The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me, is the fourth entry in SuperMassive Games and Bandai-Namco’s growing horror anthology. The narrative of the IP has always been the central focus, with the games’ leaning intothe supernatural somewhat to explain or further scare the player. With The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me coming out on November 18, 2022, and it marking the end of the series’ first season, Will Doyle, SuperMassive Games’ Creative Director of The Dark Pictures Anthology sat down with our friends over at The Gamer to discuss the Curator, the one clear and obvious consistent figure across the franchise thus far, and what we should be expecting of their presence into the franchise’s future.
As you would expect up to this point, the Curator is returning in The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me. Doyle says as much, sharing the following,
It’s really important that people see each game as its own thing. You don’t have to know any lore or carry any baggage into each game. You can play it completely as a standalone, but the story of the Curator is something that is building up over time. If you play all of our games, there are certain things he says that point towards, ‘Why did he say that? What is that mystery there?’ Bit by bit, the answers will come.
He has rules, right? He’s obviously very, very tempted to break those rules. He’s told by somebody that he’s not allowed to break them, but you can see he’s itching to. It’s not like he wants you to save everyone or he wants to kill everyone. It’s something in between. There’s always a feeling that he’s playing with you in some way, and there’s something going on you don’t quite get.
Much like other anthology products across film, television, performing arts, music, and more, there is always that one key pillar that connects each section together – for The Dark Pictures, it’s the Curator, and Doyle draws comparisons to his role in the series with the roles of narrators across other types of anthology works.
I think that there’s something about the format of anthologies, that the narrator is always quite important in a way. You look back to Creep Show and all that kind of stuff, there are these quite iconic figures. We wanted to create someone that would be memorable and would become a fan favourite, but we never knew it was going to be quite as popular as it has been. There are always people writing in and telling us how much they love the Curator.
The influence of the Curator is both subtle and profound at times, but the tease of the character’s influence growing from The Devil In Me, through to entries in the franchise’s second season is certainly enticing. It will be fascinating to see what the studio chooses to do with the character from here.
The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me is scheduled to arrive on November 18, 2022, and will be available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.
