From GameWatcher: "THQ Nordic and Pieces Interactive have announced the standalone prologue for the upcoming Alone in the Dark reimagining is now available to download for free on Xbox Series, PS5, and PC.
Alone in the Dark: Grace features young Derceto resident Grace Saunders in a short combat-less standalone prologue. It acts as a mood and context setter, so will feature no spoilers for the main game if that concerns you."
From GameWatcher: "Embracer has shut down Pieces Interactive, the studio that recently developed the Alone in the Dark Reboot for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Pieces Interactive, acquired by THQ Nordic in 2017, worked on the Titan Quest franchise. Its most recent game, Alone in the Dark, received mixed critical reception at launch but was improved with subsequent patches."
Like we did not see this coming. Pieces and Alone in the Dark, had a kick me sign on their back the entire dev cycle to release. Perfect example of not reading current market trends, bad forecasting, marketing and release.
Why is it the perfect example?? It was actually one of the few games that did all those things well. In fact considering the current environment in the industry it actually did all those things very well.
The problem was the game itself was just rough around the edges and that’s the problem we currently have in the industry it’s hard to release something like that when everybody wants perfection and the developer and publisher doesn’t have enough to pay off all the reviewers.. it has a large cult following and had potential to be exactly what survival horror fans have been crying out for while they were waiting for silent hill 2. Don’t see what market trends and forecasting has anything to do with it at all. I don’t remember it fighting in its release window either.
Alone in the Dark would've gained more praise if it released in 2022, well before Alan Wake II and other horror projects
The demo they released a while back didn't leave a good impression, and it seems like they were riding far too much on Jodie Comer and David Hayter to be the driving force to buy the game. They're both great actors, but their performance on this game from what I've seen felt very stiff/forced - like they were out of their comfort zones. It's a shame to see another studio closure, though, and I hope the people effected (affected? I always get it wrong) can find more work soon.
Embracer's takeaway from this will probably be that they should focus on live service games.
Alone in the Dark developer Pieces Interactive has been hit with layoffs a month after its release, as per the latest information.
That genuinely, genuinely sucks. The reboot has clear flaws, but it really felt like a solid first step for this team to receive *greater* investment.
That's standard. Teams are together for a Project, after its done some..and sometimes most devs are fired until the next Project is in the works and people are needed again. Only the core members stay in the time between the hot phase of the game development.
What’s annoying is people don’t understand how contractors work, either. All of this is uninformed knee-jerk reactions without any understanding of how employment works in this industry. There are key developers and staff that stay with a studio/publisher, but often times it’s a hire per project and then seeking new employment for a project. That’s how it’s always been…
That's a fair point too. I would say that in light of its tepid critical/commercial response and ongoing mass layoffs across the industry I think it's understandable for fans to worry about the longer-term implications. We'll see how it plays out in the future.
VGChartz's Lee Mehr: "In one sense, it feels strange to even think Pieces Interactive had big shoes to fill with this series' legacy. Given what's come before, did it really? And yet, even when considering the last two flops over a two-decade span, there's still something about Alone in the Dark emblazoned on a title screen that carries a sense of revered history. In that respect, perhaps this reboot's best accomplishment is in honoring that spirit through its inventive world. It's also fair to emphasize knocks against its survival-horror design, some puzzle-solving, and so on; it certainly won't be considered a trendsetter like the 1992 classic. Still, the amount of goodwill wedded to its brighter qualities makes for something that dawdles the line between unfortunately-flawed and impressively-enticing."
Exactly where you'd expect. Steam and the PS and Xbox stores.