Among Ashes Review (PS5)
Summary: Among Ashes is a first-person horror game with innovative gameplay, outstanding audio design, and graphical fidelity. The trepidation that is arranged here is equally spaced through the entire game and will gladly make every apprehensive step more frantic. Disastrous bugs that can easily happen in a multitude of ways is understandably worrisome, but the experience Among Ashes brings to the table is unmatchable. Among Ashes initiates a grander scale of understanding and effectiveness when it comes to creating new horror games and I hope the ideas that it brought to the table are able to expand in exciting ways in the future.
4.3
Arboreal Arson
Things are not what they seem in this creepypasta that takes a horrifying twist! Among Ashes is a first-person horror game developed and published by Rat Cliff Games and released on December 9th of 2024. A large part of horror stories is how realistic and truthful they can feel even though you know they are not. Many game related creepypastas like Ben, Lavender Town Syndrome, and Sonic.EXE are easily more relatable and frightening due to being in a videogame format. There is an extra layer of interactivity that makes the story even creepier. Among Ashes puts you in this particular circumstance of playing a shared game with unsettling secrets that saddles an overarching metanarrative with explosive consequences.
While playing a game on your computer, your friend messages you and sends you a link to a message board where someone has created a game. Ignoring the creators’ eerie final posts, you and your friend download the game and start playing on this dark and stormy night. While playing this horror game, Night Call, you come across some weird happenings and glitches that are unexplainable. Not only that, but terrifying things are happening behind you in your own apartment building. The window randomly gets thrown open, your radio magically turns on by itself, and you get loud knocks at your door. Even if you link these spine-chilling events to the game that you are playing, for some reason you can not stop playing it…
The story in Among Ashes creates an impeccable mood and atmosphere that is hard to come by in other horror games. The story takes place in December and there are plenty of Christmas decorations strewn throughout your living space, so having this joyous holiday juxtaposed with the abnormal vibe is sinister in and of itself. This idea of playing a game within a game isn’t anything new, but it is done incredibly well here. The jumpscares and frights are few and far between so when they do happen, it is even more scary due to the game pacing the intensity evenly the entire time.
There aren’t many facets to the gameplay mechanics, but the simplicity is part of it. You interact with your messages and online forums by just clicking around, but Night Call plays more like a classic Resident Evil which it is earnestly based on. You can walk and run around this chilling manor that you inhabit and you start off with a stun baton that you can use to whack enemies. The further you progress, the more tools you will find like a handgun and a flashlight. While strolling through the mansion, you will find ammo, pills or health packs to refill your health, and keys or items that you will need to open doors or solve undemanding puzzles. The puzzles do expand in clever ways against your expectations and the way the game does it really ups the ante for this horror tale.
While playing Night Call, your buddy will sometimes message you to give you a clue or to talk about how hot a character is in the game. You can close out of the game at any time to continue the conversation with him through the in-game messenger application and you can also get up from your computer to roam around your home. Hidden details and context clues enrich the world deftly and the story throws some good curveballs at you that make it more intriguing. The game’s story and gameplay work perfectly in tandem, but I wish there were more. You can zoom in while on your computer, but it serves no function. There could’ve been a lot more opportunities to set up some more scares or secrets with what they have conjured. There are so many ideas here and my mind was racing with so many different ways that the game could go because of how wild the game could take it, but it never reached those heights that I knew it was capable of.
The game looks amazing graphically as it takes a lot of liberties to visually shock you either characteristically through nostalgia or through its inventive art design. Night Call looks like an old PlayStation game with its large polygons and rough edges, but the real world displays a more realistic tone with detailed tinsel positioned along counters and reflective surfaces shining from every angle. The audio is amazing and there are some great revelations that are revealed through the audio that are shocking. The sound design in general is astounding whether it’s the low quality audio of characters talking in Night Call or the distorted cryptic phrases of an unknown being. Headphones are a must if you want the best experience and relish the game in its full glory.
I did have a ton of problems with my time playing the game. I kept randomly getting black screens, oftentimes occuring when switching between the different realities of the real world and the game world. There are a lot of opportunities in the game where you can effortlessly softlock yourself. The pause menu can sometimes get stuck on the screen with you still being able to move around. After going through the game on hard mode, I didn’t unlock the trophy for beating it on the hard difficulty. After doing some research with my save files I came to the conclusion that while I actually played through the game on hard mode, the settings in the game keeps the difficulty on easy mode so it never registers if you beat it on a harder mode or not. There are unfortunately a lot of little things like this that may damper your participation.
I sort of had a real meta experience myself at one point where the flashlight would work, but wouldn’t light up the dark areas even after restarting from an earlier save so I couldn’t progress. Restarting the game from the beginning resulted in me having the flashlight at the start which allowed me to bypass areas early and out of order which produced some humorous results. Secret areas were opened during cutscenes and characters and their animations doubled over each other. At a couple points, with how self-referential the game is, I thought the bugs were purposeful or might lead to a secret. Even after restarting checkpoints, saves, and the entire game multiple times, I was still eager to figure out the mystery the game was trying to slowly reveal to me.
Final Thoughts?
Among Ashes is a gem of a game. The game’s novelty and harmony of its ideas and the way it continues these concepts are incredibly exceptional. A horror game within a horror game is imaginative and manufactures an interesting space to play in. Graphical throwbacks and gripping sound design increases your desire to find out what happened to the creator of this game you are playing. The pacing of the game and its horror elements are flawless and work remarkably together, but with how well the game is able to showcase its purpose, I can only wish that there was more of it. Game breaking glitches are never a good thing and could discourage some from even checking this out, but I guarantee that Among Ashes will grant you a horrifyingly amusing time.
About the Author
Nay Clark Gaming holds a special place in my heart and I never stop talking about video games. I really love all types of games and have an interest in games that have complicated stories and lore because I enjoy untangling the mystery of it all. When I'm not gaming, I unsuccessfully try to control three amazing and incredibly bright kids.
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