When Supermassive Games announced planned eight-part horror anthology series with The Dark Pictures, I wondered if it would have enough momentum to carry it to those lengths. After all, eight horror games releasing annually in a franchise does sound a bit tiring. However, last year's Man of Medan kicked off this anthology series on a good note, albeit one that clearly needed room for improvement. This year's Little Hope is thankfully a step up from Man of Medan, but it's clear that Supermassive Games are still trying to find their bearings for this series.



Little Hope follows a group of people who become stranded in the mysterious New England town of Little Hope after their bus driver goes missing. We follow their journey in searching through this eerie town for not only your missing comrades, but the dark secrets it harbours about its turbulent past. This may seem like a minor spoiler, but Little Hope injects a series of time jumps from modern day to the 1600s in order to contextualize the antagonistic supernatural forces at work that are somehow related to the town's violent history of witch trials and burnings. It's a fairly simple story to follow, but it won't blow your mind with its various twists and turns.

...much like Man of Medan, Little Hope's consequences feel a bit superficial by design.

Like Supermassive Games' Until Dawn, Little Hope's core gameplay revolves around a choice/consequence system, where the player must decide the outcomes of character's dialogue choices and actions. In some cases, these help propel the narrative further and into interesting new directions, but it never feels as mechanically deep or intricate as Until Dawn. Instead, and much like Man of Medan, Little Hope's consequences feel a bit superficial by design. There were only a few occasions where I felt the decisions would drastically affect certain outcomes, but for the most part, Little Hope can often feel like the developer's most linear game to date - which is a bit disappointing for those hoping it would offer a bit more variety.



That said, there are elements that outshine Man of Medan. The cast of characters aren't exactly the most fleshed out, and certainly don't have the charm of Shawn Ashmore, but familiar actor Will Poulter brings some much needed charisma to the game. One area in which Little Hope excels at is its setting. Trading out the decrepit confines of a ghost ship for a very Silent Hill-inspired spooky town, Little Hope is a dark, eerie and disturbing location filled to the brim with dread and some truly palpable atmosphere. Since you spend a majority of your time exploring the town searching for clues, you quickly become familiar with Little Hope and its inhabitants in all its sinister glory, and it's easily my favourite world in the series so far.

Trading out the decrepit confines of a ghost ship for a very Silent Hill-inspired spooky town, Little Hope is a dark, eerie and disturbing location...

Little Hope also makes use of some terrific time jumps. As previously mentioned, there are moments when you're teleported to specific moments in history in order to experience the witch trials first-hand. It's a great plot device that injects the town with plenty of great backstories and lore. We've seen some horror games tackle this type of narrative before (Outlast 2, specifically), but Little Hope puts the mystery at the forefront of the game by keeping players guessing right up until the end. This also opens the door for some really nail-biting encounters with effective jump scares, though you'll still run into your trope-heavy cheap jump scare now and then that deflates all tension.



It's unfortunate, then, that Supermassive Games chose to dial back the choice/consequence system here. I rarely felt like my choices were having any meaningful impact on the narrative, and instead it only boiled down to how fast you could push a button during the game's numerous quick-time events. Even then, the simplified quick-time events ensured that I only lost one character in my entire playthrough, and that was because of a rather silly mistake that rippled from the beginning of the game. For a horror game with such a massive cast of mostly disposal horror fodder, it was a bit disappointing at how easy it was to save characters from impending doom at times.

Nonetheless, Little Hope feels like an evolution of Man of Medan in the visual department too. The facial animations in particular have been given extra care and attention, getting rid of the awkward twitchy animations from its predecessor. Voice acting is good across the board, and there's a great cinematic quality to the presentation of the game that makes it feel like you're playing a well-shot, dimly lit interactive horror movie - albeit with less control than you might expect.



Little Hope is also paced a lot better than its predecessor, but the gameplay lends itself to either being tensely paced or kind of a slog at times. You move around Little Hope at a snails pace without much to do other than soak in the fantastic atmosphere of the town. It builds suspense well leading up to key turning points in the story (especially in the second half, which I won't spoil), but the downtime where you simply explore for the sake of finding missing items or clues can feel a bit unevenly paced. If slow-burner horror is your cup of tea, you might find a lot to love about Little Hope, but personally, I hoped for a little more "scary" and a bit less tension-winding.



Finally, you can also play the game with a friend via couch co-op. Each person chooses their set of characters and leads them on their own paths. Man of Medan introduced this unique mode, and it's carried over well into Little Hope. It makes for a far more fascinating experience when you see how differently your friend might tackle a certain scenario, and while it mostly worked for Man of Medan, it only highlighted the less-than-impactful choice/consequence system in Little Hope. Experiencing it with a friend is still enjoyable, but you won't miss much even if you play it by yourself.

The Dark Pictures: Little Hope is a small step up from Man of Medan, presenting a captivating setting with plenty of paid homage to Silent Hill, and clever time jumps to contextualize its weighty supernatural scares. However, Supermassive Games still have a bit more polishing to do if they want to surprise us with the next entry, House of Ashes, as there's still room for improvement in its execution. As a follow-up to Man of Medan, you'll probably find a lot to love about Little Hope for a weekend binge with friends, but the developer has yet to deliver an experience as remarkable as Until Dawn. We'll just have a little more hope for the future.