After a rough launch, Frictional Games have nicely fixed up Amnesia: Rebirth and overall the experience is one we're not going to forget any time soon.
"In Amnesia: Rebirth, you are Tasi Trianon, waking up deep in the desert of Algeria. Days have passed. Where have you been? What did you do? Where are the others? Retrace your journey, pull together the fragments of your shattered past; it is your only chance to survive the pitiless horror that threatens to devour you."
While our livestreamer did a full playthrough live on our Twitch Channel cheered on by viewers, I was spending it entirely alone in a dark room with no one but myself to count on. Not the best idea, because I am a complete wimp. I'm at least honest about that though and Amnesia: Rebirth was, in a word, terrifying. Okay, not all the way through, but plenty of it was.
Amnesia: Rebirth might be Frictional's weirdest yet too. All of their games are strange in their own way but it feels like they really went hard on the darkness in Amnesia: Rebirth. It worked well though, not many games have made me terrified to look at a tiny window on a door before while I search a room for anything useful to keep me going that little bit longer.
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I don't want to spoil anything about the plot, because getting engrossed in Amnesia: Rebirth largely depends on you not really knowing what's going on or what's going to happen. So I won't go into details on the story, other than you managing to survive a plane crash in the middle of the Algerian desert. I can't say much more than that, without really giving anything away. Safe to say though, I thoroughly enjoyed the story too and while plenty of it was expected it still manages to surprise in many ways.
With it having the usual elements we've all come to love in Frictional games with sneaking, hiding, being chased by something horrible and picking up and looking at everything you possibly can. While it's supposed to be a follow-up to the previous Amnesia: The Dark Descent, it doesn't need you to have played it thankfully because I didn't remember all that much from it and it didn't cause any issues for me. However, there's clearly plenty of lore sprinkled throughout for people who wish to continue the story on.
At this point it seems pretty clear that Frictional Games know what they're doing when it comes to all sorts of horror settings. However, there's clearly plenty of tweaks they've done to continue to improve on the horror formula and no doubt it will influence more developers just like their previous games with The Dark Descent and SOMA.
The key thing is how Amnesia: Rebirth pretty carefully builds up the atmosphere. It's quite thick from the early moments, tense all throughout and it keeps on building on top of that to provide an experience you can't forget. Amnesia: Rebirth could easily be 2020's scariest game and it's fantastic. We can easily recommend it.
You can buy Amnesia: Rebirth from GOG and Steam.
If you missed it, Frictional also open sourced Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. Read more on that news here. Continuing to be a developer well worth your time and support.
Spoiler, click me
*shudders*
Quoting: drlambNon-spoiler spoiler below.
Spoiler, click me
I'm thankful that the monsters in A:R don't scared the absolute piss out of me like the monster in A:tDD did even though they're clearly aimed to be more creepy. I always forget that I enabled the amnesia monster witch mod for L4D2 every time I play the game.
*shudders*
What does the mod do?
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