Amnesia: Rebirth in my eyes is a criminally underrated horror game. Sure, the puzzles and level design can be awkward and the story can feel a bit all over the place.

However, the core of this game is rock-solid and really engrossing. I was scared shitless at many points throughout and I always had the feeling of barely making it. I don't know how much of the tension was just an illusion but it absolutely worked - and using matchsticks for light that quickly burn away and can be hard to come by is a cruel but brilliant mechanic.

It doesn't just get the scares and atmosphere right though, no: Tasi Trianon, the protagonist of this story and its beating heart, is such a wonderful and fascinating character. I love how much the game grounds you in her experience both as a pregnant woman as well as someone who's suffered a terrifying loss. The actress absolutely nails the performance too.
So much of one's enjoyment hinges on whether or not you can empathize with her and I certainly did.

And honestly, even though the puzzles can feel awkward, I never felt like they were too obscure to solve - just requiring you to patiently experiment.

This was my first Amnesia game, and especially towards the end I was pleasantly surprised, baffled at the ratings too.

7,5/10

severely frustrating. somewhere within this i can see the game that is far and away my favorite in the Amnesia series up to this point. the settings are wonderful, the heavier puzzle elements are back, the story with the characters within are the most interesting they have been and so on. the issue comes when the execution of all of these elements are botched almost every step of the way, usually in the most baffling fashion.

if i were to try to get to the core of the issues with the game, a line could be drawn from a majority of them to a sense of excess. we have an interesting story and set of characters as previously mentioned but its tarnished by constant interruptions, forced flashbacks, slow walk cinematic bits, and anything of the sort to rip you from playing the game. complaints about the lack of monster/enemy interaction in A Machine for Pigs seems to have been addressed but you soon realize how much they overdid it. not going to be scientific or exact in my estimate but it truly feels like you are dealing with enemies (whether that's by hide and seeking or in a scripted chase sequence) a good 30-40% more than in The Dark Descent. add in that the game generally feels like it's an hour or two too long on top of these things and it's just too fucking much.

i appreciate that they were trying some new things here but it feels like more of a half step than i was wishing for. maybe if this swung for the fences a bit more with massive changes it could've come together. The Bunker looks to be more along those lines, hopefully.

Shook at how many stupid ass notes n disruptive cutscenes u gotta read and watch. They were so excited to cook up that boring ass story that they forgot to make it an actual game. Fuck. I'm not against reading n notes n cutscenes in stuff but video game narratives can be so strong bc of how you personally interact with them thru the gameplay. Get OVER urself

EDIT: I def was coping rly hard at this game, I feel I was a lil too harsh. Definitely not my cup of tea but might be someone else's if they want super story focused horror.

Left me pretty underwhelmed. After the first hours I was quite positive, I liked the desert setting, how the mystery gets established, and the exploration up until that point, the highlight being the fortress, in which the player is stuck in for a while. That place captured what made the first Amnesia great I think, a single vast location you have to make sense of, with a hostile presence lurking in the dark, keeping you on edge and a great sense of progression in exploring every nook and cranny. It also incorporates the strengths of past Frictional games, most important their unique physics based interaction with the environment and puzzles that make use of that.
After the fortress, though, the game kinda starts to stumble for me. The story gets convoluted and unfocused, which is not helped by the more and more disjointed levels/locations the player traverses through. The sense of exploration I got in the fortress section got lost on me, as well as the story, so the latter half felt more and more like a slog to play through. It also didn't help that the presence of monsters became too dominant, so they became less and less frightening and more of an annoyance.
The unique death mechanic, the game has, also allowed me to skip multiple sections of the game, which made a few challenging situations pointless and rather random. The goal of that and the more disjointed locations were probably to make the player feel lost and losing control, but that didn't really work for me, unfortunately, I just wasn't as immersed as I was in past Frictional titles.

Well, I never expected to be playing a game as a heavily pregnant woman before...

Very compelling story! It's just a shame the gameplay is so linear and that most of the horror is made up of scripted sequences...

