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Our next podcast recording (13.9.25) - 687: Amnesia: Rebirth (Patreon)

Published:
2025-09-10 09:06:08
Edited:
2025-09-11 14:41:28
Imported:
2025-09

Content

Here's where you can contribute your thoughts and opinions for Amnesia: Rebirth for potential inclusion in the forthcoming podcast.A friendly reminder that where the feedback for the podcast is concerned, we love it - but keeping it brief is appreciated. We do want to include a breadth of opinions where appropriate, but no-one wants a discussion podcast that’s mostly reading out essays. Better to save yourself time and cut to the chase if you can.

Comments

Chris Tarrant

I remember this game getting some middling reviews. I absolutely loved it, I couldn't put it down. It was one of those where I didn't disagree with any of the negative points being raised by others, but those negatives really didn't impact my enjoyment of the game at all. Frictional are the masters of this genre. They understand that horror needs peaks and troughs; you can't have an oppressive, miserable atmosphere all the time because the player will become desensitised to it. As such Rebirth, like their previous games, knows exactly when to back off with the scares and let you breathe a bit. It balances the horror with a well acted and engaging story and a beautiful soundtrack. In my opinion Mikko Tarmia's soundtrack for this game is the best of all his Frictional soundtracks and I had it on repeat the year it came out. One interesting design sensibility I noticed in this game compared to others (including Frictional's other games) is how 'death' makes an effort to not interrupt the flow of the game. When you die, Tasi loses consciousness and wakes up in a nearby safe place. The monster that killed you has been removed or moved elsewhere. This avoids a common problem in horror games where dying shatters all the tension. If I die over and over again in a game and am forced to repeat a specific section, this leads to frustration and harms the overall immersion, you start thinking of the in-game elements as exactly that; in-game elements, kind of like pieces on a board. In Rebirth this 'soft-fail' state allows the game to 'kill you' once but you're straight back into the game and I found that the tension was more or less intact. It shows Frictional's dedication to immersion above all else (although they absolutely roll back on that sort of thing in their next Amnesia game, The Bunker).

sevastromo

With Amnesia: The Dark Descent, SOMA, and Amnesia: The Bunker, Frictional have created three of my favorite horror games of all time. So it was to my absolute surprise that Amnesia: Rebirth fell flat on its face for me. While always operating within the horror genre, Frictional have consistently switched up the focus of their games. The Dark Descent is a quintessential "scary monster" game with a focus on tense atmospheres, monster interactions, and environmental puzzles. SOMA is a masterpiece in narrative and worldbuilding using the unique qualities of video games to ask existential questions. The Bunker is Frictional iterating and feasting on traditional survival horror mechanics. With Rebirth, what did Frictional accomplish? I'm not sure, but I do have an idea of where they failed. My biggest gripe here is the lack of player agency or the inability to maintain my immersion to where I'm not thinking about my lack of agency. Rebirth leaves no room for player expression and routinely frustrates the player with the path it forces you down. What I remember from my time with Rebirth is linear paths, quick time events, poorly communicated goals, chase sequences, and achievements being constantly subverted by surprise events. The last one is really the kicker. The whole game you're trying to get to this town, but whenever it seems within reach... uh oh quicksand! oops the portal sent you to the wrong place, darn it the alien monorail missed its stopped. It all feels so contrived and led to me feeling like the story never really got off the ground. Any sense of player-driven progression is destroyed by these rug pulls as the game just haphazardly tosses the player around its game world with little rhyme or reason. Overall, I cannot recommend Rebirth, even to horror or Frictional Games enthusiasts. It's a surprising misstep for a developer with an otherwise phenomenal track record.

psychohype

Having played all of the games in the Amnesia series to date, there’s a case to be made that Rebirth is the scariest of the bunch. While The Dark Descent helped pioneer the concept of being helpless to fight back against the spooks, and The Bunker turned the tension up to 11 with its randomized encounters with a stalking killer beast, it was the scripted encounters in Rebirth that got under my skin the most. I really do think the Frictional Games team nailed the atmosphere and pacing of Rebirth’s linear horror adventure—even as it expanded the scope and lore of the series into slightly over-ambitious territory. My biggest frustration with the game, however, was how it refused to let me replay an enemy chase sequence when I almost inevitably failed to evade capture. There’s a part of me that actually wants to succeed in getting away from the creature and feel as if I’ve barely survived the encounter. Instead, Rebirth incorporates a strange method of turning your failures into forced forward progress. In some cases, the encounter with an enemy will catch you off guard, leaving you very little time to react and either successfully hide or flee. And when my panicked reaction got me quickly cornered, I wanted to shout at the game, “Just give me one more chance!” I can appreciate how they incorporated these failed encounters into the story of the game. It’s at least an innovative approach to horror game design. But it often left a slightly sour taste in my mouth. Still, I recommend any fans of the series to give Rebirth a try.