10 Video Games That Tried To Change The Industry Forever (And Failed)
7. Alone In The Dark
Alone in the Dark 2008 is an extremely weird game. Pretty much nobody remembers it even happened, and yet the developers and publisher really thought they were onto a winner with this survival-horror reboot.
For one, the title eschewed convention and opted to frame its narrative like a TV show. Instead of levels, the game had episodes, which you could actually choose from in any order. If you wanted, you could skip right to the very end and see the final level, with a "previously on..." roundup playing before the episode kicked into gear.
I mean, there was no reason to, but the option was nice... I guess?
That was already unique, but its USP was the fire tech. Puzzles and gameplay all revolved around the admittedly lifelike (for the time) fire effects, and this element also took focus in pre-release trailers and hype videos.
The trouble was, the devs must have spent so much time getting the fire right that they didn't have time to craft a compelling game around it, while the TV framing didn't inspire other games to change up their storytelling either. The franchise itself disappeared after this reboot, being one of the many survival-horror casualties from the 2000s.