I personally found Tasi to be the most well-rounded & most rootable protagonist of the series, and through that personal determination to protect & rescue her new baby easily helped Rebirth have the most engaging finale to any of the games so far, including The Bunker.

The Amnesia series is always fantastic with suspense though, and Rebirth is no exception. There are plenty levels where you're evading something or being chased through a series of tight hallways. However, I did find the tension drop a ton whenever I'd get "caught" and then... respawn? And the threat would just no longer exist? I'm confused as to whether there were any instances of failing or dying, and it just removed the tension in a lot of the later half...

Still, that's the thing with this series. You've got the more compelling story-led games (Rebirth and A Machine For Pigs), that are let down in the gameplay-department; and then the much more involved and replayable horror-focused ones (The Dark Descent and The Bunker) that are more convoluted or just lighter in the story department. To be honest, I've enjoyed them all! I don't think any are particularly bad. I just wish they'd manage a game that's BOTH highly involved in the gameplay AND intriguing with the story.

Overall rating: 6.5/10

As much as I personally loved Rebirth, I can see why a lot of others didn't like it as much

CONS:
-There is a noticeable amount of visual bugs which ruin the immersion.
-The forced cutscenes are kind of invasive when I was trying to explore, especially at the beginning of the game.
-Some people may find the breastfeeding scene uncomfortable to watch.
-I much preferred tinderboxes as opposed to the matches that you use in this game.
-Tasi talking to herself throughout the game sometimes ruins the immersion.

The reviews others left on the game ended up being a lot harsher than I expected, and I think that may be partially caused by the fact that this was the first release in this series in a very long time. In other words, I think some people are biased by nostalgia.

PROS:
-Puzzles are for the most part satisfying and interesting, taking a different approach than a lot of games do when it comes to making puzzles.
-Some of the music was reminiscent of the previous games which was a nice touch.
-The game looks beautiful, from the desert to the alien environments.
-Custom stories allow the community to create endless content.
-Makka
-Lots of lore which connects deeply to Amnesia: The Dark Descent

[Played on SteamDeck (verified), batterylife wasn't great, but it ran perfectly and I had no issues with it.]

The best part of the first two Amnesia games, in my opinion, was piecing together the mystery alongside your character. I unfortunately didn't have this same experience with Rebirth, I figured out nearly the whole "mystery" not even half-way through my playthrough. The atmosphere was really good, the environments were interesting, puzzles were a mixed bag, and I liked the monster designs. Overall it's not a bad game, but I'd rather play the other games in the series to be honest.

so sad. i wanted to play this so bad, i was so excited; i loved soma, the bunker was too scary for me to play (/pos), & the narrative/plot looked right up my alley.

sadly, i just think amnesia games might not be for me. the lighting mechanic was really bad.. they give you a VERY limited amount of matches/lamp oil, but she freaks out if she's in the dark. i literally tested it, lit a ceiling lamp then stood in the corner & it started to do the crunchy audio cues & wobbly camera. the jump scares felt really cheesy & as much as i wanted to be engrossed in the story, the poor design choices didn't do it for me. :( very sad, just not for me.

I just don't think I'm the target market for Amnesia games to be honest. I just don't vibe with the design or gameplay of these games, and they always feel like they drag on way too long for me to actually enjoy. I never managed to finish the original Dark Descent because of this, even though I've tried to complete it at least 3 times. I only just managed to scrape through SOMA by virtue of its great story, and the fact that you can just turn enemies off if you want to - which I did at some point while playing that game to try and get through it quicker. This game is very much like the Dark Descent, but with more set pieces and better graphics, and even though the story was interesting, I just couldn't bring myself to slog through it. I'm sure it's great, but I'm not gonna be the one to see it through. I think I'm done with Frictional Games.

You wouldn't scare a pregnant lady, would you?

Frictional does it again because they're really good at what they do. A shockingly horrifying game with great visuals and even better sound design. I like the gameplay improvements from Dark Descent, matches instead of tinder boxes and more variety in oil quantities, the monsters are much smarter than the servants from DD. There is something about the ghuls that I find horrifying and I can't put my finger on it. I would've liked if this game spent more time in desert as the 2nd half of the game is mostly in Otherworld locations, the map design felt lacking in those parts. Good story too with excellent performances, I really felt for Tasi and her journey.

