Alone in the Dark - A Complete Retrospective
7,740The beginning of 3D Survival Horror as we know it.
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I apologise for my bad French pronunciation, despite 3 years of taking the subject in school, I still suck at it.
The music throughout this video is from all 3 games in the original trilogy, and for the most part, uses the Orchestral versions instead of the original MIDI/AdLib FM versions.
Some songs are also related to the games being shown on screen: A Link to the Past, Sweet Home, Alpha Waves, Resident Evil, Alone in the Dark 2008 and Little Big Adventure.
Most footage has been edited to fit a 16:9 ratio for a better viewing experience. The game is best played in its original 4:3 ratio.
Timestamps, click to skip ahead!
Introduction 0:00
- Starting a Genre -
The Horror Genre Before 1:41
Infogrames and Early 3D 3:45
Building a dream team 5:43
1 year of endless development 11:07
A Huge Success 17:24
The CD ROM Version 19:45
- Gameplay -
Gameplay Intro 23:01
The Controls 28:05
The Loft and Combat 34:01
The Style of Play 42:35
Ambience 49:01
- Story -
A Lovecraftian tale 55:57
The Background 57:21
The Story as we experience it 1:14:12
- Legacy -
Legacy 1:21:28
Should You Play It? 1:28:00
The Reboot 1:29:30
Outro 1:32:53
Alone in the Dark (1992): A Complete Retrospective and Analysis in text form:
“Survival horror.”
A genre dominated by Resident Evil. Indeed, that was, and still is, one of the benchmarks for survival horror throughout its many variations. But Capcom's lucrative series owes its existence to a game that created its most famous elements, 1992s Alone In The Dark.
Inspired by the stories of HP Lovecraft, Alone in the Dark took a genre that languished in the 2D plane, and brought it into three dimensions, with polygonal characters engaging with flat, pre-rendered backgrounds. This innovative approach brought gaming closer to photo-realism than any other game at that time.
Frédérick Raynal's masterpiece is the textbook that Resident Evil would follow, combined with Japanese exclusive Sweet Home, to launch the Survival Horror genre into the mainstream. Four years prior, Alone in the Dark redefined how action and adventure could be used to create suspense. Becoming a huge commercial success, and a lucrative franchise.
It has been re-imagined, rebuilt, and travelled across media, but the series has never quite matched what made this first game so special.
How did a game that was released in the same year as Sonic the Hedgehog 2, and a Link to the Past, push the boundaries of gaming so far ahead of the competition? And what about this classic game, from its presentation, gameplay and story, made it so influential to a genre whose name didn’t even exist? These are the questions we will answer in this video, grab some snacks and sit back as I present to you; the complete retrospective and analysis of Alone in the Dark.
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