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The air was cool as I descended the stone mausolean stairs, reaching out into the eveloping blackness for something to keep me upright. The room stank of death as I delved deeper into the dreaded necropolis, some detestable ichor dripping from the ceiling onto my coat.
I was witness to amorphous shadows creeping around me, possibly tricks of the wan moon. I approached a decrepit stone altar and beheld a basalt statue carved into an alien shape, a mass of tentacles protruding from what I was sure was it’s cephalopod like face. I thrust it aside and saw that it was sitting atop a rectangular plastic box. I held my torch up to the cursed object and could not muffle the terrible scream that rang out of my lungs. The box read: Darkness Within 2: The Dark Lineage.

Lovecraftian horror is truly awesome. The idea is that humans are worthless, weak beings, and when confronted with the supreme horrors of the eternal cosmos they go a bit doolally. There have been Lovecraft inspired games in the past, such as Sherlock Homes: The Awakened and Alone in the Dark, but somehow they haven’t really got the essence of this horror subgenre just right. Even Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth fell short of achieving this. But Zoetrope Interactive’s Darkness Within 2: Dark Lineage is right on the money; it evokes the atmosphere of Lovecraftian horror magnificiently and makes for a scary adventure game that’s, sadly, not without its faults.

The main difference between the sequel and its predecessor, Darkness Wthin: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder, is the new engine. Whereas in the previous game you navigated by clicking through still images, you are now able to freely move around the environment, and with the new physics engine you can better interact with your surroundings, such as being able to chuck crates around.

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