If Alone in the Dark 2 doubles down on the worst parts of its predecessor, Alone in the Dark 3, at the very least, expands on what I most happened to enjoy out of… what was otherwise a rather frustrating follow-up. Key to this is the choice in setting: as a compliment to the pirate themed Alone in the Dark 2, Alone in the Dark 3 goes full spaghetti western, taking you to a full-on ghost town in the middle of the Mojave, fighting zombie cowboys, interacting with… perhaps not the most sensitive depiction of Native American culture. It’s certainly rather unique — compared to the areas typically used even in today’s survival horror — and the game compounds this with a rather irrelevant, oftentimes silly tone. Anything can happen, and the game is not afraid of you not taking it seriously. There’s a section where you reincarnate as a cougar and you kill werewolves. Dropping down holes is the most Looney Tunes animation and it’s a coinflip whether doing so will kill you or let you progress. Carnby states that his current situation has left him Alone in the Dark at least, like, three separate times. It’s goofy as hell, and it’s such a blast. So much of the fun was just seeing what the game was going to do next.
As far as the actual plot goes, you play as Edward Carnby, one of the player characters of the first game, ascended to being the main protagonist in the second. Dubbed the ‘Supernatural Private Eye’ after his previous successes, Carnby receives another case: the disappearance of a film crew in a ghost town, amongst their number Emily Hartwood, the other player character of the first game. Heading into the town to investigate, Carnby soon finds that a curse has overtaken Slaughter Gulch, and a gang of zombie outlaws has taken over the ghost town and dispatched the film crew. Alone, and with no method of escape, Carnby must now delve into the depths of Slaughter Gulch, finding his way through, finding help where he can, all in hopes of eliminating the curse over the ghost town and, hopefully, being able to rescue Emily.
Gameplay-wise, Alone in the Dark 3 certainly feels much more iterated than previous entries. While combat returns, and while it’s still… not quite amazing, it’s dialled way back compared to 2’s constant enemy encounters, and there are also a couple changes that make it much less annoying for the player. Your animations (at least until the endgame…) are much quicker, reducing the chance that a given enemy will just stunlock you to death, you have customizable difficulty modifiers that let you fine-tune things to your choosing, and differing kinds of enemy encounters: ones where your goal is less to shoot what’s on screen, more to solve a puzzle to get them off your back. While I wouldn’t necessarily go so far as to say I fully liked it, it’s certainly an improvement, and I’d certainly say I preferred fighting enemies here than fighting them in either of the first two games. I also enjoyed the upgrades made to the way the game delivers its background lore. While the pages and pages worth of books were… okay enough to manage in previous games, Alone in the Dark 3 varies its approach: sometimes the pages will be annotated with pictures. Sometimes you’ll get some film and you’ll see a projection of previous events. Sometimes it’ll be addressed directly to you. While the tomes of yore are still present, they’re juxtaposed with other methods of delivering the background lore to you, varying the approach and making it so much more easily digestible.
For every step forward, though, a few are taken back. Scrounging around for items feels so much more finicky than it ever did previously. Even if you can see an item on a table or cupboard or desk, you must use the Search command to initiate a lengthy animation when just walking towards it was enough to work in previous games. The process of using them also feels so randomly specific. You can have the item you need, you can know where to use it, and you’re still going to waste time trying to use it and failing because you haven’t found the exact spot and position the game wants you to use it. Sometimes I felt like the game was glitching out and not letting me progress despite having the correct answer, which really played well when the game started actually glitching out and forcing me to reload near the end. Puzzle solutions feel like they’ve become more esoteric: I think the whole thing with the miner you have to whip/specifically kill with a gold bullet has been covered well enough, but as a whole I’m… not sure how I could’ve solved some of these puzzles, at least without major trial and error. There’s a moment where you have to jump from platform to platform to avoid falling into a river of lava (don’t ask, I don’t know why either) with a core mechanic being to jump on certain pillars to make more pillars emerge from the ground. You reach the end, with one more pillar you need to raise… which doesn’t come up. Is the answer to the conundrum to, say, go back and jump on one of the side pillars you skipped? No, stupid, obviously you need to use the amulet in your inventory you’ve already used before so a Native American man can teleport you across to the end of the cave. Obviously.
(I do also think the game veers a little long: the last third really feels like it should get to the climax quicker. this is more a minor thing imo because this could’ve just been the stress of wanting to beat the game before I had to go to class compounding on me but it really feels like you’re spinning your wheels right up until the end. given that you start getting bottlenecked by combat around this point, given that the game starts glitching out and at some points softblocking you, it’s… sure not a winner. at least gameplay-wise.)
