Among Ashes
A demo for the upcoming Among Ashes is out there so we can have a sample of the horrors Among Ashes is going to have us keep playing
If you have ever thought you might die if you stopped playing your favorite video game, then it is time to seek some help and also have a look at Among Ashes. First, seek help. Then come back and have a look at what Rat Cliff Games has coming up for us all on the PC with a new horror title that leans into that premise a bit more. Only with Among Ashes leaning more into a supernatural reason why you should not stop playing a fictional game and not something along the lines of addiction or disorder. Something we can all have a taste of right now with a demo for the game landing out there during the Steam FPS Fest.
A quick look at Among Ashes places us into a fictional world where we are introduced to another game to play. In this world, our protagonist finds themselves with a link to a game called Night Call and after downloading it, is pulled into some truly haunting things. You see, Night Call is one of those haunted video games from the early 2000s and has something attached to it that if our protagonist stops playing, bad things will happen. Yes, Among Ashes is a video game about playing a video game. All with a first-person angle to it all and a bit of meta-narrative to it too. Something that can be sampled by those who wish to partake in the thirty-minute demo that can be downloaded right now. Let us see if it is going to pull us all in as it does our protagonist.
Among Ashes — Demo
Rat Cliff Games is excited to announce that a demo for its upcoming first-person survival horror title Among Ashes is now available to download via Steam, as part of Steam FPS Fest.
Among Ashes is a metafictional horror title about a haunted video game and the disturbing story behind its creation. It’s a stormy night in the early 2000s and your friend has sent you a link to Night Call, a horror game that he found online. As you play, strange things start happening in your apartment. Something is terribly wrong with the game.
The game features an innovative, meta-framing device in which players will experience a full retro-inspired first-person survival horror game within another first-person horror game, in addition to a host of unique presentational touches, mechanics, and puzzles that transport players back to the start of the millennium.
The demo offers a chilling 30-minute taste of the game’s opening sequence, in which players will download the enigmatic Night Call from an unsettling message board post, explore the atmospheric and labyrinthian halls of Stoker Manor, before coming face-to-face with the horrors that lie within.
Whatever you do… KEEP PL̶̹̔Ả̷̧YIN̷͙̯͊G
Among Ashes is now in development for PC and is currently scheduled to launch later this year. A demo is now available via Steam where you can also wishlist the game.
I have to say that I rather like the premise behind Among Ashes even if it is something we have had in films or shows in the past. It is a fun little twist on things that I have a feeling have the chance to become a little more meta if the developers handle it all correctly. Something that many ARGs out there already do, only that Among Ashes has a better framing device to pull players further into the game here. I am going to give that demo a bit of a play and see if it is going to lean into all of that. It would be rather cool to see certain elements of my PC show up in the game along the way to offer one more layer to the weirdness and creep factor of it all. Thankfully, I only have to wait as long as it takes to download for now.
How do you feel about titles like Among Ashes doing the metanarrative aspect in the mix? Will the story of the killer video game give you the proper levels of fear or will it fall flat like many other tries with it? Will we see this one go that extra layer of meta and use our own system to populate certain things so we question reality a bit? Head on down to the comment section to discuss all of this and everything else that we have to share for this title. We will add whatever we can for Among Ashes as we get it, so please keep on coming back here to see and hear about all of that. Unless this demo does what the main game is setting out to do… and seriously, get some help.
