Our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review features a new survival horror title developed and published by Frictional Games, launched on 20 October 2020. It’s a sequel to Amnesia Dark Descent, released a decade ago. It’s an exploratory game with strong psychological thriller moments.
When we say ‘Amnesia game’, our thoughts go out to PewDiePie. We recall him sitting in his Sweden apartment, having just started his Youtube channel in 2010. Of course, the more commemorative ‘Let’s Play’ were the Amnesia Dark Descent events that made his screams famous worldwide. Ten years later, and he’s playing Amnesia Rebirth for the new experience.
We also played the game, and you can see our first hour of gameplay here below. Will you enjoy the horror experience, though? Is the game easy to play, or will you struggle through the different areas? Is there a detailed storyline?
Read more in our detailed Amnesia Rebirth PC Review below.
| Platform reviewed: | PC |
| Release date: | 20 October 2020 |
| Price: | $29.99 |
| Genre: | Survival Horror |
| Players: | 1 |
| File size | 35 GB |
| Developer: | Frictional Games |
| Publisher: | Frictional Games |
Contents
Story
We found a lengthy, enjoyable storyline for our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review. You start off in a plane, playing as a female protagonist called Tasi. You don’t have to wait long as the plane crashes and you wake up in a landscape of desolate sands, the aircraft burning behind you.
As you start searching for any signs of life, you realise that your crew has found a cave to live in for the meantime. What’s more, it appears as if you and your crew have been staying there for some time. The main problem: you don’t remember anything since the crash.
We ended up exploring the caves for our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review, finding clues to what passed before. What you discover are endless tunnels, appearing to lead you to dangerous sections of an abandoned mine. Suddenly, you find a portal to…
Yeah, we’re not going to spoil it for you. That’s just the introduction. What we will say is that you’ll encounter various different creatures, sending cold chills and thrills through your body. However, the more you play, the more you realise that understanding them is the key to survival.
We’ve waited a long time for a decent survival horror story to emerge again. A few titles have been appearing that tickled our fancy, such as Re:Turn One Way Trip. However, few games have had the depth that we found in Amnesia Rebirth PC Review.
Gameplay
Amnesia Dark Descent was well known for using jump scares as the fear factor, which is what caused most of PewDiePie’s screams to echo through the galaxy. What we found for our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review is something more…subtle.
There’s plenty of exploration, but jump scares are few and far between. Horror has evolved from when it first appeared in gaming, and we’re glad to see Frictional Games using sound and visual elements to drive fear into players’ hearts. The survival horror game is a psychological thriller from the deepest bowels of hell. Instead of jump scares, you’ll be slowing walking through the darkness, wondering what you’ll find next.
Forget combat. For most of the time, you’ll be exploring and avoiding monsters that are bent on killing you. Button configurations are kept easy so that you can just focus on what’s happening on the screen. Fortunately, you can use a controller to play on your PC if you prefer it over a keyboard, which we did.
We spent about 2 hours playing the game for our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review before we encountered the first creatures. Until then, the game involves walking around, finding clues, and travelling through portals to figure out what’s going on. So imagine a walking simulator in a horrific world.
When the action starts, there’s plenty of monster avoidance going on. For players who aren’t used to horror games, you may find yourself scared to your wits. For us veterans, it put a smile on our face. Not every survival horror game needs to be filled with flashing images and terrifying encounters for it to be enjoyable.
If you’re a gore fan who enjoys running a chainsaw through the belly of the beast or ploughing plasma with your supernatural gun through the head of a demon, then our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review warns you that this might not be the game for you. Instead, it has more a sense of stealth and survival, plus a few puzzles you’ll need to solve along the way.
Graphics
For the graphics portion of our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review, the visuals are sublime. The first-person aspect is fantastic, while the HUD is kept clear of any annoying symbols. When your character is terrified, the outer edges of the screen changes colour and your vision blurs.
Frictional Games have done an excellent job of incorporating as much of the fear factor in the imagery. If you walk in darkness for too long or stare at terrifying items, Tasi groans and her vision changes. Fortunately, you won’t find yourself lost in the dark landscapes, as the game has lighting and beacons to guide you now and again.
Speaking of which, we found the lighting and shading to be spectacular for our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review. While we played on the PC, we hooked it up to our 65″ 4K television for the ultimate experience. With the lights off in our room, the scenes were surreal to see.
Sound
The sound is also a significant factor in this survival horror game, we felt for our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review. The voice acting is superb, Tasi often speaking to herself during her lonely journey. The odd sounds you hear now and again will send your hair on edge, especially if you have headphones on or have the speakers cranked up.
It’s when you encounter the monsters that the sound really helps. As we mentioned, you’ll spend plenty of time avoiding them. For this purpose, you may need to listen to where they are for when you can’t see them.
Amnesia Rebirth PC Review: Final Verdict
While we never played Amnesia Dark Descent, our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review found that we could play this survival horror title without knowledge of the first game.
The story is the best element of the game, while the other aspects try their best to scare us. Since we’ve become accustomed to horror, being a horror writer myself, this is hard to achieve. Instead, we enjoyed the thrilling moments that crept up on us and the suspense for what was waiting around the corner.
Amnesia Rebirth is worth buying for horror newbies and veterans alike, especially if you like stealth games that rely on suspense and monster avoidance. Think Myst meets Silent Hill….
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Amnesia Rebirth PC Review | New Exciting 2020 Horror Game
Our Amnesia Rebirth PC Review looks at the latest survival horror game to hit Steam. Read as we examine the fear factor, game mechanics, graphics, and more!
Price: $
Price Currency: 29.99
Operating System: Windows 10
Application Category: Game
9.5