At the very least, though, all the steps back are made up for by all the little gameplay improvements. And even beyond that, the well-realized setting and the bizarre, anything-can-happen tone really boost the game, in both quality and entertainment value. I… tragically wouldn’t go so far as to say I fully liked it — the combat still hasn’t quite aged well, and that last segment truly does its best to end the game on a sour note, length aside — but god did I have fun. Both Alone in the Darks 2 and 3 aren’t generally well remembered as the original nowadays — both because of how hard they diverge in terms of genre, and because the original is just that influential in the history of survival horror — and while I’d say the second is best left that way… I’d definitely make a case for this game. If not a reappraisal — I don’t think it could bear that sort of scrutiny — at least let it be known just how off-the-walls this game can get. It’s certainly a piece of entertainment. 6/10.
As far as the actual plot goes, you play as Edward Carnby, one of the player characters of the first game, ascended to being the main protagonist in the second. Dubbed the ‘Supernatural Private Eye’ after his previous successes, Carnby receives another case: the disappearance of a film crew in a ghost town, amongst their number Emily Hartwood, the other player character of the first game. Heading into the town to investigate, Carnby soon finds that a curse has overtaken Slaughter Gulch, and a gang of zombie outlaws has taken over the ghost town and dispatched the film crew. Alone, and with no method of escape, Carnby must now delve into the depths of Slaughter Gulch, finding his way through, finding help where he can, all in hopes of eliminating the curse over the ghost town and, hopefully, being able to rescue Emily.
Gameplay-wise, Alone in the Dark 3 certainly feels much more iterated than previous entries. While combat returns, and while it’s still… not quite amazing, it’s dialled way back compared to 2’s constant enemy encounters, and there are also a couple changes that make it much less annoying for the player. Your animations (at least until the endgame…) are much quicker, reducing the chance that a given enemy will just stunlock you to death, you have customizable difficulty modifiers that let you fine-tune things to your choosing, and differing kinds of enemy encounters: ones where your goal is less to shoot what’s on screen, more to solve a puzzle to get them off your back. While I wouldn’t necessarily go so far as to say I fully liked it, it’s certainly an improvement, and I’d certainly say I preferred fighting enemies here than fighting them in either of the first two games. I also enjoyed the upgrades made to the way the game delivers its background lore. While the pages and pages worth of books were… okay enough to manage in previous games, Alone in the Dark 3 varies its approach: sometimes the pages will be annotated with pictures. Sometimes you’ll get some film and you’ll see a projection of previous events. Sometimes it’ll be addressed directly to you. While the tomes of yore are still present, they’re juxtaposed with other methods of delivering the background lore to you, varying the approach and making it so much more easily digestible.
For every step forward, though, a few are taken back. Scrounging around for items feels so much more finicky than it ever did previously. Even if you can see an item on a table or cupboard or desk, you must use the Search command to initiate a lengthy animation when just walking towards it was enough to work in previous games. The process of using them also feels so randomly specific. You can have the item you need, you can know where to use it, and you’re still going to waste time trying to use it and failing because you haven’t found the exact spot and position the game wants you to use it. Sometimes I felt like the game was glitching out and not letting me progress despite having the correct answer, which really played well when the game started actually glitching out and forcing me to reload near the end. Puzzle solutions feel like they’ve become more esoteric: I think the whole thing with the miner you have to whip/specifically kill with a gold bullet has been covered well enough, but as a whole I’m… not sure how I could’ve solved some of these puzzles, at least without major trial and error. There’s a moment where you have to jump from platform to platform to avoid falling into a river of lava (don’t ask, I don’t know why either) with a core mechanic being to jump on certain pillars to make more pillars emerge from the ground. You reach the end, with one more pillar you need to raise… which doesn’t come up. Is the answer to the conundrum to, say, go back and jump on one of the side pillars you skipped? No, stupid, obviously you need to use the amulet in your inventory you’ve already used before so a Native American man can teleport you across to the end of the cave. Obviously.
(I do also think the game veers a little long: the last third really feels like it should get to the climax quicker. this is more a minor thing imo because this could’ve just been the stress of wanting to beat the game before I had to go to class compounding on me but it really feels like you’re spinning your wheels right up until the end. given that you start getting bottlenecked by combat around this point, given that the game starts glitching out and at some points softblocking you, it’s… sure not a winner. at least gameplay-wise.)
At the very least, though, all the steps back are made up for by all the little gameplay improvements. And even beyond that, the well-realized setting and the bizarre, anything-can-happen tone really boost the game, in both quality and entertainment value. I… tragically wouldn’t go so far as to say I fully liked it — the combat still hasn’t quite aged well, and that last segment truly does its best to end the game on a sour note, length aside — but god did I have fun. Both Alone in the Darks 2 and 3 aren’t generally well remembered as the original nowadays — both because of how hard they diverge in terms of genre, and because the original is just that influential in the history of survival horror — and while I’d say the second is best left that way… I’d definitely make a case for this game. If not a reappraisal — I don’t think it could bear that sort of scrutiny — at least let it be known just how off-the-walls this game can get. It’s certainly a piece of entertainment. 6/10.