Amnesia: Rebirth (2020)

Finally decided to play this one while on an Amnesia: The Bunker kick, because a lot of the story of this one seemed relevant. I do understand now why a lot of people didn't like this one; for the horror bros, I imagine it was the fairly accurate birth simulation, but in general the puzzles WERE a little obtuse at times. The accelerated pregnancy and Tasi's chattiness weren't nearly as ridiculous as I'd been led to believe from other reviews. I played on adventure mode because I'm a baby, and while that did mean I missed out on gameplay involving sneaking around ghouls and wraiths and instead got more puzzles, the atmosphere was quite creepy most of the time and the room full of sleeping ghouls was maybe in my top three worst rooms in a video game. I don't do well with having to solve puzzles while also sneaking and/or getting chased, so it's probably for the best I did adventure mode. I did get jumpscared a couple of times, by really stupid things (like a hatch that seemed set up for that sort of thing, and I opened it and some bones fell out and startled me).

Story-wise, I appreciated the much more personal tone of the titular amnesia, as well as the moral decisions and wider-reaching effects of one person's choices. It was cool to see the place Alexander of Brennenburg came from and the origins of the vitae harvesting methods, but goddamn it was approaching Outlast levels of "this is gross and bad". I didn't even torture the guy to save Amari's life! (It sounded more complicated than I was interested in, and also torture is bad.) The varied environments were also very nice, and having something as relatively supernatural as the hopping in and out of rifts was neat. I would like more details on if the other world was this bad when Alexander was exiled to Earth, or if this happened while he was away.

I went for the ending where Tihana, Tasi, and Amari all died, because that seemed like the best choice of the three. Tasi was already screwed no matter what, and Tihana and the entire other world were fucked up with their motives and methods, so let the Shadow take all of it, fuck it.

I was also very pleased and surprised by the situation with Alex Sterling and Richard, though it seems like it was quite clandestine (as it would have been for that time period). Good on Frictional for that!

Overall I don't feel any urge to replay, now that I've seen the story for myself. It was on Epic, so no achievements to worry about, and between some of the puzzles and the parts with a forced slow-down because of Tasi's pregnancy, too much of it was a slog to play through at all. In terms of replayability, it's tied at the bottom of the list of Amnesia games with TDD for me, for very different reasons. (TDD is just genuinely scary, to the point that I had to just remove the monsters in a recent replay, even though the monsters are pretty predictable and easy to avoid; the atmosphere does so much heavy lifting for the spooks!) So for me it's Bunker and SOMA tied at the top, then Machine For Pigs (unpopular opinion, I know), then Rebirth and TDD (bearing in mind that TDD is a fantastic game), and I haven't yet played the Penumbra games, I really need to.

Amnesia: Rebirth aims to expand on the lore of The Dark Descent with a fresh protagonist but takes so long to actually get the plot moving that it fails both to recapture my interest before it's too late or make me care about the characters. And because this is probably the least scary of Frictional Games's output there isn't really much else to latch onto here. It's a nice looking game, the voice acting is really great, and the concept in isolation is fairly unique among its horror peers but none of this is able to save Rebirth from being a big ol' letdown for this fan.

I think this game's biggest issue is just how heavy it is on exposition. It's constantly barraging you with flashbacks and notes left by various characters. It totally misses the age-old advice of "show don't tell." The worst part is every single one of these flashbacks and notes force you to stop and either wait for the cutscene to finish or give yourself time to read through the on screen text. I found it very difficult to immerse myself in the game when I had to keep halting so I could be handed information that for the most part wasn't all that interesting or essential to the story. This game is dying for some effective use of environmental storytelling but so much of what is here is blunt and too heavy-handed to be interesting. It feels more like they decided to expand on the first game with new lore and only after built a story around it.

In addition, all this time spent wandering between exposition-dumps in the first half of the game doesn't really amount to all that much of a payoff in the story's latter hours. I did want to like Tasi, the protagonist, but I couldn't bring myself to care for her when the emotional crux of the story was built on such a weak foundation. Every loading screen is a drawing of her child doing child things as though the game wants to say "Look, it's a child. Don't you care about the child? It's a child, so you should." But it does none of the legwork to actually draw me to care about said child or her mother or her father or anyone else for that matter.

This left any late game twists or reveals feeling watered-down. For example, I can't care much about the fate of my crewmate, Leon, when almost no work has been put into developing him as a character. Hell, I didn't even remember I had a crewmate named Leon when I finally found him because very early on he disappeared into the big blur of various names the game kept tossing at me.

So the story is poorly structured and the atmosphere is nonexistent because of how often I'm taken out of it for exposition; what does that leave us with? Well, like I said, the game is pretty. The lighting is well crafted and the environments have a nice amount of detail packed in. I enjoyed exploring most of the caves, ruins, and other various locations Tasi pushes her way through. Tasi's voice acting is very good, as is the case for much of the rest of the cast. If the characters were given more time to shine outside of short flashbacks and written notes I might have enjoyed them more.

