A short playable prologue for the Alone in the Dark reboot was a surprising showing at this year’s PAX Aus, with a handful of attendees being let into a small booth to experience the spooky sampling for themselves. The prologue, titled Grace in the Dark, offers a surreal glimpse into some elements of the full game, which seems to hew very closely to the 1992 original.

In fact, the concept of Grace in the Dark is from a playable teaser that was released for the original Alone in the Dark 2, which also feature the character of Grace, a little girl caught up in the horrific events in a 1920s setting.

Without spoiling too much if what happens in the game, Grace finds herself in a surreal series of events as she comes across a panicked man in his office, overwhelmed with paranoia and convinced a desperate letter he has been writing won’t be sent. Grace offers to take the letter to a someone in the building who can send it for them, only for the man to disappear and the environment around Grace to start shifting. What appears to be an ordinary upper class foyer suddenly shits, Silent Hill style into an abandoned nightmare version, with moving abstract statues, aquatic monsters and other beasties. Further references to the original games are notable in the way acquired items fill the screen when picked up, in all their 3D glory,

The demo ends with a teaser for the game proper, featuring the original heroes Edward and Emily arriving at the Decerto mansion from the original game, although Edward Carnby mentions that he feels like he’s been there before. We’ll see just what that means, and what other horrors the mansion has in store for us, when the game itself is released in the future, on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.