Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe released a new trailer for The Dark Pictures: Little Hope today, and it has strong Blair Witch Project vibes. Supermassive Games is developing a whole anthology of horrifying game-based storytelling, and this is the second edition.
Fans of Until Dawn and have been anticipating this release since The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan came out in August 2019. Recent events have made game development difficult, so Little Hope’s release date has been pushed to sometime this fall. Fortunately for eager fans, now there is a trailer that gives horror fans another goosebump-raising look into the small town of Little Hope.
Will Poulter, who was also featured in the Black Mirror episode, “Bandersnatch,” plays Andrew, and is one of five playable main characters. Stranded outside a bar in New England with friends, Andrew suggests the best place to go for help is the town of Little Hope just up the road. Unfortunately, he and Angela (played by Ellen David) quickly get separated from the group.
One key detail of the story in Little Hope is that it is a time-based plotline. That much is obvious when a young pioneer girl named Mary (Skye Burkett), almost seems to call them back to her time in the 17th century. She appears beside a campfire, around which she dances and urges the visitors to come play with her. An older adult, most likely her mother, approaches and claims the girl has been committing “infidelity with the Devil.”
Previous trailers for The Dark Pictures: Little Hope were more focused on the jump scares, the creep factor, and Angela being dragged away by chains. Supermassive Games even released Dev Diary videos to keep players updated. Now, this gameplay footage suggests that the creepy cinematic game will feature more of the same mechanics as Man of Medan.
The gameplay is very story-based in a choose-your-own-adventure sort of way. Nearly every story-crucial line in the scene is given a choice between responses, with a helpful one or two-word phrase to describe the type of response (“Defensive” vs. “Apologetic” for example). This is a very good feature, since it can be frustrating when dialogue goes the way a player might not infer from the menu option.
Supermassive Games is taking players’ feedback from Man of Medan seriously and it hopes the second title in The Dark Pictures Anthology will have tighter pacing, fewer quick time events, and overall deepening the sense of impending doom.