Full of really fantastic stuff despite its flaws. I was interested to play through this after seeing the mixed reception it had (Frictional even wrote a post-mortem on their site going over how surprised they were by some of the push-back) and, minus a few significant caveats, I ended up mostly loving it.

When it comes to the good stuff, the story here is absolutely the star. It's a bit overstuffed in places - the expedition cast definitely needed trimming - but Frictional managed to find a solid balance between the dual plotlines of what happened to the crew and exploring the world of the Gate-Builders. I was afraid that the game would reveal too much about that second piece and rob the franchise of its opacity, but I think they mostly nailed it in terms of explaining elements of the bigger picture without robbing the setting of too much mystery. I also love the alien world aesthetically - that first image of the crumbled statue holding the orb next to an ever-eclipsed emerald sun is gonna stick with me for a while, I think.

Gameplay-wise, the results are mixed. Tasi's fear mechanic isn't a bad idea per se, but the lack of a death mechanic defuses the tension too often, especially in some of the later levels. The level design also feels like a misguided compromise between TDD and AMFP - I prefer the hub-based vibe of TDD's world, but beyond a handful of excellent sections, it feels like Frictional followed the example of AMFP and went with a more linear design. It does work for a few levels, but the back half of the game definitely could have used a better balance between the two styles.

With that in mind, as a horror game, I'm not sure it totally works. There's plenty of wonderful atmosphere and tension in its best moments, but I actually found a few of the later sequences to be more frustrating than scary. The stealth sequences aren't all bad - I especially liked the Hunting Grounds setpiece - but every time I think about the end-game sections with Ghosts I can feel my jaw clench in remembered rage. The Ghouls work for me just fine, even if they aren't too interesting visually, but the Ghosts have an infuriating teleportation mechanic that borks the player's ability to navigate those sequences safely. If those segments had been redesigned/reconfigured, I wouldn't have as much of an issue, but they ultimately took the experience down a notch or two for me.

Now, on to the greatest point of contention for this game: Tasi Trianon. The general direction of someone's feelings toward Rebirth seem dependent on whether they found her and her plight empathetic. Personally, I think she's fantastic - I teared up a few times learning about the backstory of her family, and seeing how that informed her decisions in the main plot helped to make her one of the best written horror protagonists I've seen in a while. She's clever, driven, and I never felt like her dialogue became so frequent as to be annoying like some other folks have stated. I admit that the "rub your pregnant belly to not be scared" mechanic was goofy, but at the same time, I felt like it did ground me much more fully in her physical experience as the game progressed. Not to be too galaxy-brained, but I get a lot of casual misogyny vibes from the reviews that virulently despise Tasi. Part of it is probably because playing as her requires a willingness to engage with a game that doesn't shy away from what being a pregnant woman in these circumstances would feel like. Other women protagonists in horror games can feel interchangeable with male characters sometimes - i.e. Ripley in Alien: Isolation or Jill Valentine in Resident Evil - and Frictional seems much more committed to fully embracing the interiority and physicality of Tasi's pregnancy in ways that other developers would shy away from. Has there been another game that includes a breastfeeding scene that's as tasteful as the one here? Have any other games had you play as a woman desperate for help after her water breaks? Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't be surprised if the gaming sphere's inherent sexism is part of what led to this game's reputation being as contentious as it is.

In short: it's not perfect, but this deserves a hell of a lot more credit than it gets in the Amnesia discourse. I'd love to see Frictional take the more hands-on storytelling here and mix it with The Bunker's gameplay evolutions whenever they get back to this series. They've built up the foundations for a truly special experience down the road, and I can't wait to see it.

First and foremost - it's not scary and has no atmosphere. This game is a parasite, trying to look like a Dark Descent prequel. You can't die in this game and - surprise - IT'S A SPOILER TO A PLOT TWIST. The plot is predictable, the gameplay is old, just like the engine and the graphics. And also this game has a lot of all those letters and notes to read and you need to do it to understand what's going on until you get the whole idea. SOMA had all those digital journals, but they weren't mandatory to understand it all.

