The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes gameplay is 8 minutes of creepy caves and tough choices

Supermassive Games has revealed the first gameplay trailer for The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes, and it's 8 minutes of tense exploration, tough decisions, and as is a series tradition by now, quick-time-events.

House of Ashes is the follow-up to Man of Medan and Little Hope, though each game tells its own story with different characters and unique settings. Man of Medan threw us into a seemingly haunted ship crawling with illusions, Little Hope shifted things to a tragic town haunted by ghosts of accused witches, and now House of Ashes is bringing us back to 2003 during the War in Iraq.

Today's gameplay trailer shows the perspectives of Nick and Jason, a marine and his commanding officer, as they explore the underground caverns of a buried Sumerian temple. Something is lurking in the shadows and soon enough, another soldier named Mervin gets dragged off and strung to the ceiling. As he's being cut down and tended to, another soldier gets ripped away by the unseen monster. The point being, these people have a lot on their plates, and you'll need a clear head and steady hand to get them all out alive.

Compared to the first two games in The Dark Pictures Anthology, House of Ashes looks a little more action-focused. Where Man of Medan and Little Hope relied a lot on spirits and hallucinations to create tension, House of Ashes pits players against what seems to be an actual, living, alien creature that's powerful enough to toss people around like they're ragdolls. Still very scary, just apparently a different type of horror.

The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes is due out in 2021, but we don't have an exact release date for you just yet.

Can you guess which Supermassive game made it onto our list of the best horror games to play in 2021?