The Untold Truth Of The Dark Pictures Anthology's Curator
Part of the charm of Supermassive Games' horror series, The Dark Pictures Anthology, is that each installment is its own story, providing players a chance to pick up any game in the series and have a relatively solid idea of what's going on. Little Hope, the latest game in the series, has been called one of the scariest games of 2020, which is a year plenty scary all on its own. However, the games do have one thing in common: the Curator of Stories.
The Curator is the only character to appear in all of The Dark Pictures Anthology games, but his role isn't entirely clear. Appearing as a middle aged man with an undercut and a mischievous demeanor, the Curator seems to hold the Moral Compass in his pocket, meaning that he is intimately connected to the world of the games and their play mechanics. The Curator invites players to take part in the game, always noting that this story isn't finished just yet and needs the player's help to end satisfyingly. Because he mentions death so frequently in his many lectures and cutscenes, it's possible that the Curator is death, or some representation of it.
The Curator ties everything together
The Curator establishes that players are not alone in the games, that someone is watching over them as they make decisions and navigate through the worlds of the games. While most horror games aren't concerned with players feeling a familiar presence, The Dark Pictures Anthology uses morality as a core mechanic.
In an interview with GodisaGeek, Dan McDonald, the series director for the horror anthology, says this, "We always want players to think deeply (although quickly!) about the decisions they make. There are certainly some critical – and indeed, life or death – decisions you need to make in Little Hope. There are definitely real moral dilemmas and often the choices are not black and white, good or bad."
The Curator only serves to complicate these moral decisions by making players feel that they have a constant supervisor overseeing every move. The Curator acts as a narrator and a conspirator for much of the games. After all, he, too, knows that these are just stories, and that ultimately the player is in control of what happens.
If someone dies, the Curator is there
Part of what makes the Curator so spooky in his own right is that he often appears in the stories when he's not supposed to. Often, the Curator's appearance within the story signals the death of a character, making him a sort of angel of death that foreshadows tragedy for the characters. Whether his presence means more than an upcoming death has yet to be revealed, but Redditors have continued to speculate in the meanwhile. It's true that the Curator does talk about death a lot, but that could always be a red herring to distract players from his real purpose, whatever that might be.
Perhaps future installments of this critically acclaimed series will tell players more about the mysterious Curator and his connection to the dark stories he helps unfold. Regardless of whether or not fans ever get those answers, the Curator is a haunting, mysterious character that will bring mystique to The Dark Pictures Anthology for games to come.