Alone In The Dark review: a neatly crafted reboot that seems afraid to step into the unknown

Bad manors

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/THQ Nordic

• Developer: Pieces Interactive
• Publisher: THQ Nordic
• Release: March 20th 2024
• On: Windows
• From: Steam , GOG
• Price: £50/$60/€60
• Reviewed on: Intel Core-i7 10750HF, 16GB RAM, Nvidia RTX 2070, Windows 10

Detective Edward Carnby looks very different these days, and not only because he’s made of a lot more polygons. Gone are the professorial waistcoat and bow tie of his angular 1992 incarnation, replaced instead by the grubby suit of a life-bruised 1930s noir PI, complete with hipflask of brandy for when the stress of being unaccompanied with the lights out gets too much.

Carnby isn’t the only one who’s transformed in this reboot of Alone in the Dark , the classic survival horror avant la lettre , either. Veterans will find plenty of callbacks and familiar names as they poke around its Louisiana manor house – talk of the Pregzt Shipping Company might raise an eyebrow, for instance, as may the gnarled tree filling much of the conservatory. But like these, everything here is remixed, rewritten, relocated. Indeed, Decerto house is no longer empty but a ‘home for the mentally fatigued’, while player characters Carnby and Emily Hartwood now arrive together, since she’s hired him to help check on her uncle, a long-term resident who may be in danger.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/THQ Nordic

Given this reworked scenario, you may surmise correctly that you won’t be on your tod quite as much as the game’s title suggests. Still, you can’t blame developer Pieces Interactive for filling out their story with extra characters, given that the original’s is rather bare bones by today’s standards. The period setting certainly doesn’t hurt in this respect, blending Agatha Christie and H.P. Lovecraft as staff and patient alike give off a whiff of suspicion whenever you run into one. It’s a fun production that gently sends up its literary and cinematic inspirations without relinquishing darker plot strands.

In an equally expansive vein, you aren’t limited to touring the house and its immediate surroundings this time either, as otherworldly forces ping you to dreamlike distortions of reality, from New Orleans streets to a crashed steamboat and further flung locales. By the time the first such journey occurs, you’ve learned that Jeremy has gone missing, and with your chosen character now separated from their partner, you finally get to go solo. Again, it feels like a smart decision to branch out in this way, heaping up a sense of the uncanny while allowing for greater variety in scenery and level design.

On the downside, however, the division between what you do in the house compared to the external sequences is a little too pronounced. For the most part, the monsters you inevitably encounter only exist in those faraway places. Occasionally, finding a key item or solving a puzzle in Decerto causes a small pocket of the dreamworld to erupt around you, and you have to despatch a few ghouls to restore normality. But otherwise the house itself is oddly safe, like a Resident Evil game in which someone has herded all the zombies below stairs, and no amount of creaky ambience can convince you otherwise.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/THQ Nordic

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/THQ Nordic

Exploring the house thus tends to boil down to the mechanics of the exercise – plenty of map reading, loads of matching keys with doors, and a smattering of puzzles. And while it’s all neatly arranged, there’s not much among these pieces to set either the pulse or the brain racing. On a few occasions, a ‘puzzle’ equates to picking up an item, such as a switch lever, and ferrying it a few yards to its home. More cerebral activities, meanwhile, tend to fall into two camps – deciphering short passcodes from clues or placing and rotating tiles to form a picture. Logical they may be, but it’s such standard fare that, when one puzzle has you fixing a literal boiler plate, you might conclude there’s elaborate self-parody afoot.

This refusal to push the envelope causes Alone in the Dark to stumble elsewhere too. Over 30 years on from the original, it enters a world in which the rules of survival horror have not only been well-rehearsed but shaken around like a snow globe by the likes of Alan Wake 2 . Yet despite the freshly cooked, self-aware story elements, the playing experience often feels as traditional as the décor in Decerto, with modernisation mostly taking the form of quality of life and labour saving shortcuts, rather than anything more daring.

