It’s difficult to think of a game I’ve played in recent memory that comes closer to being something I really love while also simultaneously being a deeply flawed mess. There are elements here that rank among the creepiest in the Amnesia series, but after a strong opening third or so, I just couldn’t really find my bearings.
First, the good. The opening 3-4 hours of this game are quite tense and frightening, in a way that reminded me of The Dark Descent. As in that game, the combination of expertly tuned sound design and disturbing imagery (that shows just enough to create dread while also maintaining a sense of mystery) is very effective early on. For me, this climaxes in a terrifying collection of sequences set in an abandoned French fort. This section of the game, from the beginning through the fort, functions as quality horror on both a conceptual and a visceral level.
Another improvement from earlier games in the series is that there is a significantly deeper level of character development, both for the protagonist (whose impending motherhood serves as a method of generating emotional investment in the story while also acting as source of deep-seeded apprehension) and for her fairly well-sketched cadre of former companions, who are mostly presented in flashbacks. Whereas Daniel from The Dark Descent was largely silent outside of reciting journal entries, the protagonist in this game is quite chatty - and while this talkiness isn’t always welcome, the voice actress does strong enough work that I largely bought the character and their motivation.
Sadly, it was the narrative around the protagonist that just straight-up didn’t work for me. There are a few reasons for this. For one, the pacing in this game is just awful. After I completed the section in the French fort, I figured that I was moving toward a climax of some kind…but instead, the game just goes on and on, with very little interesting plot development to justify some of the rather boring levels. Seriously, you will have to traverse every kind of subterranean environment you can think of - tombs, catacombs, mines, and so on - and they all feel just as bland as one might expect. This isn’t a particularly long game (maybe 9-10 hours), but I ended up feeling that at least 30% percent of it should have been cut.
The pacing issues are intimately connected to problems with the narrative, which is very unfocused. The main thrust with the protagonist recovering memories of a deeply upsetting moral quandary is fine, but it is weighed down by a bunch of unnecessary subplots that go nowhere. Which is unfortunate, because some subtlety might have made these dead-end subplots function as interesting Easter eggs. Instead, everything’s forced down the player’s throat. Even an inattentive player would likely be able to use environmental details to infer a connection between the alien dimension of this game and the plot events of The Dark Descent, but instead of leaving it at that, the game insists that you hunt down notes that clumsily and unnecessarily underline this same point. Throughout the game, elements of the story that should have been left ambiguous are rendered painstakingly obvious. Given that the Amnesia games rely at least partially on an element of mystery and fear of the unknown to draw the player in, the heavy-handed storytelling method on display is a major problem.
I also had a mechanical objection, which is that they ruined the brilliant sanity mechanic from The Dark Descent. In that game, losing your sanity messed with the interface in a way that triggered panic and anxiety in the player. But it never halted the play or took away control. In Rebirth, sanity is replaced with fear. My problem is that when your character is overcome by fear, it effectively shifts the game into a quasi-cutscene - the screen slowly begins to black out and a short jump scare sizzle reel plays as you try to button mash your way out of it. I hate how this takes control away from the player and seems to basically freeze whatever is going on in the game world at that moment. There is a plot element that explains why fear works like it does, but it just didn’t justify the mechanical downgrade from the sublime sanity mechanic for me.
As a huge fan of the work of Frictional Games, I went into this expecting greatness. I ended up disappointed, but also happy that I played this. There is a great game rattling around in here somewhere - it’s just buried under some clunky storytelling and a bunch of unnecessary chaff.
First, the good. The opening 3-4 hours of this game are quite tense and frightening, in a way that reminded me of The Dark Descent. As in that game, the combination of expertly tuned sound design and disturbing imagery (that shows just enough to create dread while also maintaining a sense of mystery) is very effective early on. For me, this climaxes in a terrifying collection of sequences set in an abandoned French fort. This section of the game, from the beginning through the fort, functions as quality horror on both a conceptual and a visceral level.
Another improvement from earlier games in the series is that there is a significantly deeper level of character development, both for the protagonist (whose impending motherhood serves as a method of generating emotional investment in the story while also acting as source of deep-seeded apprehension) and for her fairly well-sketched cadre of former companions, who are mostly presented in flashbacks. Whereas Daniel from The Dark Descent was largely silent outside of reciting journal entries, the protagonist in this game is quite chatty - and while this talkiness isn’t always welcome, the voice actress does strong enough work that I largely bought the character and their motivation.
Sadly, it was the narrative around the protagonist that just straight-up didn’t work for me. There are a few reasons for this. For one, the pacing in this game is just awful. After I completed the section in the French fort, I figured that I was moving toward a climax of some kind…but instead, the game just goes on and on, with very little interesting plot development to justify some of the rather boring levels. Seriously, you will have to traverse every kind of subterranean environment you can think of - tombs, catacombs, mines, and so on - and they all feel just as bland as one might expect. This isn’t a particularly long game (maybe 9-10 hours), but I ended up feeling that at least 30% percent of it should have been cut.
The pacing issues are intimately connected to problems with the narrative, which is very unfocused. The main thrust with the protagonist recovering memories of a deeply upsetting moral quandary is fine, but it is weighed down by a bunch of unnecessary subplots that go nowhere. Which is unfortunate, because some subtlety might have made these dead-end subplots function as interesting Easter eggs. Instead, everything’s forced down the player’s throat. Even an inattentive player would likely be able to use environmental details to infer a connection between the alien dimension of this game and the plot events of The Dark Descent, but instead of leaving it at that, the game insists that you hunt down notes that clumsily and unnecessarily underline this same point. Throughout the game, elements of the story that should have been left ambiguous are rendered painstakingly obvious. Given that the Amnesia games rely at least partially on an element of mystery and fear of the unknown to draw the player in, the heavy-handed storytelling method on display is a major problem.
I also had a mechanical objection, which is that they ruined the brilliant sanity mechanic from The Dark Descent. In that game, losing your sanity messed with the interface in a way that triggered panic and anxiety in the player. But it never halted the play or took away control. In Rebirth, sanity is replaced with fear. My problem is that when your character is overcome by fear, it effectively shifts the game into a quasi-cutscene - the screen slowly begins to black out and a short jump scare sizzle reel plays as you try to button mash your way out of it. I hate how this takes control away from the player and seems to basically freeze whatever is going on in the game world at that moment. There is a plot element that explains why fear works like it does, but it just didn’t justify the mechanical downgrade from the sublime sanity mechanic for me.
As a huge fan of the work of Frictional Games, I went into this expecting greatness. I ended up disappointed, but also happy that I played this. There is a great game rattling around in here somewhere - it’s just buried under some clunky storytelling and a bunch of unnecessary chaff.