History VideoGame / AloneInTheDark

''Alone in the Dark 2'' (1993) is more linear and [[ActionizedSequel combat-oriented]], featuring a tommygun-wielding Edward Carnby facing off against 1920s mobsters led by the villainous One-Eyed Jack to rescue kidnapped child Grace Saunders. As it turns out, Jack and his gang are in fact immortal pirates, the crew of the Flying Dutchmen, who made a pact with witch Elizabeth Jarret and perform regular human sacrifices to retain their life and youth. There were also a few stealth segments where players took the role of Grace Saunders and had to evade the mobsters searching for her.

* ObviousBeta: The 2008 game, most obvious in the 360 version. The UsefulNotes/PlayStation3 version fared better, but still had its issues.

* ConvenientWeaknessPlacement: While the zombie pirates in the second game are not actually immortal, "killing" them will just send them back to the place where they signed their immortality pact (namely their pirate ship). And once on board they can only be KilledOffForReal by weapons forged during the time of the pact (signed in 1725). It's a good thing they keep their 200-year-old swords and flintlock pistols (and ''cannons'') in pristine state for you to kill them with once you are on board.

The film ''Film/AloneInTheDark2005'' did borrow a few bits from ''The New Nightmare'' but had little else to do with the games that came out before it.

''Alone in the Dark 2'' (1993) is more linear and [[ActionizedSequel combat-oriented]], featuring a tommygun-wielding Edward Carnby facing off against 1930s mobsters led by the villainous One-Eyed Jack to rescue kidnapped child Grace Saunders. As it turns out, Jack and his gang are in fact immortal pirates, the crew of the Flying Dutchmen, who made a pact with witch Elizabeth Jarret and perform regular human sacrifices to retain their life and youth. There were also a few stealth segments where players took the role of Grace Saunders and had to evade the mobsters searching for her.

** In the second game, Carnby's dead body is tossed off a cliff into the sea by one of the zombie pirates you fight throughout the game should you bite it. Playing as the little kid, the scene cuts to Carnby being held by his hands on a ship's mast as soon as you get hit or caught at all.

''Alone in the Dark 3'' (1994) takes place in an abandoned Wild West ghost town, with Carnby attempting to save Emily Hartwood (who was filming a western film along with a film crew in the deserted town), who has inadvertently awakened the ghosts of the town's evil inhabitants, led by prospector Jebediah Stone. Although still linear, the game featured a more balanced mix of combat and puzzle-solving.

* BigBad: Pregzt in the first game, One-Eye Jack in the second, Jeb Stone in the third. ''The New Nightmare'' has Alan Morton as the main antagonist on the island, while the 2008 version pits Lucifer against Carnby.

* FissionMailed: In the third game, once you give Jeb Stone the briefcase full of money, he orders the Elwood brothers to shoot you dead. The following sequence has Carnby in the body of a jaguar, trying to revive himself.

* HeadsIWinTailsYouLose: If you give the briefcase full of money to Jeb Stone, he has the Elwood brothers kill you. If you try to screw around...he has the Elwood brothers kill you. Only the first [[FissionMailed allows the game to continue]].

In 2008, a new game in the series was released, rebooting the franchise. Known simply as ''Alone in the Dark'', the game features the original Edward Carnby from the original games, waking up in modern day New York City alive, unaged, and with a major case of amnesia just in time to witness living fissures wreck the city and turn many of its inhabitants into vicious monsters. Taking place in Central Park, the game was a GameplayRoulette featuring elements of {{First Person Shooter}}s, Third-Person {{Platformer}}s, {{Driving Game}}s, {{Beat Em Up}}s, etc. It also borrowed quite a bit from Boll's film; [[FranchiseKiller this was not prudent]].

** In the fourth game, Carnby finds a locked door in the cellar which he can only gaze upon to find it leadsto some kind of cave. Much later, he uses that door from the other side to get to the cellar again.

* DebugMenu: In ''The New Nightmare'', a cheat mode can be unlocked after installing the game by editing the launch shortcut and adding ''wizardmaster'' as a launch parameter, at the end, after ''launch.exe''. Once the game begins, after you choose a character, you can access the Cheat Mode by going into your inventory and choosing it from the available options. The available options are "Goto Level", which lets you warp to any room in the game (note that the game may crash when trying to access to a room not normally available for the selected character, like Alan's secret laboratory for Aline or anywhere in the fort for Carnby, and there are empty spaces corresponding to DummiedOut rooms that will always crash the game), "All Item", which gives you all the weapons, objects, and documents in the game (including some DummiedOut weapons, unfortunately unusable), "God Mode", which gives you infinite health, "WRInf", which gives you unlimited ammo, and "Debug Info", whose purpose is unknown.

