Among Ashes Review: Horrorception (PS5)

While the festive season is underway, the non-stop urge to dive into the world of Horror remains. It’s even better when you find a game that’s set around the Christmas season, enter Among Ashes. Developed by Rat Cliff Games, Among Ashes is the newest first-person horror experience that has you sitting in your room playing a horror game. Of course, as you play, you begin to notice that everything isn’t what it seems, strange things begin to occur outside of the game, making you realize something is terribly wrong. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to keep reading to discover what lies ahead in Among Ashes. 

Among Ashes is available on PC and PS5 for $14.99.

Story – I Must Keep Playing

Rat Cliff Games delivers a dark tale combining multiple Horror game genres. Set in the early 2000s, Among Ashes sees you playing a Quake-like shooter on a dark, stormy night. You then receive a message from your friend Mark, who sends you a link to a Horror game released online by a mysterious developer. The game in question is titled Night Call, a first-person survival horror taking place in an old manor. Everything seems fine at first, but then certain events occur in and outside of the Night Call game. This leads to both you and Mark realising that a dark presence may haunt the game. Struggling to figure out what they can do, the results lead to only one option…KEEP PLAYING THE GAME!

Take a trip back in time to old message programs

Most of the time, Horror narratives are quite simple or ludicrously complicated to get invested in. Luckily Among Ashes grabbed my attention quite quickly with its uniquely fresh concept. A game within a game is such a cool idea that I generally couldn’t stop playing till I figured out all the game’s mysteries. The more I dived in, the spookier the tale got. Every moment that took me from playing Night Call got me one step closer to seeing how crazy everything would soon become. The messenger program you use to chat with Mark could have had more investment in. I would have liked to have spoken to other characters, maybe other players locked into playing Night Call, giving advice on what I need to do and adding other pieces of lore.

The characters in general are probably the least interesting part of the game for me. Mark is just a helpful guide to puzzles and the next part of the story. Then there are the characters in Night Call who are pretty simple with a few oddballs like the maid Lillani and Dr Stoker. Regardless, this tense tale has brought back the unsettling fear that I once had back when games like Alien Isolation and Outlast were first released and I couldn’t be happier.

Something tells me that isn’t true

Gameplay – Emulated Horror Meets Modern Thrills 

Among Ashes is both a first-person psychological and survival horror, meaning that you’ll have multiple sets of controls. When playing Night Call you can sprint around, use an inventory to access items and equip weapons to use against enemies. Outside of Night Call, you can navigate your computer, clicking on your other tabs and chatting with Mark. Sometimes due to some weird bumps in the night, you’ll need to leave your computer. When exploring your apartment, you’re pretty much locked at just clicking and sprinting. However, the seamless switch between Night Call and either going off the computer or switching tabs is too good. It generally impressed me on how well it looked, especially later on when you’re playing three games at once. 

While playing Night Call you’ll traverse an old manor that you soon realise is infested with twisted undead experiments. There’s quite a range of horrific enemies to fight from the classic zombie to a berzerking demon. All have their own attacks and levels of health that can make it a challenging experience on the higher difficulty. Luckily you get access to guns early on with a trusty revolver and later a powerful shotgun. It’s not all violence, there are a few puzzles to solve that are quite easy since most answers are given to you via reading web links provided by Mark. Outside of Night Call, there are many occasions when something off occurs around you. You’ll hear knocks on the door, spooky voices, and sometimes things from the game won’t go away once you stop playing.

Spooky Bugs and Game-Haltering Sequences

With most new releases, there’s usually the odd bug or two that can ruffle people’s feathers. Luckily Among Ashes doesn’t have that issue, mostly. When I arrived in the later game section of the story, there were a few odd moments here and there. One moment had me backtracking to see if I’d missed something, and then suddenly I fell off the map. On another occasion, I tried to kill one of the beefier enemies through a caged wall. The enemy just clipped through to reach me and sadly I did not win the battle. Amongst the occasional bugs, another phenomenon was also occurring.

On many occasions, I’d come to a dead end, stopping my progress. At first, this would be caused by me simply discarding a key that I had used to open a door previously, which in doing so, locked me out of that area. Other occasions were due to me performing different conditions that led to me only being able to progress if I quit and load back a save. The biggest example I have was with a late-game puzzle that had hid the clues in a previous room that I no longer had access to due to choosing to go down the wrong route, causing me to be trapped. This luckily didn’t bother me too much though I still would have rather not gone through the time-consuming method to have gained the answer to that puzzle that again, was provided by the game. 

Graphics & Audio – A Mixture of Old and New

Among Ashes stuns in both graphical and audible abilities. The instant change from a more modern-looking horror game to a retro one was very impressive. Even just the layout of your computer when playing Night Call is unique since you’ll always see that your playing on a monitor inside another monitor. I got into gaming around the PS2 era so playing games like Night Call would usually be a turn-off. However, the concept of playing a game in a game was too good of a cool idea to pass up. When outside of Night Call, Among Ashes‘ apartment level resembles horror locales of P.T.. 

Regarding the audio of Among Ashes, practically everything that’s needed for a horror game is there. You have the haunting background tracks, creepy-sounding enemies, and voice acting that sounds like they’re from a retro horror game. There were also just the sound effects used for the computer unlocking a core memory for Windows XP. One moment that stuck with me was a later game section where your underground and approaching numerous spotlights. The atmosphere is perfect, it’s so dark that even your flashlight can’t see what lies ahead. After many sudden spotlights, suddenly an amazingly designed demonic creature emerged and began chase. The creature looked and sounded terrifying and was accompanied by a tense running track that left me on edge. 

Among Ashes was reviewed on PS5 with a review code provided by Strange Signals.