The most noticeable change in Amnesia: Rebirth is its setting, which holds a variety of environments where most horror games, including The Dark Descent, take place in a single, homogenous area to create a sense of oppression and claustrophobia. A horror game set in a desert sounds like a tough thing to pull off, so we asked plenty of questions about that, but our first query centered on Amnesia’s lasting legacy in the horror genre: Are there any games that may have been inspired by The Dark Descent that have since informed Rebirth’s development?

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Those hours of emotional buildup tie directly into the design of the game’s various areas. The developers explained that having a wide variety of areas, times of day, and themes can actually add to the sensation of horror by eliciting emotion over time. As they had just stated, creating emotion over hours of gameplay was an explicit goal in Amnesia: Rebirth’s design.

As for direct inspiration, I have to be a bit selfish and say SOMA. The sort of storytelling we did in that game has had a huge impact on how we designed Rebirth. SOMA taught us that you can make players feel emotions that take hours of buildup to achieve. We’re trying to do this with Rebirth too, but using a more classic Amnesia-style gameplay as the foundation.

The developers believe that the story development they worked so hard to deliver is the true strength of Amnesia over other horror game franchises. One explained that his favorite part of the game is Tasi’s personal journey, and detailed that Amnesia games as a whole focus much more on delivering horror tied to “a more connected and emotionally deeper narrative.” He expressed that the deeper emotional weight of their games is what separates them from “jump scare generators.” Although there’s nothing wrong with making a purely heart-pounding spook fest, Amnesia: Rebirth certainly offers much more depth, which is exactly what many players are looking for this season.

Another aspect is that in order for players to go through the more oppressive parts of the game, we need to make sure that there is a drive to progress. A good tool for that is to make sure that there is always some new setting to look forward to. You always need to have these sort of tricks in order to get a good balance of just pouring misery on the player versus giving them relief. Coming out the other side with a new setting to explore is a really good counterweight.

Amnesia: Rebirth is available for PC and PS4.

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