I'm left feeling like this may be my least favorite of Frictional's output. A Machine for Pigs is a bit of a mess but it handled the atmosphere better and I found the story it was trying to tell more compelling if poorly told. Amnesia: Rebirth gets points for a solid presentation but fails to deliver on either of the major aspects I played it for-- story and scares.

Rebirth marks the return of the Amnesia franchise, and a pretty good one at that. After the utter disappointment that was A Machine for Pigs by The Chinese Room, Frictional Games took back the reins and tried to deliver an experience worthy of what The Dark Descent had delivered a decade before. And in my book, they mostly nailed it.

What struck me almost immediately about Rebirth was how different it looked visually when compared to The Dark Descent. The graphical quality is of course much improved due to the gap between releases, but here I’m mainly referring to the setting. Rebirth abandons the classically gothic feel of Prussia and instead transports us to the sandy landscapes of Algeria, almost a century after the events of the first game. Release time and setting differences result in a much ‘cleaner’ look (though not necessarily as atmospheric) when compared to the original game, and the commitment to a more cinematic, aesthetically pleasing approach, visible right from the intro sequence, is a clear departure from everything that came before it. I also love the absolutely minimalistic UI, one of my favourite things in games. This is a staple in the series, but for some reason it seems even more noticeable here.

The return of both the fear mechanic as well as the inventory management, features which were missing from A Machine for Pigs, are very welcome returns, and combined with the new matches mechanic add a satisfying strategic layer to your playthrough. Speaking of playthrough, I was also happy to see the game lures you into a false sense of comfort due to its seemingly open spaces: this initially brings about the idea that Rebirth isn’t as claustrophobic as The Dark Descent for example, but you quickly understand this isn’t entirely the case. Even though you do go through areas that are more expansive (and often Lovecraftian in tone), simply by way of their outdoor nature, things quickly take a turn once you reach indoor spaces. And then this happens, Rebirth can feature some genuinely frightening moments, at times much more so than the original game due to how different the threat engages with you. This was, to me, the game’s biggest accomplishment, and I was surprised it made me feel so tense on occasion.

However, this is kind of where my praises for Rebirth come to a stall. As much as I did enjoy my time with it, there are some choices that were quite frustrating to deal with. One of the main ones is the story. I got really into the narrative early on, and the game not only showers you with small, interesting notes to capture your attention and build up the story, it also instills an aura of mystery during these early stages. I also felt Rebirth finds neat ways to tie itself to the Amnesia lore and the thread of the first game, but as you progress, you begin to realise this is more of a drama than a horror story, which is starkly different from what I thought I was getting into. There are a couple of poignant moments, and I would say the story showcased an overall more mature expression when compared to previous entries. But not only does the narrative suffer from conflicting messaging, it also becomes less interesting as you start to peel away its mystery threads. To make it worse, the main character constantly talking really removes quite a bit of the intended sense of fear Rebirth otherwise tries to instil. In other words, it’s as if you’re alone yet you’re not alone, which isn’t ideal in the horror genre.

Add to that a somewhat abrupt ending, some inconsistent puzzles, and the fact that Rebirth somehow feels longer than it needed to be due to its formulaic nature (as it relies a tad too much on the common ‘something goes wrong only to get fixed and go wrong again’ trope), and I’d have to say my time with Rebirth was somewhat conflicting. What the game does well it does it, I feel, really well, but there are perfectly avoidable design choices that frustrate because they’re hard to understand. When all is said and done however, my overall impression of this reboot is quite positive. After the debacle that was A Machine for Pigs, Rebirth puts Amnesia back on track with a solid - albeit tonally different - offering, one I can quite comfortably recommend for survival horror aficionados. 7.5/10

This game is part of a long list of mediocre horror games which follow the playbook that has become all too familiar,

• you are put in dark areas most of the time
• there is a sanity/fear gauge which tries to artificially create fear even though nothing is actually scary in the game
• the game is made difficult by making resources scarce

Games like Visage, Outlast, etc use the same gameplay style which I personally find very annoying.

This trend in indie horror is reminiscent of hackneyed B grade horror movies.

Rebirth isn't terrible, but it's hard to think of a game in recent memory that has made me this angry. I've waited so long for a worthy follow-up to The Dark Descent, which is one of the most innovative and fun horror games I've ever played. Rebirth not only fails to improve upon The Dark Descent, but many game play mechanics and story telling methods are actually far worse than the decade-old original.

To start with the positives, many of Rebirth's environments still look great. There's some great atmosphere building and a lot of the voice work is really impressive as well. The engine being locked 60 frames a second is a shame, but I'm willing to accept it since there isn't a whole lot of twitch reaction necessary here. The monster designs were also pretty cool, but they don't really compare to TDD's brutes or SOMA's array of monstrosities. Frictional's strengths can still be seen here, you just have to squint really hard to see them.

