombies, as the game progresses there are some wonderfully disgusting creatures waiting to eat your face off. The characters are nicely designed and the static figures used in dialogue sections look good too.

Audio is solid with suitably creepy moans and screams and a surprising amount of voice acting. I was taken aback, though, by how foul-mouthed the script is, with some characters throwing out the C-word like they’re auditioning for an