Spooky season is just around the corner, and Supermassive Games, in collaboration with Bandai Namco, is gearing up to bring some haunting tales to the Nintendo Switch.
On October 5, the second chapter of the critically acclaimed The Dark Pictures Anthology, Little Hope, is arriving on the Nintendo platform. Gamers can get their hands on it through the Nintendo eShop, where it’ll be priced at $19.99. This release follows just five months after its predecessor, Man of Medan, made its way to the Switch.
The Dark Pictures Anthology was originally released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Each game in the anthology is a standalone story, featuring a new cast of characters and a unique setting, but they all share the common theme of the consequences of choices with a dash of supernatural horror. Players are presented with branching narratives and must make decisions that can lead to multiple endings, including the potential deaths of main characters.
Set in the South Pacific, Man of Medan, the first installment in the anthology, sees a group of friends embark on a trip in search of a rumored World War II wreck. However, their adventure quickly takes a turn for the worse after they find themselves trapped on a haunted ghost ship. As they navigate the eerie corridors, they must make choices that will determine their fate and that of their friends.
Little Hope, which was released in 2020, begins in the 1970s, where players observe a family on the brink of being torn apart due to financial troubles and other issues. The game’s narrative takes a dark turn when a little girl named Megan, who appears to be haunted by a malevolent entity, sets her family home on fire. One of the characters, Anthony, witnesses the horrifying event as his entire family perishes in the flames.
The main plot unfolds when a bus carrying four students – Andrew, Taylor, Daniel, and Angela – and their professor, John, crashes. Upon waking up from the crash, the group realizes that the bus driver has disappeared. Players are then tasked with guiding these characters as they navigate the ghost town of Little Hope, trying to uncover the mysteries of the past and the mysterious events that have taken place there.
Throughout the game, the characters experience flashbacks involving a young girl, Mary, and a sinister being, Reverend Carver. These flashbacks depict the witch trials of Little Hope, where residents were falsely accused of witchcraft, with many of these residents bearing a striking resemblance to the present-day group.
Little Hope was inspired by several films, games, and real-life events, including 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, Richard Donner’s 1976 horror film The Omen, the Silent Hill franchise, and the infamous Salem witch trials of the 17th century.
The horror anthology is set to include eight games, with four already released. Supermassive Games released House of Ashes in 2021, a sequel to Little Hope, followed by The Devil in Me last year. These four games make up the first season. The second season is scheduled to kick off with The Dark Pictures Anthology: Directive 8020, which was teased in a post-credits trailer at the end of The Devil in Me.
Earlier this year, Supermassive Games developed and also published a rail shooter spin-off game, The Dark Pictures: Switchback VR, which was launched for the PlayStation VR2.