Unfortunately, there's a lot that gets in the way of this, and the overall experience left me frustrated and unsatisfied. For starters, this game DEMANDS that you see every single piece of lore and collectible. There are the occasional optional items, but oftentimes the game will shove a literal picture of a memory in your face on top of a voice clip that is explaining exactly what Tasi is remembering. It is particularly well written either, and it's very easy to lose track of characters and past story lines in the abundance of information that is being presented to you. The first open area you can explore is a literal "exposition dump", where you can't walk more than 2 feet without another flashback or note to read. The story telling is really clunky, especially when you consider that TDD handled notes and flashbacks far better over a decade ago. It does calm down and present some more visual storytelling in the later chapters of the game, but those early hours are really rough for the story.

Rebirth also has a bad habit of sending you into boring-ass caves with little to no substance to them. The outside environments are great, but where are the terrifying, memorable locations like the ones in the original? Instead of thrilling environments like the Wine Cellar or the Choir, we just see boring cave after boring cave. The alien environments towards the end are an improvement and are easily the most visually stunning of the game, but this is only really about 20% of the game's levels. The caves also have a nasty habit of giving you ZERO light, and you will quickly burn through matches if you aren't careful. What I DON'T like, is that the game will only let you carry 10 matches at any given moment, so you are never rewarded for actually conserving light sources since you can only carry a tiny amount. This same principle was applied to lantern oil as well, which I hate.

This time around, we have a "fear" mechanic instead of TDD's sanity. In theory, it's a decent idea that could work really well, but the unfortunate fact is that fear is far less interesting. Instead of fucking with you visually and making you easier to spot, Fear just ends up blurring your vision and jump-scaring you like an asshole. WTF Frictional, I never imagined that you guys would resort to cheap tricks for your horror. You also have a constant source of anti-fear that you can use by holding X, which is way less interesting than TDD forcing you to continue on your quest in order for you to not go insane.

And then we arrive at Rebirth's biggest sin, which is the fact that it is just not scary. All of the monster encounters are super scripted chases that have zero tension, and even the ones that patrol can be outrun so easily that they never feel like a real threat. There was one interesting encounter that took place in a maze that shifted around you, which was cool as hell. Unfortunately, none of the other encounters never reach that same tension like the ones in TDD. This also isn't helped by the complete lack of a health system. Managing your resources played a huge part in your fear during TDD, but here you just regenerate health after sitting in a corner, and getting attacked by the shadow is essentially inconsequential because of this. Combine this with the lack of a sanity meter and scripted monster sequences, and you have potentially the most boring Frictional monster encounters to date. Even SOMA at least managed to have monsters with spooky visual designs.

There's other minor complaints I have, such as the completely unsatisfying ending (although still better than TDD's), or the rather boring protagonist, but I feel like I've gotten my point across. I'm coming down hard on this is because I know Frictional can and will do better. The Dark Descent and SOMA are two of my favorite horror games ever, and I was really hoping that this would be their Bioshock Infinite (i.e., the perfect blend of story and gameplay mechanics). Instead, I got a half baked story and gameplay that feels more dated than the predecessor. I can see what they are going for, and it isn't entirely irredeemable, but I just don't know what they were thinking when they shipped this. I feel like a crazy person when looking at critical reviews, and I'd hate to live in a world where Frictional just becomes another boring Haunted-House "horror" game developer. I'll still pay attention to Frictional's future projects, but I really hope they learn from the mistakes made here.

Amnesia Rebirth is a game worth playing that makes you feel immersed in a story carefully written full of wiredness and with a main character that feels real and makes you feel compassion for her. You experience the danger and the uncertainty that you encounter at every step taken. It is an experience more than a game, the gameplay isn't hard, to have the most out of it you must let you immersed in the story and put you in the shoes of the character. The main character, Tasi, has an identity and talks frequently and puts your perspective of the world in a subjective view from the eyes and mind of Tasi.

The graphics and performance are great, I had not encountered any bug during my playthrough, everything works well and do not ruin the immersion. In conclusion, it's a game worth playing. Not touching the greatness of SOMA on the story side, but delivers a good experience.

Aftersound:
Wow. Just wow... This is certainly a very creative and impressive gem. Aftersound is a short (it's actually just a simple apartment) mod, with not too much to explore, but digging deeper there is much more. Cryptic puzzles, terrifying ambience, and truly mind-bending subtle narrative storytelling become unearthed (in the vein of Neil Manke's Classic They Hunger Mod). This is a must play and less said the better. Get ready for some very scary moments in this apartment turned escape-room ala P.T.! Easy 5/5 stars.

Monke Island
Perfect length (about 2 hours tops) very amusing tongue in cheek joke-mod. Many of the puzzles are not even puzzles but simply attempts to make jokes (such as a guy asking you to let him out of his prison cell, which isnt even locked) overall this is worth playing due to it's entertainment and creative takes. 4/5 stars.