Navigation and combat are a case in point. On the one hand, Carnby and Hartwell struggle around minor obstacles and could barely mount a kerb if it wasn’t marked by a button prompt. Surely we’re used to survival horror protagonists showing a touch more initiative and athleticism these days? They are, however, quite nimble when faced with the game’s hostiles – dark things that come in roughly humanoid, animal or insectoid forms – with a quick duck away enough to put distance between you and their fiendish aims in most circumstances, and instant weapon switches that shift you from stand-your-ground gunfire to bludgeoning melee strikes. As in many a survival horror, you have to make shots count and avoid being swamped, but it’s all a little basic and neither especially horrifying nor tough to survive.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/THQ Nordic

Then again, perhaps the absence of anything more demanding or ambitious is for the best, as Alone in the Dark is also straitjacketed by technical limitations. Yes, this is a handsome game, with Decerto in particular drawn in the kind of detail that might see you distracted by wallpaper textures or volumetric light pouring through windows. Yet scenes are prone to moments of debilitating frame judder when the camera rotates quickly – regardless of the video settings, I couldn’t banish it completely – and characters and monsters alike get snagged and stuck on furniture from time to time. It feels like scenes might break down if further strain was placed on the engine, as if it really were a period production, running on smoke, mirrors and stuntmen in rubber costumes.

Yet while, like the Carnby of old, this latest stab at Alone in the Dark ialas somewhat stilted and conservative, there’s still enough here to make its breadcrumb trail enticing. The two main characters are a draw, for sure, not least thanks to the voice performances (and likenesses) of David Harbour and Jodie Comer. Each provides a different window into this world when you pick them for a play through – Carnby is determined to earn his fee, in over his head, probably drunk; Hartwell quickly starts to wonder if she’s imagining all the weird stuff thanks to a family history of insanity. They’re different to control too, with Emily quicker on her feet, and with unique story scenes filling gaps in the other’s experience, they make a decent case for playing the whole thing twice.

It helps also that the latter stages of the game capitalise on groundwork laid in the more predictable first half. The locations you find yourself sucked into become that bit more intricate, with multi-part puzzles to wriggle through, and some combat situations that force you to move through the gears. Plus, each time you reemerge in Decerto, with everyone else none the wiser as to what you’ve been up to, the notion that the whole thing might be in your head starts to grip. True, there’s nothing especially original about a story that blurs the lines between madness and the paranormal, but it does inject doubt and paranoia into your investigation, which only makes you long to unravel the truth more. While spending time alone in the dark may not be as uncomfortable as it should be this time, then, with all the changes it may still be worth peering into the void, to see what returns your gaze.

This review was based on a review build of the game provided by publishers THQ Nordic.

Find out how we conduct our reviews by reading our review policy .

Alone in the Dark

Xbox 360 , PS2 , Nintendo Wii , PC

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All 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints and where to get them

These areas have the highest chance of giving you Blueprints

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Looking for more Arc Raiders Blueprints? It’s a special day when you find a Blueprint, as they’re among the most valuable items in Arc Raiders. If you find a Blueprint that you haven’t already found, then you must make sure you hold onto it at all costs, because Blueprints are the key to one of the most important and powerful systems of meta-progression in the game.

This guide aims to be the very best guide on Blueprints you can find, starting with a primer on what exactly they are and how they work in Arc Raiders, before delving into exactly where to get Blueprints and the very best farming spots for you to take in your search.

We’ll also go over how to get Blueprints from other unlikely activities, such as destroying Surveyors and completing specific quests. And you’ll also find the full list of all 75 Blueprints in Arc Raiders on this page (including the newest Blueprints added with the Cold Snap update , such as the Deadline Blueprint and Firework Box Blueprint), giving you all the information you need to expand your own crafting repertoire.

In this guide:

• What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?
• Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes
• Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders Blueprints obtained from quests Blueprints obtained from Trials Best Blueprint farming locations

What are Blueprints in Arc Raiders?

Blueprints in Arc Raiders are special items which, if you manage to extract with them, you can expend to permanently unlock a new crafting recipe in your Workshop. If you manage to extract from a raid with an Anvil Blueprint, for example, you can unlock the ability to craft your very own Anvil Pistol, as many times as you like (as long as you have the crafting materials).

To use a Blueprint, simply open your Inventory while in the lobby, then right-click on the Blueprint and click “Learn And Consume” . This will permanently unlock the recipe for that item in your Workshop. As of the Stella Montis update, there are allegedly 75 different Blueprints to unlock - although only 68 are confirmed to be in the game so far. You can see all the Blueprints you’ve found and unlocked by going to the Workshop menu, and hitting “R” to bring up the Blueprint screen.

