Ever since the tech demo of Penumbra back in 2006 there hasn’t been a time when I was not excited for what Frictional Games would do next. All of their prior games were surprising, unexpected, often inventive. Even if they weren’t very good (like Penumbra: Requiem), there was something daring and weird, something clever and intriguing about every single one of them. Which is why it’s so shocking to admit just how uninspired and generic Amnesia: Rebirth is.
Since it’s in the title, the main character doesn’t quite remember what happened apart from a plane crash and memories of her husband and child that seem to fill her with both joy and immeasurable sadness. And the game focuses on this more personal story about family, happiness and loss quite a bit. Unfortunately, for all the forced attention the game gives this story, it doesn’t really go anywhere at all. Unlike The Dark Descent, where a forgettable “main story” paled to the concept of a man trying to forget the horrors he has participated in. Unlike SOMA, where an unlikable main character is a perfect everyman fit for a simple story full of really tough questions and no right answers. And even unlike Penumbra where the story was unapologetically simple and, at times, camp, Rebirth doesn’t have anything for itself.
It has more Lovecraftian elements and “world lore”, if you ever cared about it in The Dark Descent. It has a character whose desire for her family is a defining and only trait. And you have a mystery that explains itself very early and never develops, changes or surprises. No interesting questions, no clever themes. As if the base ideas at the core of the game story were never developed and some gameplay shell was simply built around them. A shell it often seems to almost dislike, as it forces cutscene upon cutscene on you, with no interesting story progression and no way to skip even the silence. Like a poorly made art student film which shows nothing to be evocative, without building anything before or after to make that nothing mean anything.
But it’s not like the gameplay means anything either. While in SOMA a lot was simplified, there was a lot of interesting clever variety in things. Amnesia: Rebirth could ditch most of its “puzzles” or “exploration segments” and it wouldn’t change anything in the game’s overall pace. While stealth segments range from mostly pointless to frustrating, annoyance stemming from the terrible design for the “sanity effect” in this game. Just like in the original title, staying in the dark for too long or being near enemies make the character more scared. Except this time for whatever bizarre reason Frictional Games decided that this was the time they would cave in and put horrible low effort jumpscares in. So every stealth section is constantly accompanied by annoying loud noises and “spooky pictures” rapidly appearing on screen, followed by obnoxious QTE sections if you get too scared. Lots of horrible free horror themed titles of 2020 have dropped this already, yet here we are, having tasteless jumpscares in a game from Frictional Games.
Ultimately, though, it’s just not worth going through. It isn’t terrible, just extremely boring and mediocre. Which for a title from these developers is a damning thing to say. I wouldn’t actively discourage anyone from buying it, but, honestly, it’s just not worth the time.