Reminiscence
Rather large mod of a Castle with various connected wings. access to each part of the castle usually involves a combination of finding the key to the wing and solving puzzles. Quite a few puzzles in this. Plenty of notes with lore. Overall its not bad but it has the occasional bug, jank, and obtuse solution. You'll likely need to resort to a walkthrough at some point. I found playing this to be a bit on the tedious side at times, between some of the puzzles, and some of the bits involved with hiding from enemies (they dont despawn in this mod) The mod seems to be an attempt to be a bit more like the original game, albeit with mixed results imo. more new resources would have been nice. it feels like a rehash of the base games textures, models, enemies, etc. But at least it's fairly scary at times (quite a bit of stuff will be chasing you at times) 3/5 stars.

The Cursed Tomb
Short mod that is a series of about 3 maps. Has some lore building notes and several puzzles. Started out with a decent enough premise but overall wouldn't say this was worth playing as it just Was not very engaging, interesting or substantial. Wouldn't recommend. 2/5 stars.

Madness In Nowhere
This rubbed me wrong right from the start... Lazy usage of props (like using rocks as 'pillows' stacking several tables together to make larger structures) and in general way too much junk everywhere. There are no lore notes whatsoever, and while the maps has lots of places you can explore, other than for the sheer challenge of seeing where you can get to, there isn't much incentive to do so. another headwind to enjoying the exploration in this mod is it simultaneously has oodles of invisible walls to stifle your attempt to do so (really frustrating to try and place that plank, crawl up some rocks only to realize you aren't actually allowed to go to that alcove or whatnot you see in the distance) Judging by a speedrun, I managed to get almost halfway through it before running into a gamebreaking bug for whatever reason (the map simply stopped loading, and i fell into The Pit of Nowhere) Ugh. Didnt enjoy. YMMV. 2/5 stars.

okay this was fun and all, i liked the story (even though it had problems) and got into it way more than i could with soma, but damn some of the game design decisions seem to not mesh well... I would literally just rush into a room and scout out the torch sconces and candles and try to light as much as i could, then actually look around to see what was in the room rather than slowly creep through it or anything a sane person might do. I might avoid monsters (when there was one) but once i learned there wasn't a penalty for dying I'd just run into one if it was annoying and respawn basically knowing it would be gone... Usually, I'll easily be pulled into whatever simon-says a game will have me to do, but by the point i had gotten a lantern and then seeing it had different 'ammo types' (why?) i wasn't messing around with that junk, as there wasn't much point in doing so. same is true with a lot of sconces.

I did plenty of embarrassing things in this game in my attempts to solve puzzles in ways other than they were intended (i tried to roll a bunch of barrels on that weak ledge, then finally discovered the cannon... and the time i stacked random junk on that moving platform with the pulley took me forever to figure out what was even going on there, haha) part of that was due to my playing of the original amnesia , i figured solutions like those could work. and evne though i wasn't very good at it at times, i did like the puzzle elements! What's strange is that while a lot of this all felt weak, it all actually made for a good experience. I guess i'm just able to self-identify better with a pregnant woman more than a webcam on a chunk of d34db33f...

still dang. pretty cool ideas here. shifting between worlds. alien cosmic horror. some cool connections in the lore between the games and expansion on the original. just a bit of a shame its not more solid writing. had plenty of jump scares moments and a lot of eerie moments, but the game was a winner i feel despite it flaws because it was just such an interesting romp in such a strange reality.

For a few days after playing it, i kept having more thoughts about the lore and backstory... which is deeper than it appears, maybe:
(SPOILERS BELOW:)

It seems a common thing that some people imagine (myself included and it was one of my bigger let downs with the games ending in that it did NOT go this route) is that Anastasia/Tasi is caught in some sort of simulation and being 'tortured' to produce vitae. I think this was 100% something that was actually baked into the writing but for whatever reason they didn't go this (and maybe other routes) there is no solid case for it, but there are subtle hints here and there as well as it simply fits the game too well. The greatest hint is what the main antagonist (arguably) the queen says. She describes that the child staying with her provides Hope (and the formula for producing vitate is Fear/Pain, Amnesia/Forgetfulness, Hope) stasi refers to her unborn child as 'her heart' and clearly represents her hopes and dreams for a better future. I kept thinking about this Vitae harvesting process and how the main protagonist really would fit well into this vitae cycle You basically play the game in a non-synchronous loop, appearing on the plane later, then have flashbacks... This is a very confusing aspect of the game, because its not quite clear as you are playing it and aftwards where you are in the sequence of events (possibly deliberate, and the confusion works, but I blame clumsy writing) pondering this further I realized the game is a metaphor for buddhist/hindu concepts of dukkha and samsara.