* MusicalSpoiler: Present in ''The New Nightmare''. For example, if [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEyCwhDX3dM this track]] is sounding, you can bet there are monsters nearby, even if you can't see or hear them ''yet''. However, if after killing some monsters [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yQLLUcbX4o this one]] starts, you can relax knowing you've killed everyone in the area.

* NoManOfWomanBorn: In the second game, a captain killed by the BigBad claimed that he would die by the captain's sword. [[ExactWords The point being "by his sword", not "by his hands"]]...

** In ''The New Nightmare'', each path has one weapon for which you won't be able to find ammo, thus being limited for the whole game to the initial ammo coming with the weapon. In each case, it's a weapon you'll seldom use in the path with less ammo anyway: ammo for the plasma cannon is found in Carnby's path, which is more action-oriented and features Night Rippers much more often, for which the plasma cannon is the weapon of choice; ammo for the grenade launcher is found in Aline's path, which has Howard Morton as a RecurringBoss, for which the grenade launcher is the weapon of choice.

''Alone in the Dark'' (Creator/{{Infogrames}}, 1992) is an ActionAdventure game [[GenreBusting and]] the progenitor of the SurvivalHorror genre, or at least outside of Japan, where ''VideoGame/SweetHome'' was released three years earlier. It was also the first game to feature [[SpritePolygonMix 3D polygon characters over fixed 2D backgrounds]], allowing for cinematic camera angles. Featuring a mix of combat, puzzle-solving, inventory management, and exploration, the game was well-received and made a rather large impression at the time. Set in the 1920s, the game had players take the role of private detective Edward Carnby or socialite Emily Hartwood, who were locked in the haunted mansion of Derceto, searching for a way out while battling zombies, monsters, and a lurking evil inspired by the works of Creator/HPLovecraft.

* ILoveNuclearPower: Seen, strangely, in the wild west-themed ''Alone in the Dark 3''. It's revealed that the BigBad discovered uranium back in the 19th century, used it to create monstrous mutants, and was planning to build a nuclear bomb to [[CaliforniaCollapse crack the San Andreas fault and sink California into the ocean]].

* GameOverMan

** A couple of readable books from the first ''Alone in the Dark'' make reference to a Lord Boleskine who became mad after a visit in New England during the [=XIXth=] century. Lord Boleskine's travel to New England has an important role in the background of ''Shadow of the Comet'' another Lovecraft-themed game of Infogrames, which have been released after ''Alone in the Dark''.

* SouthernGothic: The trailer for the 2023 remake has this feel with a shambling mansion and [[HillbillyHorrors sinister Southerners]] a plenty

* RevisitingTheRoots: The 2023 ''Alone in the Dark'' is a remake of the original game, but unlike the prior two remakes, features a reimagining of the original Derceto Manor, a focus on Lovecraftian horror elements, and for the first time since the original, Emily Hartwood as a playable character again.

In August 2014, Atari announced a new entry, ''Alone in the Dark: Illumination'', originally scheduled to come out in December 2014. It ended up coming out on the 12th of June 2015 and was critically panned due to being an InNameOnly co-op shooter (not even a good one outside the name). The franchise was sold to Creator/THQNordic in 2018. In 2022 they announced a remake of the original game was in development, to be released the following year.

In August 2014, Atari announced a new entry, ''Alone in the Dark: Illumination'', originally scheduled to come out in December 2014. It ended up coming out on the 12th of June 2015 and was critically panned due to being an InNameOnly co-op shooter (not even a good one outside the name). The franchise was sold to Creator/THQNordic in 2018.

''Alone in the Dark'' (Creator/{{Infogrames}}, 1992) is an ActionAdventure game [[GenreBusting and]] the progenitor of the SurvivalHorror genre, or at least outside of Japan, where ''VideoGame/SweetHome'' was released three years earlier. It was also the first game to feature [[SpritePolygonMix 3D polygon characters over fixed 2D backgrounds]], allowing for cinematic camera angles. Featuring a mix of combat, puzzle-solving, inventory management, and exploration, the game was well-received and made a rather large impression at the time. Set in the 1920's, the game had players take the role of private detective Edward Carnby or socialite Emily Hartwood, who were locked in the haunted mansion of Derceto, searching for a way out while battling zombies, monsters, and a lurking evil inspired by the works of Creator/HPLovecraft.

''Alone in the Dark 2'' (1993) is more linear and [[ActionizedSequel combat-oriented]], featuring a tommygun-wielding Edward Carnby facing off against 1930's mobsters led by the villainous One-Eyed Jack to rescue kidnapped child Grace Saunders. As it turns out, Jack and his gang are in fact immortal pirates, the crew of the Flying Dutchmen, who made a pact with witch Elizabeth Jarret and perform regular human sacrifices to retain their life and youth. There were also a few stealth segments where players took the role of Grace Saunders and had to evade the mobsters searching for her.

