What if you could experience a Resident Evil-style horror game wrapped in the nostalgic charm of a 2D SNES-era JRPG aesthetic? If that idea stirs the loins, then Dead of Darkness is for you.
Dead of Darkness is a 2D survival horror game developed by solo developer Markus Neuert of Retrofiction Games. It blends classic survival horror with clue-based puzzle solving, all wrapped in a compelling, fully voice-acted 10+ hour narrative. Available on PC and consoles, it offers a surprisingly meaty story, and the voice acting is actually really good. With standout indie horror titles dropping seemingly every week, such as Look Outside, Post Trauma, Karma Dark World, and Without a Dawn, all covered by Seasoned Gaming, the question becomes: does Dead of Darkness do enough to cut through the noise to earn your time?
Pure, Uncut, Classic Survival Horror
Dead of Darkness embodies the essence of classic survival horror with its traditional gameplay elements: resource management, limited ammunition, puzzles, colored-key-locked doors, and plenty of backtracking. A memorable feature is its clue system, where players gather hints by reading notes or interacting with environmental elements. These clues must then be combined, with items, other clues, or different parts of the environment, to advance the story.
Controls are simple, with the option to hotkey weapons and healing items for quick access. However, opening your inventory or map doesn’t pause the game, which means you’ll need to be cautious about when and where you open them. It adds a layer of tension, especially in moments where you’re scrambling to unlock a door or grab a specific item while an enemy is closing in. You can’t walk while firing your gun and are locked to aiming in either the X axis, Y axis, or diagonally, so positioning before aiming your gun is key.
Dead of Darkness introduces a clue system that stands out as an innovative mechanic for the genre that adds additional complexity to puzzles. Connecting the dots toward the meaning of a cryptic clue you picked up earlier and then realizing the combination to unlock progress is satisfying. Some of the clue combinations are challenging, but overall feel fair.
The same goes for the puzzles throughout the game; they strike a balance between being thought-provoking without becoming frustrating obstacles to progress. Rarely are you stuck for long periods of time thanks to a helpful feature that highlights interactive elements in the environment. Areas worth investigating are marked with a magnifying glass. On the map, any room with unsolved puzzles or missed items is highlighted in red, a familiar touch for fans of Resident Evil. It’s a welcome addition, especially since I already spent more than enough time backtracking and feeling lost.
On top of health, you also have to monitor your sanity, which is essentially a secondary health bar. As you take hits, your sanity drains. As it lowers, hallucinations appear, and you’ll need to take pills to recover. It fits thematically but feels tacked on and unnecessary, I rarely had to clear sanity, and it didn’t change how I played. I ended up with a massive stack of sanity pills in my storage by the end, so if I did need to cure my sanity bar, it usually just meant me slogging back to the safe room. No way in hell was I giving up a precious inventory slot for pills I rarely needed.
Inventory Woes…
Unfortunately, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows in Dead of Darkness. Inventory management plays a big role, but it stands out for the wrong reasons. Inventory space is limited, so much so that I often couldn’t leave the safe room with more than two or three open slots. Worse, you can’t discard items while out exploring. That means if you need to pick up a key item, you’re forced to fire off precious ammo or needlessly use healing items just to make space. Want to discard the lock pick you have to make room so you don’t have to walk all the way back? Too bad, you can’t discard items; you’ll need to backtrack. Also, as a survival game, you want to save everything. Trust me, you’ll be doing a lot of backtracking.
One of the more frustrating design choices is that critical story items, like keys or the dreaded lantern (required for dark areas), occupy the same inventory as everything else. In a genre where space is already tight, key items really should have their own separate slot. I don’t mind limited inventory in survival horror, in fact, I’ve enjoyed it in games like Resident Evil 4 and even Dredge, but here, it’s more tedious than tactical. A simple fix could have been the option to fast travel to a safe room, even if it required a consumable or some kind of resource cost.
There were too many times I’d trek across the entire map, find an important item I couldn’t pick up, go back to the safe room to drop something off, then return, only to find more items I now didn’t have space for. It turns into a frustrating loop that pulls you out of the experience, and your character’s sluggish movement speed exacerbates the problem.
An Expanding Universe
In Dead of Darkness, you play as Miles Windham, a private investigator haunted by the death of his daughter in a tragic fire. When a cryptic message arrives at his doorstep urging him to travel to Velvet Island for answers, he boards the next boat, setting off an epic adventure filled with twists, betrayals, and more zombies than you can shake an undead stick at.
Miles’ personal grief adds weight to his character and makes him sympathetic, even if he comes off as gruff and guarded at times. The emotional through-line of his daughter’s death and his relentless drive for answers provide a strong foundation for the player’s investment in the story. The supporting cast also has plenty to add, and nearly everyone is hiding something. As the narrative progresses, you begin to uncover how all their stories intersect.
The writing throughout is strong, but what really surprised me was the quality of the voice acting. This is an area where many indie horror games falter, but here, the entire cast delivers exceptional performances.
The story’s pacing does stumble once the opening cinematics end and the player is given free rein to explore the first level. It’s an overly large bland mansion that can be a frustrating space to navigate, and the abrupt shift from a guided, on-rails introduction to open-ended exploration feels jarring. This wouldn’t have been as frustrating if the level didn’t require so much backtracking, often over long distances, just to drop items off in safe rooms so you can pick up key items to progress. This wore thin quickly.
Thankfully, once you get past the mansion, the pacing starts to build, with more consistent story beats and increased tension. The final act brings major revelations and a strong payoff. It’s clear that Dead of Darkness isn’t just telling a one-off story. Retrofiction Games is laying the foundation for more games in the universe that will continue to build on the rich lore they’ve introduced here.
While there aren’t multiple endings, the detailed lore and hidden clues reward careful exploration and could warrant a second playthrough for those inclined. Once you beat the game, you unlock a harder difficulty that could encourage fans to dive in again. I think a second playthrough would uncover story details that didn’t make sense the first time through. Its memorable narrative and clever puzzle design give Dead of Darkness good staying power, though replayability will depend on your interest in lore and completion.
Dead but Fresh
The game’s art style successfully channels retro nostalgia and makes it accessible, but it sometimes struggles to fully deliver the eerie or unsettling atmosphere typically associated with survival horror. It’s charming and unique, but would benefit from more environmental variety. The mismatch between the character portraits and pixel art also felt distracting, though it’s hard to articulate exactly why. It just doesn’t quite mesh. I also think the UI could use some polish; there was something that felt unfinished about the notes you read, save screen, and the inventory.
The voice acting in Dead by Darkness is excellent, bringing real emotional weight to the story and elevating key moments with strong performances. Unfortunately, the rest of the audio design doesn’t quite match that quality. The soundtrack isn’t anything to write home about as it feels stocky and generic, rarely enhancing the tension or atmosphere. With the game’s simplified, pared-down visual style, audio has an even more crucial role to play in immersing the player. Future installments could benefit from a more distinctive and dynamic score, as well as more inventive sound design overall. The voice work brings the heat, but there’s still work to be done in other areas to push it to excellence.
I enjoyed my time exploring Velvet Island and unraveling its mysteries. The game’s memorable characters, satisfying narrative twists, and thoughtful design elements left a strong impression. Fans of survival horror, detective puzzles, and retro visuals should definitely check out Dead by Darkness. I’m very optimistic about future entries and look forward to seeing how this series evolves.
Dead of Darkness is currently available on Steam, and is slated to release on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and the Microsoft Store for Windows on July 2, 2025.
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