"Saṃsāra is a Sanskrit/Pali word that means "world". It is also the concept of rebirth and "cyclicality of all life, matter, existence", a fundamental belief of most Indian religions. Popularly, it is the cycle of death and rebirth.Saṃsāra is sometimes referred to with terms or phrases such as transmigration, karmic cycle, reincarnation or Punarjanman, and "cycle of aimless drifting, wandering or mundane existence"

Whoa. The first hint is the name of the game: Amnesia: Rebirth. The second hint was the Vitae collection process which is very similar to the notion of suffering in the hindu/buddhist view.

"Saṃsāra is rooted in the term Saṃsṛ (संसृ), which means "to go round, revolve, pass through a succession of states, to go towards or obtain, moving in a circuit". A conceptual form from this root appears in ancient texts as saṃsaraṇa, which means "going around through a succession of states, birth, rebirth of living beings and the world", without obstruction."

Well gee, this sounds a lot like the main gimmick of this game which is using your traveler's compass to pass through walls into the netherworld... Your compass is a gift from a demigod and tuned specifically to this one netherworld, allowing you access there. One of the puzzles and much of the imagery clearly depict this technology as a circuit

Further, the concept fits well in other ways with this game... You are slowly mutating into a monster, a ghul or perhaps another nether-creature such as a wandering ghost?

"saṃsāra cosmology consisted of five realms through which wheel of existence recycled. This included hells (niraya), hungry ghosts (pretas), animals (tiryak), humans (manushya), and gods (devas, heavenly).In latter traditions, this list grew to a list of six realms of rebirth, adding demi-gods (asuras),which were included in gods realm in earlier traditions."

Perhaps the harvesters are hungry ghosts (they often mention their hunger) who torment the humans. I wonder if perhaps stasi is somewhere in between that of devolving into such a creature and remaining human? It seems every time she 'dies' she is on the brink of become a full blown hungry ghost, yet she keeps coming back, much to the surprise of one of the other hungry ghost characters Leon De Vries ("You're still alive, how can that be?") Empress Tihana is some sort of blue-skinned god or demigod, complete with third eye (as depicted by bother avatar and all constructed idols/depictions of it)

There is much more i'm sure but it seems pretty clear to me that whoever wrote the backstory of this was somewhat familiar and inspired by some of these concepts, but they were only taken so far into the storyline and/or possibly cut. What a shame.

It’s been over a decade since Amnesia: The Dark Descent had us castle rambling and light source scrambling, and Frictional Games must be intimately aware of the horror legacy they birthed in 2010. Scratch that, they are – I’ve read the interviews. Not only do we owe a decade of first-person horror innovation to the landmark release, but you could say the whole modern landscape of YouTube and streaming entertainment evolved from the protozoa of user reactions to the game. Call that a second horror legacy, if you will.

The final COVID variant.

Well, time has seen fit to transplant us all into 2021 where even P.T. is becoming an old hat horror influence now. Those nights of playing The Dark Descent as the only Steam game in my library on a Macbook Air 2011 and trackpad are well and truly behind me. The natural question is ‘how has Amnesia been ‘rebirthed’ for 2020?’ I knew in my bones that at least part of the answer would be that it’s rebirthed in SOMA’s image, Frictional’s mid-decade release revelation.

I wouldn’t hesitate to call 2015’s SOMA my pick for all-time favourite. I’ve played it over two dozen times, and I find it intoxicating each and every time. Enough has been said about its existential horror. Still, it’s actually how its narrative plays out with an absurdist scenario that is fundamentally as beautiful as it is horrifying that makes it leaps and bounds better than almost anything else out there for me. A strong statement, I know.

Amnesia Infinite - "There's always an amnesiac."

Rebirth too opts to be interesting. You know this the moment you step out of a plane wreckage into the blinding, bullying sun of the Algerian desert instead of a dark, claustrophobic corridor that is the mainstay of all horror games now. It doesn’t last long of course, but Rebirth uses the promise of a return to brilliant light to better pace proceedings with moments of respite. There’s certainly a tease with a one-off mechanic of having to seek the shade to escape the sun’s glare that they’d plumb the depths of this environment of its horror, but it’s hard to convey the horrors of searing heat on your skin and dehydration. It’s much easier to use such an environment to amplify feelings of isolation.

The most interesting aspect of Rebirth is revealed early on in the story, but I think I’ll keep tight-lipped about it regardless. It introduces a surprising mechanic that is surely a first for games and gives proceedings an emotional centre of mass rarely seen. It’s not only the first time it’s been done, but with competition, I think it would still rank the best.

The big question for me was what post-SOMA Amnesia narrative would look like. Was there anything it could explore as fundamental as the existential horror of that underwater pilgrimage? Yes, surprisingly. Rebirth thrives on its themes of pain and empire. It allows you to draw implications naturally yourself between its parallel stories. The way it threads grounded, personal stories with the more spectacular to find meaning is frankly unparalleled. The way it challenges your expectations of the environment means a lot of rich textual discourse will come out of Rebirth’s narrative, I hope.