Recentemente, foi lançado o jogo Amnesia: The Bunker, e eu, que não tinha jogado o trabalho anterior da Frictional, decidi testá-lo e completá-lo. O jogo em questão é Amnesia: Rebirth, que é uma sequência de The Dark Descent.

Logo de início, é evidente que um dos trabalhos mais incríveis da equipe de desenvolvimento é a ambientação e a atmosfera do jogo. Ele se passa nos desertos da Argélia nos anos 1930 e mergulha os jogadores em um mundo sombrio, onde o desconhecido espreita em cada canto.tudo nesse jogo contribui para uma experiência de terror incrível, desde os gráficos, a iluminação, a trilha sonora e até mesmo a história. Criam uma sensação de tensão constante, fazendo com que você se sinta genuinamente ameaçado e desconfortável em vários momentos ao jogar o game assim como foi nossos games anteriores da nossa querida Frictional, os caras realmente são fera em fazer isso.

A jogabilidade de Amnesia: Rebirth concentra-se na exploração e na resolução de quebra-cabeças, algo que era muito comum em seu jogo anterior, The Dark Descent. Os jogadores devem encontrar pistas, manipular objetos e usar táticas de furtividade, frequentemente com a ameaça de monstros. O jogo também oferece uma opção interessante para aqueles que não gostam de terror, o que é um tanto controverso, afinal, se você joga Amnesia, é justamente pelo seu terror e pelos outros elementos que compõem o jogo, como a jogabilidade de mover objetos, os quebra-cabeças, entre outros. No entanto, essa opção ela é mais focada na narrativa e nos quebra-cabeças é intrigante e bem-vinda, pois permite que pessoas que têm muito medo se acostumem com o jogo e aprendam a lidar com as situações que ele apresenta.

Uma outra adição notável é o medidor de medo de Tasi, a protagonista, que influencia sua sanidade mental. Dependendo da situação, ela pode entrar em pânico, afetando sua capacidade de se mover ou até mesmo distorcendo sua percepção da realidade. Essa mecânica acrescenta uma camada extra de tensão, incentivando os jogadores a equilibrar a exploração com a necessidade de preservar a sanidade da personagem. Essa mecânica de jogo torna a experiência muito mais imersiva e se encaixa perfeitamente no contexto do jogo. Em qualquer outro jogo de terror mais frenético, isso poderia ser prejudicial e até mesmo chato, mas aqui funciona muito bem.

Amnesia: Rebirth oferece uma experiência de terror incrível. O jogo como um todo é muito bom e eu adorei. Fiquei grudado na minha cadeira do início ao fim, e foram cerca de 8-9 horas de gameplay para concluir a história, o que fiz em duas jogadas em mais ou menos dois dias. Com sua ambientação sombria, narrativa cativante e mecânicas de jogo bem executadas, Amnesia: Rebirth é uma sequência digna do amado Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Se você é fã do gênero de horror como eu, não pode deixar de jogar qualquer trabalho da nossa querida Frictional, que é uma desenvolvedora incrível e faz um trabalho excepcional.

Portanto, se você busca uma excelente experiência de terror, Amnesia: Rebirth certamente merece um lugar em sua coleção de jogos. E, para mim, foi melhor do que Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, que, apesar de ter gostado, me deixou um pouco decepcionado.

Prós:
- Atmosfera imersiva e tensa de terror.
- Narrativa bem construída.
- Quebra-cabeças interessantes.
- Design de níveis incrível.

Contras:
- Jogabilidade um pouco limitada.
- O jogo demora um pouco para engrenar.

Compelling, disorienting, and rather tense, this installation of Amnesia isn't as simple or tight as the other iterations but offers a more complex story with a grounded, thorough experience that is unsettling to say the least. The game balances between keeping tension and not desensitizing you to the dread-filled moments, throwing you off balance and creating the feeling Tasi has as she tries to remember and find her friends. Solid visuals, art direction, and voice acting also aid the experience. Perhaps a little drawn out and lacking satisfaction in some areas, but a very solid entry nonetheless.

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.