Storyline and Inconsistences
The three original games took place in the 1920s and depicted the paranormal cases of a private eye called Edward Carnby. In 1924 (Alone in the Dark) he was commissioned by an antique dealer to investigate a piano in the loft of the Louisiana mansion Derceto, which was abandoned since its owner Jeremy Hartwood had committed suicide. In 1925 (Alone in the Dark 2) Carnby went on to solve a case involving the kidnapping of young Grace Saunders after the investigating procedures of his deceased partner Ted Stryker, with all the clues leading to an old mansion named "Hell's Kitchen" and an infamous gangster who inhabited it. In 1926 (Alone in the Dark 3) he was called to investigate the disappearance of a film crew at a two-bit ghost town known by the name of Slaughter Gulch located in the Mojave Desert in California. The first game shared the protagonism role with Jeremy Hartwood's niece, Emily Hartwood, who also took a role of damsel in distress in Alone in the Dark 3.
When Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare was made, the setting was moved from the 1920s to 2001, and a background legend was made up in order to explain that Edward Carnby belonged to a lineage of Shadow Hunters who were born the 29th of February of every 40 years and raised as orphan children in St George's Orphanage, all of them going to the name of Edward Carnby. The name was depicted as a literal anglicized form of "El War Qarn'bi", which meant "the one who battles evil incarnate and hunts out the shadows". According to this legend, the original Edward Carnby was born in 1888 and went out of record after engaging several strange affairs in the years 1920 to 39. The Edward Carnby that played the main role in Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare is a different and younger character who was born in 1968.
The 2008 Alone in the Dark reinterpreted once again the series storyline. It follows the canon of the original trilogy, and ignores the events of Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare. This is most noticeable due to the fact that this game's plot, which takes place in 2008, claims that there has only ever been one Edward Carnby, who has been possessed since the late 1920s, and is now over 100 years old, though he retains his younger appearance. This means that the game's Edward Carnby is the same as the original trilogy's, despite bearing little to no resemblance to that character. The 2008 game makes no reference to the Carnby lineage of Shadow Hunters from Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, and makes no reference to that game's protagonist who by all rights should be alive at the time of this game's plot. As neither game has yet had a sequel, it remains to be seen which interpretation will remain canonical.
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