This should be the accompanying image for Wikipedia's 'colonialism' entry.

You play as Anastasie “Taxi” Trianon, an engineering drafter who wakes up alone in a plane with amnesia, of course, and an unknown affliction after she, her husband, and team crash land in the desert on their way to colonial French Sudan. It’s soon revealed she’s mysteriously retracing her own steps past the Kasbah walls, caves, and oases. If you’ve played The Dark Descent before you’ll know a bit of how this works. Periodically you’ll be interrupted by flashbacks, only this time you’re much more cleverly dynamically afforded them the moment you see something notable. Sometimes this even includes picking up an item or stumbling upon something off the beaten path. It’s a great incentive to explore.

What might be surprising to many just looking at it is how direct a sequel this really is. What I assumed would just be a narrative device, and musical callbacks in common actually builds a rich universe with The Dark Descent despite being officially ‘standalone.’ It’s the kind of world that has tiers of understanding. Many details are open to interpretation and yet open a wiki, and you’ll be assaulted with a hundred clarifications and intriguing lore. That might sound awful to some, but I found it rewarding. If your memories of The Dark Descent are as sketchy as mine, a replay either before or after is well worth it.

Rebirth has gorgeous environmental design and detail for the small core team it had, but it won’t blow you with its sheer fidelity. Many textures, particularly outside seem quite low resolution and there’s a hard 60 FPS cap for PC players. When Rebirth is able to better hide these deficits in the dark, it really comes into its own.

These should be in a museum...

Where the game might invoke ire is for steering towards SOMA in its embrace of horror more so in narrative and world flavour over Dark Descent’s more successful stab at atmospheric unease. A replay of the latter still holds up, exposing you to both oppressive, thick darkness and sound design that renders you helplessly paranoid at all times. SOMA and Rebirth are both more interested in having their protagonists centrally involved in a cinematic thrill ride with overhanging mystery, and in Rebirth’s case a real emotional core. Whilst Frictional’s narrative efforts have clearly matured over a decade and off the back of SOMA, the moment to moment horror outside of its thematic horror has been lost somewhere along the way.

Can you have both? I think both SOMA and Rebirth could have had their cake and eaten it here. In trying to get to the bottom of this by reading through interviews, one thing mentioned is a ‘scenario approach’ to Rebirth’s design. This makes one-offs like having to avoid direct sunlight at the beginning make all the more sense in retrospect. My complaint here is that this intentional design has inadvertently made it overly transparent – like being able to see the caliber of a watch. You know when you’re in danger and when you’re not. It can still catch you off guard, but the emphasis is on the thrills rather than the chills.

Unlike SOMA, which had such a divide in its narrative and monster horror that a popular mod eventually became an official ‘safe mode,’ perhaps spooked by this, Frictional have this time more firmly twined their narrative and monsters to be inseparable. Jump scares can be untraditional, and scripting is excellent, however much again this is all a bit transparent for 2020. Stealth mechanics haven’t evolved all that much either aside from your ability to go prone and certain monsters being able to sniff you out. There’s still that welcome desperation to it all, but it’s undermined by failure not coming at much of a cost. Whilst it’s nicely narratively incorporated, being respawned so close by with the enemy plucked out of existence isn’t particularly terrifying.

In need of a cup of tea.

You’ll be much more scared of the dark. As with The Dark Descent, ‘fear’ is something that needs to be controlled. You gain it by being engulfed in darkness for too long or by staring directly at monsters, dead bodies, etc, and bring it level using available lights, and either a lantern or matches. Tasi is very sensitive to the dark with her affliction and will start jump scare-esque hallucinating within what seems like mere seconds at times. Whilst that might read like it would grate, navigating the environment does become more engaging and tense for it. There’s a nice balance between the use of the lantern and matches too. Matches are short term alone, but the best long-term solution if you have something to light. The lantern is the go-to long-term solution, but burns through oil quickly so should be a last resort. It leads to very natural management of resources and switching between the two. The consumable laudanum from The Dark Descent is again teased, but you’ll only find the one.

As with all past Frictional games, the world is very tactile with you being able to freely rotate and throw almost any object. Some larger objects require two-handed manipulation, which translates to you needing to physically move instead of just a gesture of your mouse. Rebirth doesn’t try to be a perfect simulation like a Half Life: Alyx, however. Wine bottles often don’t smash, and sledgehammers fall with the tinny impact of a regular hammer. What it does lend itself to is puzzles that feel almost as grounded and immersive as such a VR game. A very light inventory system allows for more flexile room to room puzzles, and most puzzle pursuits are nicely grounded in the world. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some game logic at play, of course. Whether you’d really be up to building an explosive from scratch in such a perilous situation, I don’t know. The best details of all are in Tasi’s reactivity to the world. As a protagonist, she’s both believable and excellent company. Details like blurring vision as you look down at a drop and hearing your heartbeat as you prepare for death-defying leap only add to the grounding the tactile world provides.

