House of Ashes: All character deaths — Dumb ways to die

House of Ashes – Supporting character death scenes

Let’s talk about the many ways that supporting characters can die in House of Ashes.

Balathu

• Killed by creatures and reanimated; death by stabbing – Balathu is the Akkadian general that you play as during the prologue (Cursed). He gets reanimated, and everyone spends most of their time running away from him. However, you can permanently kill him in The Vault. Nick can head deeper into the large chamber and pass the QTEs while planting the C4. Nick manages to survive the explosion, but Balathu arrives and chokes him. Succeed in the QTEs here and your comrades will arrive to help you. Balathu will get stabbed with a spear, leading to his final death.

Note: If Nick retreats during The Vault chapter, Balathu will follow your group (one character might even die during Semper Fi, impaled by Balathu’s spear). Later, Balathu will attack your group during the Daylight finale. Make sure you succeed in the QTEs here. If Balathu kills a couple of characters during this sequence, then the vampires will automatically kill the others, too.

Joey

• Killed in a firefight and reanimated; death by falling – Joey gets killed during The Raid. His corpse ends up down the depths and he’ll eventually get reanimated. If Jason picked up the stake during The Truce/Bloodbath, he can use it as a weapon to fend off the zombified Joey, causing him to fall to his doom.

Merwin

• Death by suffocation – Nick and Jason will encounter Merwin and Clarice during Underworld. Clarice gets dragged away, but the two marines manage to free Merwin. Jason will try to give morphine to Merwin. If Nick keeps trying to cover Merwin’s mouth (QTE), he won’t be able to breathe.
• Death by crushing – During The Temple, Jason and Nick are carrying Merwin as they’re being chased by a creature. If you leave Merwin alone for a second, he’ll get dragged through a small opening, causing all his bones to get crushed.
• Death by beheading – We’ve been told that this character death scene in House of Ashes occurs if Merwin is still alive and you fail a QTE (it wasn’t specified which one). A creature then beheads him. I haven’t seen this at all.
• Death by gunshot – If Merwin manages to survive everything thrown his way, he’ll be in tip-top condition during The Signal. He manages to repair the radio (which changes the Air Support bearing). Unfortunately, he also ends up getting shot in the head by Dar.

Dar

• Death by vampire feast – During The Horror, the group will attempt to fend off multiple vampires. It seems that Dar will die here no matter what you do. He’ll get gobbled up by the monsters.
• Death by Clarice – This is a variation of Dar’s House of Ashes death scene in The Horror chapter. If you can bring Clarice along all the way here, she’ll succumb to her illness and die. While the group is fighting the vampires, she reanimates and kills Dar.

Clarice

• Death by gunshot – Rachel meets Clarice during The Truce/Bloodbath. She has a chance to help her get to safety. When you reach The Assault chapter, the rest of the group realizes that there’s something wrong with her. If you don’t reply to any of the prompts, Jason will shoot Clarice in the head. You’ll notice a parasite wiggle out of her mouth.
• Death by explosion – During The Assault chapter, choose the path where the C4 explosives have been planted.
• Death by falling – During The Assault chapter, choose the “worried” replies as Rachel so the group spares Clarice. At the start of The Horror, agree that you need to leave Clarice in the previous chamber. She will still die and reanimate, but she won’t kill anyone else. Instead, you’ll encounter her again at the end of Semper Fi. If Eric and Rachel are still alive, they’ll end up fighting her before reaching the elevator. She gets kicked off a cliff, Spartan style.
• Death by falling (alternate) – This follows the same process, except you’ll keep Clarice in the group until the major encounter in The Horror. She will reanimate and kill Dar and Eric. You could battle her again later in Semper Fi.

All right, let’s go to the next part of our House of Ashes guide to talk about the death scenes of the main characters.