We’re only a few weeks away from the release of Frictional Games’ latest horror opus, Amnesia: Rebirth, and the developer, while still being coy about specifics, has now shared a five-minute gameplay trailer and teased some of the overhauled mechanics set to terrify at launch.
The atmospheric gameplay trailer speaks for itself, showing just a tiny portion of protagonist Tasi Trianon’s “harrowing” journey through the Algerian desert in the 1930s. Over on the PlayStation Blog, however, Frictional’s creative director Thomas Grip has shared a little more detail on how Rebirth updates the systems driving 2010’s acclaimed Amnesia: The Dark Descent to create a more modern – and more terrifying – experience.
Frictional’s goal, says Grip, is to effectively simulate the kind of Gothic horror – often defined by “vulnerable protagonists exploring unsettling environments” – associated with the work of writers like Poe, Stoker, and Lovecraft. To that end, it’s overhauled some of the original Amnesia’s most memorable mechanics, including light sources and sanity.
Amnesia: Rebirth : Gameplay Reveal Trailer Watch on YouTube
In Rebirth, The Dark Descent’s tinderboxes have been replaced with matches, partly to better fit the 1930s time period, but also because of the gameplay possibilities matches afford. Grip says matches can still be used to illuminate candles and lights around the environment – vital for enhancing the sense of exploration – but explains that interesting choices emerge from the fact they’re their own light source. Should players, for instance, burn through their limited supply to provide light in the moment or should they save them to illuminate light sources later on?