Above all else, Rebirth knows how to tug at the heartstrings. The parallel story that plays out in Tasi’s stunning hand drawings will destroy any cold heart. Rebirth feels an overwhelmingly pessimistic and heartbreaking play at times, but just like SOMA, it presents some chance for optimism at its end; some antidote to its horrors. That’s the part I always loved about SOMA, and I now do about Rebirth. This is storytelling done right. It’s just a shame it couldn’t quite keep The Dark Descent’s all-pervading atmosphere along for the ride.

I was really intrigued about the 'Adventure mode' after really enjoying the 'Safe Mode' on the amazing SOMA. Yes, is valid to want to play a game like this without the scares, just for the plot, ambientation and aesthetics... but it turns out that simply removing some enemies and making others not-agressive doesn't work for some game.

The 'non-scary' adventure mode doesn't really work on Amnesia: Rebirth. Why you ask? Well... I wrote a full article about it! (it's in spanish, as usual).

Amnesia Rebirth Review

The 3rd game of this series and after Machine for pigs being a collosal disappointment rebirth is back to being what the first Amnesia was. I thought they probably wouldn't be able to top the first one but i think they did for Amnesia Rebirth. Im gonna go into some mild spoilers otherwise i could say the same thing i did for my Amnesia dark descent review. Im not gonna spoil the main thing the story is about though.

Story

So Amnesia Rebirth you play a female main character her name is Tasi she is an engineer drafter which actually makes the things she does in the game make sense like being able to do puzzles and fix things. So Tasi is with her team and husband Salim on a plane flying to French Sudan and the plane malfunctions causing it to crash leaving everyone stranded in the desert of Algeria. She wakes up finds herself in crashed plane but the crash had already happened but for some reason shes there and she has Amnesia and can't remember anything. She steps out the plane and sees luggage and stuff and letters this causes her memory to come pack in bits and pieces. Everywhere she goes she sees letters and recalls events of her team and her life with her husband and what was happening when they were stranded. So shes trying to find out where her team is. It gets crazier when she succumbs to the darkness at one point and she blacks out, but somethings happening to her she notices the veins on her arms are popping out and her skins going red but it goes back to normal. It gets more mysterious when she notices this amulet on her wrist that lighting up guiding her to rifts in the desert allowing her to past through these rifts to new locations and more importantly this ancient extinct civilization she finds herself thrown into by the rifts. After she returns back to the desert she remembers something very important and this is her entire means of escaping this place and surviving.

Gameplay

Its back to being Amnesia with slight changes the sanity mechanic is back and even more reason to stay out of darkness. This time around if your in the darkness for to long you succumb to a darkness something that you lose control over something that's changing inside Tasi. You know your in danger to succumbing when Tasi starts seeing flashes of images so you have to quickly calm her down by staying under lights otherwise your last chance is pushing both the sticks to keep her from losing control over herself. In this game the new thing is being able to light a match so you can see while traversing through very dark areas, you still light lamps and candles and other stuff. The lantern also comes back with the oils so you have to carefully use it like Dark Descent. The inventory is back as well along with laudanum healing items but there's a consequence using them which i won't spoil although i don't think it effects anything. Item manipulation is more important to pick up items and throw stuff because items are inside things like vases and boxes. You can hide by pressing one of the sticks in and she'll like get all the way down instead of being crouched, so enemies have a harder time seeing you. If your caught by a creature you have to push both sticks to break free otherwise you'll die or black out.

The clever puzzles return not as clever as The Dark Descent but its still in the same vain as it. Puzzles and stuff you have to find aren't just laid out like it was in Machine for Pigs. You can also mix items again in your inventory for puzzles so i was glad this was all back.

The creatures

The creatures are again used very well they are used way more than Dark Descent but again they are used in clever areas and i feel like they have a bigger purpose in this one there's more story to the monsters and what they are.

The locations

All the locations are great in this game especially the ancient civilization. Its like alien, discovering these ancient life forms and there technology. There also new stuff like going underwater. One area in water where you had to swim and go underwater and hold your breath hiding from a creature it was great. The desert has a cool thing where you have to stay out of the sun otherwise you'll burn so you have to stay in the shade.

Negatives

There are some negatives in this one like when you to actually hide from some creatures there's not really good hiding places there's nowhere that actually feels safe so if can just be a gamble at times praying the creature doesn't go that direction. Later on though it becomes a bit better though but i got caught a lot early on. Another negative is you can't die in the game so it kinda ruins it a bit, lets say you get trapped in darkness or a monster catches you black out and Tasi loses control but you skip ahead passing the area or at times just going back a bit. It didn't ruin it for me i didn't want to keep dying on purpose or getting caught purposely and not being careful but it could ruin it for some people.