It’s possible to find duplicates of past Blueprints you’ve already unlocked. If you find these, then you can either sell them, or - if you like to play with friends - you can take it into a match and gift it to your friend so they can unlock that recipe for themselves. Another option is to keep hold of them until the time comes to donate them to the Expedition.

Full Blueprint list: All crafting recipes

Below is the full list of all the Blueprints that are currently available to find in Arc Raiders, and the crafting recipe required for each item:

Note: The missing Blueprints in this list likely have not actually been added to the game at the time of writing, because none of the playerbase has managed to find any of them. As they are added to the game, I will update this page with the most relevant information so you know exactly how to get all 75 Arc Raiders Blueprints.

Where to find Blueprints in Arc Raiders

Below is a list of all containers, modifiers, and events which maximise your chances of finding Blueprints:

• Certain quests reward you with specific Blueprints .
• Completing Trials has a high chance of offering Blueprints as rewards.
• Surveyors have a decent chance of dropping Blueprints on death.
• High loot value areas tend to have a greater chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Night Raids and Storms may increase rare Blueprint spawn chances in containers.
• Containers with higher numbers of items may have a higher tendency to spawn Blueprints. As a result, Blue Gate (which has many “large” containers containing multiple items) may give you a higher chance of spawning Blueprints.
• Raider containers (Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, Medical Bags, Grenade Tubes) have increased Blueprint drop rates. As a result, the Uncovered Caches event gives you a high chance of finding Blueprints.
• Security Lockers have a higher than average chance of containing Blueprints.
• Certain Blueprints only seem to spawn under specific circumstances: Tempest Blueprint only spawns during Night Raid events. Vulcano Blueprint only spawns during Hidden Bunker events. Jupiter and Equaliser Blueprints only spawn during Harvester events.

Raider Caches, Weapon Boxes, and other raider-oriented container types have a good chance of offering Blueprints. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints have a very low chance of spawning in any container in Arc Raiders, around 1-2% on average. However, there is a higher chance of finding Blueprints in particular container types. Specifically, you can find more Blueprints in Raider containers and security lockers.

Beyond this, if you’re looking for Blueprints you should focus on regions of the map which are marked as having particularly high-value loot. Areas such as the Control Tower in Dam Battlegrounds, the Arrival and Departure Buildings in Spaceport, and Pilgrim’s Peak in Blue Gate all have a better-than-average chance of spawning Blueprints somewhere amongst all their containers. Night Raids and Electromagnetic Storm events also increase the drop chances of certain Blueprints .

In addition to these containers, you can often loot Blueprints from destroyed Surveyors - the largest of the rolling ball ARC. Surveyors are more commonly found on the later maps - Spaceport and Blue Gate - and if one spawns in your match, you’ll likely see it by the blue laser beam that it casts into the sky while “surveying”.

Surveyors are quite well-armoured and will very speedily run away from you once it notices you, but if you can take one down then make sure you loot all its parts for a chance of obtaining certain unusual Blueprints.

Blueprints obtained from quests

One way in which you can get Blueprints is by completing certain quests for the vendors in Speranza. Some quests will reward you with a specific item Blueprint upon completion, so as long as you work through all the quests in Arc Raiders, you are guaranteed those Blueprints.

Here is the full list of all Blueprints you can get from quest rewards:

• Trigger Nade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Sparks Fly”.
• Lure Grenade Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Greasing Her Palms”.
• Burletta Blueprint: Rewarded after completing “Industrial Espionage”.
• Hullcracker Blueprint (and Launcher Ammo Blueprint): Rewarded after completing “The Major’s Footlocker”.

Alas, that’s only 4 Blueprints out of a total of 75 to unlock, so for the vast majority you will need to find them yourself during a raid. If you’re intent on farming Blueprints, then it’s best to equip yourself with cheap gear in case you lose it, but don’t use a free loadout because then you won’t get a safe pocket to stash any new Blueprint you find. No pain in Arc Raiders is sharper than failing to extract with a new Blueprint you’ve been after for a dozen hours already.

