At long last “DreadOut: Keepers of the Dark,” a standalone expansion to 2014’s cult hit “DreadOut,” has been released. “Keepers” was originally pitched as simply a free-roaming mode for “DreadOut” with a few new monsters thrown in. Somewhere along the lines it evolved into a semi-sequel project which can be played on its own without the original game.

“Keepers of the Dark” takes place entirely between two scenes in the original “DreadOut” and functions as something of a third act for the story. That being said, there is very little new information given to the player. “Keepers” follows Indonesian teenager Linda as she is pulled through a mirror and into an alternate dimension. The goal from there is somewhat vague. The player has to go through a series of levels and defeat monsters to escape from the mirror world, but it is not readily apparent why Linda needs to do this from a story perspective. Rather than focusing on filing in the gaps left by the story of the original game, “Keepers” is far more interested in building small stories around its new ghosts (designed by the game’s IndieGoGo backers). These new stories are interesting, but I would have liked a bit more fleshing out of the original story.

“Keepers of the Dark” looks an awful lot like the original “DreadOut.” Many of the same locations are used in this expansion, so you’ll see a lot of familiar sights. However, the bug that caused hi-res textures not to display on some computers in the original game seems to have been fixed for this expansion, which really helps; the game finally looks as good as it should. The other human characters are essentially absent from “Keepers of the Dark,” so the problem of their models moving rather poorly is thankfully not present here. The monster design is fairly different from the previous game; rather than drawing from Indonesian folklore this expansion features ghosts designed by the game’s IndieGoGo backers. A lot of these new monster designs are great, and they are far more grotesque than those of the original game, but it does cause the game to lose some of its unique Indonesian identity.

The sound design of “Keepers of the Dark” is still absolutely impeccable. The ambient music is still very atmospheric and creepy. There are still plenty of wonderfully creepy noises created by the ghosts. That cover of “Gloomy Sunday” still plays on the title screen. Sadly, the rarity of cutscenes in the game means that there is far less opportunity to use licensed music like the original game did so very well. However, that is the absolute worst thing that there is to say about the game’s soundtrack. It’s very nice to see that designers Digital Happiness are still putting so much effort into the game’s sound, even though it’s no longer pulling double-duty to help make up for the graphics.

The gameplay is largely unchanged from the original game. Players still wander around a strangely empty small town in Indonesia and take photographs of ghosts. The boss fights do have a bit more variety in them than in the previous game, but they are still far from perfect. It really does feel like Linda should move a bit faster than she does; there are just a few too many times when monsters seem to move faster than the player can reasonably, consistently outrun. The early description of the game as “free-roaming” was perhaps a bit misleading. The player is free to move around between several areas, but they are connected by a hub level rather than having the player free to just move around a single consistent world. The biggest flaw of the whole game really is that it gives the player remarkably little direction of what you are supposed to do. The game just kind of dumps you in the mirror world and leaves you to figure anything and everything out from there. It’s really not terribly difficult to figure out, but a nudge in the right direction would have been great. Also, the game’s English translation needs some serious revision. In a ton of weird, barely-coherent grammar, there are things like a vinyl record being referred to instead as “a plate of gramophone recording.” However, the core gameplay mechanics are solid enough that these problems are far from insurmountable.

While it does feel like it needs a touch more polish, “Keepers of the Dark” is still a tremendous amount of fun. There’s also an absolutely staggering amount of new content for a $7 DLC expansion. With how they handled the original “DreadOut,” Digital Happiness has shown a willingness to provide a lot of post-release patches and content, so there’s still hope that the game will get those last few tweaks it needs to be as truly amazing as it aspires to be.