Another negative some things in the story might become repetitive there's so many times in the story where your close to reaching your destination and something collapses and you fall through something having to find some other way to reach your destination. I thought that could have been done more creatively. The soundtracks not as good as the first. Last thing is there is an annoying enemy that if it sees you, and you can be across the room it will pull you in and suck the life out of you.  Its reminiscent  to the Dementors in Harry Potter they are very cool just annoying to avoid. These are small things doesn't effect it to much.

Final Thoughs

The series as a whole from Dark Descent to rebirth these games are great and im glad that i played them. I loved Dark Descent but i loved Rebirth surprisingly way more than the first. I think its better in all aspects besides soundtrack and puzzles. This girl goes through hell its like damn tomb raider all the stuff this girl goes through trying to survive and her whole purpose to surviving all this stuff. The story is fantastic and unlike Dark Descent where voice acting was mainly in memories and letters Tasi talks in game a lot so it establishes her way more and makes you feel for her so much. When you keep getting pieces of her memories and gets grim and messed up learning about her life. The ancient locations are awesome and so damn cool they did a great job on the level designs and all the locations really. My favorite thing about these games is the sanity and fear stuff. Its so unique and different trying to stay out of the dark and use all your matches and your lanterns wisely. It also references the first ones events but that a lot of stuff that spoils the first so i won't mention exactly what. You don' t run and hide a whole lot to the point it gets boring all the creatures are used in great moments there not just thrown in to be annoying. While i don't think its better than Alien Isolation. Alien Isolation just has way more great stuff to it with the dynamic soundtrack and the Aliens Ai that adapts it and also genuinely terrified me but i think Amnesia is probably 2nd behind it and Dark Descent right under. Im talking like 1st person horrors i think these are the top 3. I highly recommend Rebirth and Dark Descent if you love Survival horrors. My final score for Amnesia Rebirth is a solid 10.

TL;DR at the bottom.

Amnesia Rebirth is a game that while enjoyable, doesn't bring anything new to the table; however, that doesn't mean you should write it off.

The gameplay is your standard explore your environment to solve puzzles; occasionally run or hide from enemies segments. From what I experienced the checkpoints for how far back you go if you die are not horribly punishing. Your useable resources; the matches and oil, are handed out much more sparingly and should be used as such. I found that the beginning of the game seemed a bit harsher with the handouts then in the middle or end but never ran out of resources myself.

I found the puzzles to be doable within a reasonable amount of time. Memorable enough for me to recall a few of them now instead of solving them and immediately forgetting about it. Nothing that really makes you stop and think with some hard problem solving, but I don't think the game would have improved with harder puzzles so the difficulty for them is good.

I found the story was interesting and built upon the story already laid down by the previous games well enough. If you're someone who really enjoys the story in games, you'll enjoy the notes and environmental clues around the world. Don't get me wrong, the story is nothing ground breaking and some things can be a bit predictable but I still enjoyed the story that I experienced. Overall I liked the world and characters that were presented to me.

The graphics are fine. I never found myself looking at a texture or model and thinking that I didn't like it or that it looked dated. I can't really recall a time where the game lagged to the point of me even making a real note of it so it runs well enough.

One thing I was a little disappointed with is the enemies didn't really stand out to me. They look like things I've seen before in other media, but when around were still off-putting enough to put me on edge. I was also a bit disappointed that that the location kept changing so much. It didn't make me feel... immersed? In a place, since I could easily get flung into another.

TL;DR

Overall for $30 it's a familiar experience with a different coat of paint, decent survival horror experience. If you simply enjoy the gaming style of survival horror; hiding from enemies, solving puzzles, managing your sanity, or enjoying a story, then this game will be what your looking for.

A sequel should improve upon the first product. Amnesia: Rebirth does not do this. Perhaps it gets better later but from other reviews I've read, it probably does not. Too many scripted sequences. "Don't play this game to win. Immerse yourself." says the first screen when you boot the game. But you can't immerse yourself when the character keeps talking, comments on every single thing and especially when the game takes the control away from the player. It tries to be too cinematic.

The flashing images and startling jumpscares are annoying. I did not expect this from a company like Frictional Games.

I loved the first game. I loved SOMA. Both of them had amazing first impressions on me. This game does not. References to the first game are amazing but that's about the only positive thing I can think of right now... Matches also run out WAY too quickly, though the developers are planning to patch this, so don't mind this last part if it gets better with subsequent patches.

The game expects you to care about its characters. How does it do this? "You are this woman. This is your husband. These are your crewmates. You care about them. You do." No. I do not care about them. The protagonist does. The game wants me to find them. To learn what happened to them. I don't want this. The protagonist does. This is not the correct way to make the player care about characters.

Also, the 60 FPS cap. While it does get tolerable after a while, this is not acceptable for a PC release in 2020. You "technically" can remove the cap, but it does not give you more frames, it doubles the frames you get, which results in a very stuttery experience.