Alone in the Dark: Illumination

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Alone in the Dark: Illumination
The final nail in the coffin for one of the most influential horror games of all time... or is it?
Protagonist(s): Theodore "Ted" Carnby Sara Hartwood Gabriella Saunders Father Henry Giger Genre(s): Third-person shooter Platform(s): Microsoft Windows Release: June 11, 2015 Engine: Unreal Engine 4 Developer(s): Pure FPS Publisher(s): Atari Country: United States Series: Alone in the Dark Predecessor: Alone in the Dark (2008)

Alone in the Dark: Illumination is a cooperative third-person shooter video game developed by Pure FPS and published by Atari. It was released for Microsoft Windows on June 11, 2015. It is the sixth installment in the Alone in the Dark franchise. In 2018, THQ Nordic purchased the license for the franchise.

Why It Should Be Left Alone in the Dark

1. Misleading title: Despite the name of the game, you are not alone in the dark and most of the time is spent in the lighted areas. It also suggests that this would be a horror game, but it isn't one.
2. Disregards the series' roots; the previous games were survival horror games, but this one is mostly a co-op shooter and it doesn't even attempt to scare you, despite supposed that it was supposed to be a horror game.
3. The gameplay is feels like tech demo rather than the full games due to aforementioned reason.
4. There are no interesting mechanics in the game to differentiate it from better alternatives, aside from the fact that it has that feature from Alan Wake (which is a much better game) where the enemies can only be damaged if they're under direct light.
5. There is little to no character customization; you can't change your character's clothes, nor can you acquire any new abilities for them.
6. The skill system consists of passive upgrades to both class-specific and generic attributes.
   • Progressing through the skill tree only unlocks another loadout slot, in which you can equip another existing ability for your character (which also includes guns).
7. For some odd reason, this game was released only on Windows, meanwhile, the previous games in the series also saw console releases, so not releasing this on consoles too is an odd choice.
8. There are no other weapons to choose from aside from a Famas and M4, those are the only weapons you will most likely use.
9. To unlock loadout slots, you have to do the same levels multiple times which gets tiresome.
10. Incredibly repetitive combat, as it consists of lighting of an enemy by either a special ability or turning the lights on, then shooting it. Rinse and repeat throughout the entire game.
11. Amazingly boring and repetitive gunplay, as the guns have no recoil, so you can empty an entire magazine into an enemy and not have to adjust your aiming, the gun sounds are also terrible as they sound more like toy guns.
12. Pickups only consist of health and ammo (also includes class-specific abilities).
13. The enemies themselves can range from having braindead A.I to outright unfair, as they sometimes have broken pathfinding and can't see you, even when close.
    • Because the enemies can only be damaged when in light the game can become incredibly hard, and it gets worse when there are multiple enemies at once coming right after you.
    • The enemies sometimes constantly spawn inside closed buildings, so if you close a door and there happens to be an enemy inside, they'll smash it open no matter what.
    • Attacks from enemies are difficult to avoid because there's no dodge-roll key.
14. None of the characters have any synergy, and the only adjustment made to co-op mode is that it has more enemies.
15. There is no scaling for when you're playing alone; the levels are as large as they are in co-op mode and the objectives are the same. This results in you constantly going back and forth as you must gruelingly journey through every passage to complete an objective, this would be tolerable if there was any kind of fast travel, but no there isn't.
16. Most of the objectives are nothing more than just tedious fetch quests that can drag on for so long.
17. Characters move extremely slowly and you have to use stamina to run, it's made worse by the fact that you can get tired very fast and the stamina bar recharges incredibly slow.
18. The level designs are incredibly confusing and they have an awful visual design.
19. There's no mini-map to help guide you through the level; instead, you have the highlighted objectives, which is useless because it doesn't even tell you which path to take.
20. Horrible and stiff animations for 2015 standards, heck there isn't even a single animation for interacting with stuff such as opening doors, turning on the lights, etc.
21. The gates and doors lock at random times to add depth to the level, but all this does is lead to you trying to take the most direct route, figuring out that it's essentially mostly a wall, and then enemies spawn right behind you and can kill you instantly.
22. The camera is incredibly close to your character and there's no way to adjust the FOV (field-of-view).
23. There are lots of bugs and glitches throughout the game.
24. The graphics look extremely outdated for 2015 standards despite running on Unreal Engine 4, and it looks more like a Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game which is laughable since the previous game Alone in the Dark (2008) came out on these consoles and it looks miles better, especially the PS3 version.
25. Overpriced: It costs $30 for each copy, so if you and three friends want to play this game together, you have to spend $120, which is insulting for a game this horrible.
26. There are no cutscenes or any dialogues at all! Instead, you are being shown text, which is just pathetic for a 21st-century game that costs $30.
    • Although there is a backstory to how monsters invaded Lorwich, but none of the mentioned key antagonists appear in the game or have any further mentions. Besides that, each character has their own motives for coming to Lorwich, but the game completely forgets about them too.
27. The final boss of the game Cthulhu. While cool, his appearance is just plain awful, not to mention it feels entirely out of place and fighting him can be really difficulty
28. It almost killed the Alone in the Dark series and ended it on a whimper, even worse that the series is the forefather of survival horror games! It wasn't until recently in 2023, when the reboot/remake trailer was announced simply titled Alone in the Dark.

Reception

Alone in the Dark: Illumination received overwhelmingly negative reviews upon release, with a Metacritic score of 19/100 based on 12 reviews. It has been considered one of the worst video games of all time. It also almost killed off the series in general, as THQ Nordic purchased the license and there hasn't been a new Alone in the Dark game since, until 7 years later in 2022, when THQ Nordic announced a remake of the original Alone in the Dark in the same style as the recent Resident Evil remakes..

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