House of Ashes’ new trailer hides a website full of lore • Eurogamer.net

A new Gamescom trailer released last night has given us our best look yet at House of Ashes, the third game in Supermassive’s The Dark Pictures Anthology.

The trailer also includes a hidden URL (scribbled on a piece of card visible at the 1:24 mark) which leads to a mock US military website full of extra lore details on House of Ashes’ story.

The only downside to that trailer? A big ol’ advert for the game’s “Pazuzu Edition” comes right at the end, showing a highly-detailed figurine of the game’s monster. The creature is something trailers have so far only teased, and while this isn’t the first time this advert has been shown, it’s still jarring to see it plonked at the end. Oh well.

I’ve had a quick poke around the game’s lore website and there are military records and some grainy footage of the game’s monster to gaze at. There are also a set of folders still to be unlocked, waiting for more people to access the site.

The action in last night’s trailer is centred on its US marine characters interacting with Iraqi soldier Salim Othman – a personal conflict I’ve been keen to see more of since I sat down with Supermassive to discuss how its game will portray the people and places behind its wartime backdrop.

“A lot of movies can dehumanise people and nations. We wanted to tell and show both sides of this particular conflict,” House of Ashes director Will Doyle told me earlier this year, when asked about the decision to ensure an Iraqi soldier was also an active protagonist in the story. “[Othman] is a brilliant, brilliant character, in all of our user testing he has come out really, really well.”