Let it burn.
Developed by ASDstudio, Fire and Ashes is touted as a psychological survival horror experience, one that is similar to what the studio has produced thus far. From games like The Verdict, to Burn me Alive, and Ill Ness, the studio is known for low budget horror experiences that are very short in length and waver in their quality.
Now, whether unintentional or to avoid any connection to their previous game, for whatever reason, Fire and Ashes is actually a direct sequel to Burn me Alive. Each game features the same protagonist, Henry, who has lost his family and is unable to move on. Fire and Ashes even references the story of the previous game in some dialogue options at the start of the roughly 2 hour trek through Henry's psychological trauma.
Now, I'm not going to waste your time here, Fire and Ashes, which is a horrible title for SEO, I'll let you know that for free, is an extremely disappointing and forgettable experience. From its ChatGBT-quality writing, to bland and boring performances, it lacks any credible ideas or the execution to see even its most basic ones through.
One of these ideas is the advertised microphone gimmick where enemies can hear you panic or when you breathe, or scream. However, to say it's even been implemented well enough to feel like a worthwhile inclusion is laughable at best. Thankfully, you don't need to upset your neighbors, coming across as a psycho screaming at your tv, as you can simply just press a button instead.
There is a scene early on where I was transported to the past. Previously, I was walking around in what seemed like a run down and long-abandonded psychiatric ward in a hospital. However, Henry suddenly finds himself back when it was pristine, with cells packed full of patients. It's also worth pointing out that they were all the same model.
Still, a guard was up ahead and in typical fashion, he rushed at me and we fought. However, he ran at me backwards, pretty much doing the moonwalk. He eventually turned sideways as he then slid into me. He then started to swing his baton, away from me, I might add. Needless to say, I killed him with zero effort.
This set the tone for Fire and Ashes. I continued to have enemies either not pay attention to me, no matter how noisy I was, or how often I pressed the “screaming” button. In fact, there is only one instance where you need to use said button, forcing a crazy guy to open a locked gate.
This gimmick rarely worked or felt useful. It feels like something simply there for advertising. Either enemies wouldn't hear me or they would walk backwards or sideways into me, and I'd get an easy kill. This was nearly every encounter. Hell, one boss got stuck in a door frame and I then proceeded to throw chemical bottles at him until he died. The game’s guidance given to the AI also stopped the final boss in their tracks as he got stuck on a chair. Well, until he teleported.
I had almost every interaction fail as well. From trying to open doors, collect documents, or solve “puzzles”, these instances constantly broke. I would have to sit there for two or three minutes before the X button prompt would show up. Combine that with a lifeless menu that takes a full 5 seconds to return to gameplay, and you'll see that my 2 hr and 15 minute playthrough could have easily been well under two hours.
While the game mentions that it has combat, it's basically a bare minimum effort of a few melee attacks and some shooting. You’ll have a gun, with an abundance of ammo everywhere, as well as three or four melee weapons that are likely AI generated assets. You can usually spam your attack to win every encounter, and the gun is only really effective during two encounters, a boss that you'll need to shoot pressure valves, and some demons in the forest. While there is a tutorial for a blocking or parry system, the ease of use of just slamming the button down made this additive system feel pointless.
Now, those demons in the forest can simply be avoided as you can just run to the end with only minimal damage taken, should they keep pace with you. While you are meant to power up lamps to keep you safe, and then shoot the demons three times, you really don't need to.
You will collect healing items as you explore, but given the poor AI, and how easy the game is, I had nearly 18 left when I defeated the final boss. Some rooms had two or three healing items both before and after sections with one or two enemies. Did they think we were going to struggle here?
That whole forest level is one long repeating section that slowly introduces subtle narrative context to Henry's trauma, but as the game just dumps the entire story to you in the last five minutes, anything conveyed to you across any section of the game is made pointless. However, that's assuming there is much in the way of an actual story, which there really isn't.
Henry's family died, as talked about in the previous game, and he is going through therapy to recover and move on. While there are some moments that look to show that Henry can bring some of his hallucinations into reality, we only get a single example that is glossed over without a single mention of it afterward. And, to be fair, that is my assumption, given the event and the context around it.
Switching weapons isn't terribly intuitive as you press up on the D-pad between your melee options, which would often delete held weapons between loading areas, or sometimes swap to a weapon I don't even remember picking up. To swap your gun to the handheld cattle prod, which can power up doors or turn lights on, you have to aim down sights and then press up. The electrical tool is about the only fun weapon as holding it down can explode enemy's heads, except for bosses, in which the device won't do anything. In fact, it will only work when it needs to.
Overall, there are three bosses that I remember, one where you shoot valves to fill the hallway with water, a second one where you'll throw chemical bottles at him to poison him, and then the final boss, which is in a very tiny room as you basically just slash at him and wait for him to teleport behind you.
Throughout the game, you'll have a few puzzles. From matching a series of names to their corresponding letters, to matching symbols to the sounds you'll hear at sea, there is only one puzzle that would have been interesting, had the solution not been hanging on a sign directly above you. In a fancy restaurant, one you're introduced during a flashback, the version of it you'll move around in is devoid of any lights. You'll navigate to an adjacent room and turn on a series of televisions that then relay the color order of switches in another room. The solution “From small to big” is hanging right above the televisions, making the whole puzzle redundant.
The whole restaurant scene predating the puzzle begins with this clearly AI performed song that has the game's title in the chorus. The song is actually so short that you'll hear it start over about halfway through. You could tell the devs were over the moon with this moment in the game, thinking that they created this impressive and memorable moment, as it seems to go on forever. I, on the other hand, wanted it to end as soon as it could.
While GOG has a disclosure of the team's use of Generative AI, I'm not convinced of it being used solely for UI elements. While environments are fairly sound, and the game does present a decent atmosphere, at times, it's hard to know if many of those assets were even created by the developer, or what has been reused since Burn me Alive, which, according to screen shots via its Steam page, does have a few shared assets between the games. And, speaking of Steam, there are countless fake reviews with triple or more of the length of the game played.
Fire and Ashes is a fairly miserable experience, even despite the constant bombardment of technical issues. Animations are painfully bad, with enemy AI that only knows to move toward you, regardless if they are even facing you. With a story that doesn't appear until the game's final moments, and the developer's use of Generative AI, Fire and Ashes is an experience I'll forget by the time this is published.
Developer - ASDStudio.
Publisher - Antelus Games / Axyos Games.
Released - October 14th, 2026 (PC), October 23rd, 2026 (Consoles).
Available On - PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
Rated - (M) - Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Sexual Themes / Nudity
Platform Reviewed - PS5.
Review Access - A review code for Fire and Ashes was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.