* ContinuityReboot: ''The New Nightmare'' disregarded the story of the original trilogy and changed the timeframe from the 1920's to the modern era. The franchise was rebooted again in 2008, although it is implied that Carnby there is the same one as the original trilogy, having been kept in stasis by Lucifer for 70 years.

* {{Feelies}}: The original trilogy boxes include fictional printed newspapers from the 1920's, which expand a bit the setting and sometime contain subtle clues for the games.

** The second game featured zombie pirate mobsters (wielding 1920's era firearms in the beginning, then dressed and equipped as pirates) as the game's enemies. One member of the QuirkyMinibossSquad was even a zombie pirate mobster ninja!

* AbnormalAmmo: In the third game you will find an empty shotgun. Acquiring the ammo for it (and ''realizing'' the item is meant to be ammunition) is a GuideDangIt moment: it shoots '''gold coins'''.
** The zombie holding said gold coins supposedly can only be killed by a golden bullet, either by the gold coins mentioned above or a single golden Winchester bullet found elsewhere.
** The 4th games is full of these as your enemies are vulnerable mainly to bright light. Your "standard" firearms like the triple shotgun needs magnesium or phosphor rounds, the rocket launcher pistol fires magnesium rockets, the plasma gun needs gas tanks and your final two energy weapons require an otherdimensional crystal to power them.

** The second and third game has automatic weapons that will be "jammed" at certain points in the game, most likely to prevent them from becoming {{DiscOneNuke}}s.

* CaliforniaCollapse: The {{Big Bad}}s in ''Alone in the Dark 3'' wants to use a nuclear bomb to crack the San Andreas fault and send California into the ocean.

* ClosedCircle: In the original game, trying to exit the mansion via the front door reveals the exterior to be an otherdimensional void which promptly eats you.

* DownTheDrain: ''The New Nightmare'' has a sewer level early on in Edward's scenario. Though not very long, Edward's speed is halved by being partly submerged in water, and the place houses a particularly nasty EldritchAbomination, the Phocomelus, that will pop from beneath to OneHitKill him if he takes too long to reach the exit. Except trying to speed up catches the creature's attention. You spend the level alternating between slow/fast pacing and trying to hold off the creature with all your ammo, which can knock it back unconscious for a few seconds AT BEST (it can be killed, but it requires six shots with the revolver, the only weapon you have at that point). In Aline's scenario though, he can be safely avoided the first time (when he appears from a rug) and dealt with later on (because you have access to stronger weapons such as the triple-barreled shotgun).

* InNameOnly: The 2008 game has little to do with the games before it, being an [[ActionizedSequel Actionized Reboot]] drowning in [[GameplayRoulette many, many different gameplay styles.]] While the main character is revealed to be Edward Carnby, he's also pretty much Carnby in name only.

* LargeHam: "I'm the LIGHT BRINGER! '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WB5_88L5EO0 I'M THE FUCKING UNIVERSE!!!]]'''"

* MusicalSpoiler: Present in ''The New Nightmare''. For example, if [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBrMEbbyx6Q this track]] is sounding, you can bet there are monsters nearby, even if you can't see or hear them ''yet''. However, if after killing some monsters [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk2pGmb2Jp4 this one]] starts, you can relax knowing you've killed everyone in the area.

* NonStandardGameOver: In the first game, the normal Game Over shows a zombie dragging your dead body to the altar of Pregzt, where it shows the text "The End". Nonstandard game-overs occur if you die in or near the final boss room, get eaten by the giant plant guarding the front door, or happen to read "De Vermis Mysteriis", in which case it just says "The End" on the screen where you died.

** Prominent in the dark, haunting soundtrack to [=AITD=] 2008, with Ominous Bulgarian Chanting, courtesy of composer Olivier Deriviere and the female choir ''The Mystery of Bulgarian Voices''.

* PlasmaCannon: A 19th century version shows up in ''New Nightmare''. It's really just a flamethrower and falls under the VideoGameFlamethrowersSuck category as there's little extra ammo for it and it burns through them quickly.

* PressXToDie: Just try to leave the HauntedHouse through the front door before you've dealt with the BigBad.
** There's also [[TomeOfEldritchLore De Vermis Mysteriis]], which will instantly kill the player if they read it.

** The pirates of ''Alone in the Dark 2'' are several times heard playing the Irish song ''Garryowen'' (inclunding in one of the GameOver screen). Also, an instrumental version of "Vesti La Giubba" from ''{{Theatre/Pagliacci}}'' is played in the "Game Over" screen when OurHeroIsDead.

** While you're in the [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon World of Darkness]], enemies are able to respawn even within the same room. Thankfully, the crystals you use as ammo for the lightning gun also respawn there.

