Story and design {{multiple image|caption_align=center | align = right | direction = horizontal | background color = | header_background = | header_align = | header = | total_width = 350 | perrow = 5 | image1 = H. H. Holmes.jpg | alt1 = A black and white photo of H. H. Holmes in a hat and suit | image2 = H. H. Holmes Castle.jpg | alt2 = A black and white photo of H. H. Holmes' murder castle | footer_background = | footer_align = | footer = The game mainly takes place at a recreation of
H. H. Holmes' {
pictured) "Murder Castle" full of traps, which the original hotel was only rumored to contain. The original hotel is the main setting of the prologue. }}
The Devil in Me is the fourth game in a series of eight planned for
The Dark Pictures Anthology. Like previous entries in the anthology, it was designed to be a standalone story. The main inspiration for the game is H. H. Holmes' "Murder Castle", as well as a variety of
slasher films and franchises, including
Psycho (1960),
The Shining (1980),
Saw,
Halloween, and
Friday the 13th. Game director Tom Heaton said the general idea of
The Devil in Me was around since the start of the anthology. The team wanted to do a game about
serial killers as they felt that it was a key horror genre. Heaton added that it's a genre that he is very passionate about due to his love for serial killer and slasher films. After looking around for inspiration, the team decided on H. H. Holmes, with Heaton calling him "interesting on lots of different levels" because he qualified as a doctor and moved to Chicago as the city was in the middle of rapidly expanding. He built his hotel to make money off of the people visiting from around the world for the World's Fair, but at the same time he was a killer. Holmes had a trial and confessed to 27 murders, but he has become a mythological figure. This was a result of him "bigging up his own legend" according to Heaton. Once he knew he was going to be hanged, he started to talk about the number of people he killed, wrote an "elaborate confession", did a speech from the stand in his trial, and another right before he was hanged. "So, he creates a mythology, and the press at the time sensationalise this." Heaton said there were some discussions about creating a game inspired by Holmes, but it helped that everything occurred quite awhile in the past and that the names of the real victims were not used. Heaton felt that a human threat added an extra layer for the scare factor because of the human intelligence that "understands you, that has the same sort of motivations as you and humans can be cruel – they can be sadistic". He added that a human threat is more psychological and intimate, which for him made it scarier. Although the game also takes inspiration from the
Saw franchise with the deathtraps, as well as the isolation and
claustrophobia from
The Shining, Heaton said they were not required viewing for the team because it was so big. However, those who worked on the early-stage concepts and narrative breakdown were expected to have some familiarity with those films.
Creating the hotel setting Despite the inspiration of
The Shining, that hotel did not influence the look of the one in the game, although there were
Easter eggs. Instead, the team looked at period North American hotel designs because the look of the inside of Holmes' hotel is not known, but the exterior is. As a result, they tried to imagine what the interior could have looked like using the other hotel designs and tried to match it with the exterior of the hotel.
Casting (pictured in 2019), who plays Kate Wilder, was marketed as the game's
leading actress.
The Devil in Me continued the trend of the anthology by casting a recognizable face as the lead character. Heaton said the team was fortunate to get
Jessie Buckley before she received her
Academy Award nomination because they could tell she was a star based on her prior roles. Heaton said it was a "steep learning curve" for her because working on a game is a much faster pace compared to a film or TV show, plus she was presented with a branching-narrative script, which is complicated by itself. Heaton added that when it came time for casting, the team started talking about Buckley and he knew she was the person for them. Heaton thought that Buckley was perfect for the role of Kate because she "had that vulnerability and that sensitivity, but also that passion and commitment that Kate has". In an interview with the developers, Buckley recounted her experiences while acting for
The Devil in Me and expressed excitement about her role in her first video game as Kate:
Music (pictured in 2016) reprises his role as composer for
The Dark Pictures Anthology. The soundtrack was composed by Supermassive Games' long-time collaborator
Jason Graves, who previously worked on music for the previous games in
The Dark Pictures Anthology. Despite the game being billed as the season finale, Graves said that did not change how he scored the game. Lots of harp, piano, and synthesizers were used for the soundtrack. He focused on three main aspects of the game; for the outside of the hotel, Graves used a film noir style for a throwback sound, while for the high tech of the inner parts of the hotel, he used "synthesizers and kind of all the modern distortion and skipping". The third aspect he identified were the animatronics and mannequins throughout the hotel, which he threw in a record needle drop and a "ticking like mechanical kind of sound" in the game's first track as a "tongue in cheek wink" of what is to come later with classical music on records, along with the animatronics. The
Dark Pictures series theme, "
O Death", returns with two different recordings; The original
doom metal recording by
Khemmis appears as part of the intro, followed by an
a capella version sung by an animatronic
barbershop quartet over the end credits.
Release The Devil in Me was first revealed in a
post-credits teaser trailer at the end of
House of Ashes (2021), which was released on 22 October 2021. A story trailer premiered on 7 July 2022, with a character trailer released on 4 November. Preceded by a hands-on preview,
The Devil in Me was released on 18 November 2022 for
PlayStation 4,
PlayStation 5,
Xbox One,
Xbox Series X/S, and
Windows. The Animatronic Collector's edition of the game was released exclusively through the Bandai Namco Store, and included a copy of the game, a collector's box, and an 11-centimeter tall animatronic bust, among other items. A trailer for the next game in the anthology,
Directive 8020 was featured at the end of
The Devil in Me. == Reception ==