Good jumpscares, well-written plot and new mechanics makes “Little Hope” a big success
Cora McClain | Editor-In-Chief
Stephanie Moschella | Digital Media Manager
It’s hard to follow up on the explosive popularity “Until Dawn” had on the gaming community, which is why The Dark Pictures Anthology had a lot of hype to live up to. When “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Man of Medan” seemingly fell flat as a glorified movie-turned-video game, “The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope” had to blow its audience away in order for Supermassive Games to regain traction. “Little Hope” is an interactive horror survival video game released on the PS4, Xbox One and Microsoft Windows on Oct. 30 for $30.
Watching the trailer for the game, creepy kids, ghost towns and terrifying monsters were a given. However, there was a huge piece of plot that was well guarded and added a mysterious paranormal layer beyond what was already there. For spoiler purposes, we will not be disclosing this plot point, but know that it was a good spin on the “time-traveling” plot.
Along with this, the ending was completely unexpected, at least for us. While some people might heavily dislike an ending like this, we found it an interesting twist with little clues all the way though. In fact, I would go so far as to say the plot of “Little Hope” far surpassed most horror genre video games and movies.
Each new piece of information changed our perceptions and theories of what was going on; it was an intricately-woven tangled mystery that the game unknotted organically, without giving away all of the surprises too early. At the same time, the twists didn’t come out of nowhere and were based in the already-established lore and plot of “Little Hope.” For us, the story of “Little Hope” hit the mark.
Another high note for “Little Hope” was the great atmosphere of the game. As a person who played the game all the way through in five hours, there wasn’t a moment where the tense mood or suspension of disbelief was broken. Straight from the get-go, the player is thrown into intense action ⏤ unlike “Man of Medan,” which had a very slow build up. From the moment the characters arrive in “Little Hope,” tensions are high, and it feels as if anything can happen at any moment.
The real sense of danger begins in act two, after all the monsters have been introduced; there is scene after scene of fighting monsters that don’t let up for about an hour of gameplay. The characters are in constant danger, and this adds to the sense of urgency for them and the players.
Our consensus on the monsters are that they are some of the best monsters to be featured in a Supermassive Games title, even better than the infamous “Until Dawn” wendigos. They were varied, had a story-driven purpose for existing and were scary as hell — players don’t have a set of rules for them, they have to figure it out and infer along the way.
A main part of horror games are the jumpscares, which is where a lot of horror video games disappoint. But for “Little Hope,” they do an amazing job keeping it not only plot driven but continuously scary. Most games go back to the tropey and cheap jumpscares, but this game really drives it home with their abundance of well thought-out scares that keeps the player on the edge of their seat through the whole game.
As for the mechanics, “Little Hope” followed its predecessors by relying on choices, quick time events, aiming events and investigating the environment. There was a new implementation of warnings that let the player know that a QTE was coming up. It’s a nice addition that helped with the accuracy of making QTEs, but it takes away that constant edge of danger present in other Supermassive Games.
Along with this, a player could control another character during a scene, in which they could very well kill another player’s character. While it does add to the importance of the multiplayer feature, it can also be quite devastating to lose a character when it is not even that player’s turn.
One new mechanic involved the characteristics featured in previous games; instead of just floating around the character’s head aimlessly, there were “locked” characteristics. A part of this mechanic is that through very specific and certain choices, more characteristics can be locked or broken. This mechanic is not explained at all during the game like all the others, even though it has the most devastating consequences. The fact that this mechanic leads to automatic character death in the third act without being explained in any way soured the game a bit for us.
Another problem the game presents is the obvious lack of diversity. In Supermassive Games’ previous installments, they made an effort in hiring women and people of color. However, in “Little Hope,” there is one throwaway Asian character and a Black man who is perceived as a danger to our white heros the whole game. This doesn’t deter from the plotline, but it does beg the question: why would they go with something like the witch trials and not mention the people of color that were also tortured and killed during them?
Overall Review:
Stephanie: I would recommend this video game to anyone who is ready for some good jumpscares but are okay with mediocre endings. I commend their skill for being able to scare some eager horror gamers with a rating for 8/10.
Cora: Before the auto-kill mechanic, I would have rated this game a 9/10, but it spoiled the game for me a bit. I would recommend it for any avid fan of the horror genre who doesn’t care too much about a bum ending. Overall, it is a great horror game that I thoroughly enjoyed and want to play again, and it gets an 8/10 from me.
Contact the authors at howleditor@wou.edu and howldigitalmediamanager@wou.edu
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