** SaveToken: ''The New Nightmare'' required a Charm of Saving to save the game. There was a scenario early on which allowed the player to get as many Charms of Saving as desired, though.

* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: Played straight in the ''2'' and ''3'' with the riot gun and shotgun respectively. These are both higher-end weapons that give you more damage than the base gun. Averted in ''New Nightmare'', the triple-barreled shotgun looks intimidating but its damage is barely adequate against the zombies you face (it can take up to 8 shotgun blasts to kill one) and each shot uses 3 rounds. You'll want to soften a zombie up with some shotgun shots before finishing it off with your revolver.

* SoundtrackDissonance: The second game keeps a light, upbeat track for most the game, even when Elizabeth is summoning black magic.

* {{Spinventory}}: The first three games. Very possibly the Ur-example.

* StealthSequel: Ted Carnby in ''Illumination'' is implied to actually be the original Edward Carnby, still alive in the modern era and living under an assumed identity. This suggests the game is actually a sequel to the 2008 ''Alone in the Dark'' game.

* SwordFight: ''Alone in the Dark'' had a swordfight against a pirate ghost as a major encounter about 2/3rds of the way through the game. ''Alone in the Dark 2'''s climax involves a series of sword fights against the QuirkyMiniBossSquad of pirates.

* UnexpectedlyRealisticGameplay: In "Alone in the Dark 2008". If you light up a molotov cocktail (accidentally or otherwise), it cannot simply be stowed back in your inventory. Either you throw it away or [[ExplosiveStupidity it will explode right in Edward's hands]] after a few seconds.

''Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare'' (2001) is a re-imagining of the series. Taking place in modern times, the game featured a new protagonist (also named Edward Carnby (No relation), who teams up with linguistic expert Aline Cedrac to unravel the mystery of Shadow Island and its reclusive inhabitants, the Morton family. This ultimately puts them into a battle against the Creatures of Darkness, reptilian shadow monsters originating from an underground underworld known as the World of Darkness. The game featured many control, gameplay, and presentation elements taken straight out of the playbook of ''Franchise/ResidentEvil''. Its most unique feature was the use of the flashlight to reveal hidden details of the environment, as well as to drive back some of the light-sensitive monsters.

''Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare'' (2001) is a re-imagining of the series. Taking place in modern times, the game featured a new protagonist (also named Edward Carnby. [[WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures No relation.]]), who teams up with linguistic expert Aline Cedrac to unravel the mystery of Shadow Island and its reclusive inhabitants, the Morton family. This ultimately puts them into a battle against the Creatures of Darkness, reptilian shadow monsters originating from an underground underworld known as the World of Darkness. The game featured many control, gameplay, and presentation elements taken straight out of the playbook of ''Franchise/ResidentEvil''. Its most unique feature was the use of the flashlight to reveal hidden details of the environment, as well as to drive back some of the light-sensitive monsters.

''Alone in the Dark'' (Infogrames, 1992) is an ActionAdventure game [[GenreBusting and]] the progenitor of the SurvivalHorror genre, or at least outside of Japan, where ''VideoGame/SweetHome'' was released three years earlier. It was also the first game to feature [[SpritePolygonMix 3D polygon characters over fixed 2D backgrounds]], allowing for cinematic camera angles. Featuring a mix of combat, puzzle-solving, inventory management, and exploration, the game was well-received and made a rather large impression at the time. Set in the 1920's, the game had players take the role of private detective Edward Carnby or socialite Emily Hartwood, who were locked in the haunted mansion of Derceto, searching for a way out while battling zombies, monsters, and a lurking evil inspired by the works of Creator/HPLovecraft.

In August 2014, Atari announced a new entry, ''Alone in the Dark: Illumination'', originally scheduled to come out in December 2014. It ended up coming out on the 12th of June 2015 and was critically panned due to being an InNameOnly co-op shooter (not even a good one outside the name).

* ArtifactTitle: The 2008 game: you're not alone, and it's not dark ([[IncendiaryExponent because everything is on fire]]). Subverted slightly when an upgraded version was given the subtitle ''Inferno''.

* TheUnfought: The 2008 ''Alone In The Dark'' builds up to a climactic showdown between Edward Carnby and Lucifer... and just when it looks like the two are about to throw down, the game ends with a GainaxEnding.

* UnwinnableByMistake: ''The New Nightmare'' had a frustrating glitch where a plot-critical item simply didn't appear. This happened way too often for the developers not to know about it. The only option was to grit your teeth and reset.

* RealityEnsues: In "Alone in the Dark 2008". If you light up a molotov cocktail (accidentally or otherwise), it cannot simply be stowed back in your inventory. Either you throw it away or [[ExplosiveStupidity it will explode right in Edward's hands]] after a few seconds.