One of the best ways to get Blueprints is by hitting three stars on all five Trials every week. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blueprints obtained from Trials

One of the very best ways to get Blueprints is as rewards for completing Trials in Arc Raiders. Trials are unlocked from Level 15 onwards, and allow you to earn rewards by focusing on certain tasks over the course of several raids. For example, one Trial might task you with dealing damage to Hornets, while another might challenge you to loot Supply Drops.

Trials refresh on a weekly basis, with a new week bringing five new Trials. Each Trial can offer up to three rewards after passing certain score milestones, and it’s possible to receive very high level loot from these reward crates - including Blueprints. So if you want to unlock as many Blueprints as possible, you should make a point of completing as many Trials as possible each week.

Best Blueprint farming locations

The very best way to get Blueprints is to frequent specific areas of the maps which combine high-tier loot pools with the right types of containers to search. Here are my recommendations for where to find Blueprints on every map, so you can always keep the search going for new crafting recipes to unlock.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Dam Battlegrounds

The best places to farm Blueprints on Dam Battlegrounds are the Control Tower, Power Generation Complex, Ruby Residence, and Pale Apartments . The first two regions, despite only being marked on the map as mid-tier loot, contain a phenomenal number of containers to loot. The Control Tower can also contain a couple of high-tier Security Lockers - though of course, you’ll need to have unlocked the Security Breach skill at the end of the Survival tree.

There’s also a lot of reporting amongst the playerbase that the Residential areas in the top-left of the map - Pale Apartments and Ruby Residence - give you a comparatively strong chance of finding Blueprints. Considering their size, there’s a high density of containers to loot in both locations, and they also have the benefit of being fairly out of the way. So you’re more likely to have all the containers to yourself.

Buried City

The best Blueprint farming locations on Buried City are the Santa Maria Houses, Grandioso Apartments, Town Hall, and the various buildings of the New District . Grandioso Apartments has a lower number of containers than the rest, but a high chance of spawning weapon cases - which have good Blueprint drop rates. The others are high-tier loot areas, with plenty of lootable containers - including Security Lockers.

Spaceport

The best places to find Blueprints on Spaceport are the Arrival and Departure Buildings, as well as Control Tower A6 and the Launch Towers . All these areas are labelled as high-value loot regions, and many of them are also very handily connected to one another by the Spaceport wall, which you can use to quickly run from one area to the next. At the tops of most of these buildings you’ll find at least one Security Locker, so this is an excellent farming route for players looking to find Blueprints.

The downside to looting Blueprints on Spaceport is that all these areas are hotly contested, particularly in Duos and Squads. You’ll need to be very focused and fast in order to complete the full farming route.

Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Embark Studios

Blue Gate

Blue Gate tends to have a good chance of dropping Blueprints, potentially because it generally has a high number of containers which can hold lots of items; so there’s a higher chance of a Blueprint spawning in each container. In my experience, the best Blueprint farming spots on Blue Gate are Pilgrim’s Peak, Raider’s Refuge, the Ancient Fort, and the Underground Complex beneath the Warehouse .

All of these areas contain a wealth of containers to loot. Raider’s Refuge has less to loot, but the majority of the containers in and around the Refuge are raider containers, which have a high chance of containing Blueprints - particularly during major events.

Stella Montis

On the whole, Stella Montis seems to have a very low drop rate for Blueprints (though a high chance of dropping other high-tier loot). If you do want to try farming Blueprints on this map, the best places to find Blueprints in Stella Montis are Medical Research, Assembly Workshop, and the Business Center . These areas have the highest density of containers to loot on the map.

In addition to this, the Western Tunnel has a few different Security Lockers to loot, so while there’s very little to loot elsewhere in this area of the map, it’s worth hitting those Security Lockers if you spawn there at the start of a match.

That wraps up this primer on how to get all the Blueprints in Arc Raiders as quickly as possible. With the Expedition system constantly resetting a large number of players’ Blueprints, it’s more important than ever to have the most up-to-date information on where to find all these Blueprints.

While you’re here, be sure to check out our Arc Raiders best guns tier list , as well as our primers on the best skills to unlock and all the different Field Depot locations on every map.

ARC Raiders

PS5 , Xbox Series X/S , PC

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