Amnesia: Rebirth is “another shot” at the real themes of Amnesia

Frictional Games has stated that Amnesia: Rebirth will explore the themes of its predecessor which may have been lost in the viral success of its scares (via PC Gamer). 

The monsters of Amnesia have earned their place among the big cheeses like The Pale Man, Pumpkinhead, and the Xenomorph. The castle itself even has it in for the player, and the compilations of streamers and YouTubers screaming as doors are flung open and Gatherers emerge from the shadows are extremely entertaining. However, the next game in the series won’t be employing such similar scares.

“That doesn’t feel like what we wanted to do,” said creative director Thomas Grip in a recent interview. “There are a bunch of things that we thought that people liked with [The Dark Descent] and then there’s a bunch of stuff that we felt we could do better and there’s a bunch of stuff that we learned from SOMA and we also felt like we wanted to put all of that together.” Frictional Games has stated that the influence of SOMA on Rebirth is a key one, as it taught the studio how to create a slow-burn horror. 

It also felt like the real themes of Amnesia were lost in the scares, so that these gave players the lasting impression and not the capacity of “human evil.” Amensia: Rebirth will act as “another shot” at exploring these ideas that may have been overlooked. “Not the exact same subject matter,” qualified Grip, “but make something where horror is not just on this very short-term time scale of just seeing a monster and being scared, but something that grows over time.”

“In terms of when the strong impact is going to come, I think that’s going to be—similar to SOMA—mid-way through the game. That’s where [Rebirth] really grabs hold and really shows what it’s got,” teased Grip. Lovely. If the shock is anything like SOMA—no spoilers here—then we’re in for a wild ride when the game releases.   

Amnesia: Rebirth will be released for PC and PlayStation 4 in late 2020.