The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope is an overall strong follow-up to the Man of Medan. The ending is a bit abrupt and some of the performances are a bit hammy, but the strong narrative, sharp visuals, and highly adaptive choices make this another highly entertaining thriller.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
Developer: Supermassive Games
Price: $30
Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, and PC (reviewed)
MonsterVine was provided with a PC code for review.
When I played Man of Medan last year, I was engrossed by the experience. I said that it was a great start to the Dark Pictures Anthology, and I’m happy to say that the follow-up, Little Hope, is a great continuation of Supermassive Games’s horror anthology series. It makes improvements upon Man of Medan and plays with some fun themes to make a creative and spooky thriller.
In Little Hope, you play as a group of college students and their professor. After surviving a bus crash, the group finds themselves stranded in the Salem-esque town of Little Hope. Strange things are amiss in the town, as macabre creatures and ghosts seem to be plaguing the group and making them see visions of 17th century Little Hope. To go further in would spoil things, but the plot is delightfully chilling. There are a lot of independently strong moments that tie together to create an overall intriguing story outside of some pacing issues.
Part of this is due to the impressively diverse range of story options and choices, but this doesn’t keep the ending from feeling abrupt. Things just end in Little Hope, right when it feels like the narrative’s climax is coming. This can be different depending on how you play the game, but having a fairly anticlimactic ending is still a bummer if you end up getting it. The ending itself is quite an entertaining twist– it just happens quite suddenly.
“I always found myself being quite interested in learning more about the world of Little Hope, as it was fun to put the story together on my own as I uncovered more optional details.“
There are a lot of genuinely unsettling moments in Little Hope thanks to its fiercely oppressive atmosphere. Once you start to explore the town, the bloody history and chilling emptiness start to grind away at you, keeping you on your toes for most of the game. Possibly the best part of Little Hope comes from the designs of the monsters that chase you. Without spoiling things they’re thematically symmetrical to certain gruesome plot-points, making them as fun to look at as they are creepy.
The gameplay of Little Hope is quite similar to the previous game, with things being divided into exploratory segments and choice-based actions with quicktime events. The exploration-based sections let you wander about the environment and examine items to fill in the story and gain “premonitions” that show you possible timelines in the game. Supermassive added the ability to walk a bit faster this time around, which is appreciated, but it still doesn’t quite feel fast enough. Regardless, I always found myself being quite interested in learning more about the world of Little Hope, as it was fun to put the story together on my own as I uncovered more optional details.
There are a lot of paths to be taken as you go through Little Hope, with situations where any number of characters can live or die. Quicktime events have been made a bit more forgiving thankfully, though they still have an element of challenge to them. Each character’s personality also changes based on the dialogue choices you make for them, which develops them into their own unique characters. I felt that I had a good deal of control over the characters and the overall story, which is essential in a good choose-your-own-adventure game.
Like Man of Medan, Little Hope is gorgeous to look at. The character models are naturally the spitting-image of their actors, while for the most part, the performances are spot-on. There are some rough performances throughout though, alternating between hammy and wooden lines here and there. It adds a certain “slasher flick” vibe to things, which is fun, but it can take you out of the experience now and then.
The Final Word
The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope is a worthy successor to Man of Medan and a strong continuation of The Dark Pictures Anthology. Some wonky performances and an abrupt ending are a bummer, but the intriguing story and various branching paths make Little Hope a wonderfully spooky trip.
MonsterVine Review Score: 4 out of 5 – Good
