winterstillness

I'll keep this spoiler-free.

I enjoyed it overall. The atmosphere is fantastic and setting feels unique; I was mostly tense throughout my playthrough.

A remarkably short game (~3.5 hours), but I can't complain as it didn't overstay its welcome and I felt at the peak of the "high" so to speak. To me this is a neat little present that provided an interesting experience. The story was told well (for my potato brain) and was engaging. It's nothing spectacular/complex/epic.

The "stalker" was spooky. Though you really don't have time to admire it's unwanted advances. I don't think I can look at random holes in the wall the same way anymore. It's okay, they're too small for anything but oversized rats, right?

I do have some iffys on the spook factor though. The game got a lot more tense as I ran out of juice to fuel the lights towards the remaining 20% of the game. The stalker became more aggressive as opposed to coming out when you really had to use that brick to break down the door. But as I've mentioned in my thoughts about Amnesia, these things don't really bother me because I don't play purely for the "play".

Compared to the rest of the series, the original Amnesia & Soma still stand at the top for me in terms of spooks and story, but this is still a fantastic game which I recommend if you're interested in these types of games.

How does everyone else feel about it?

• Debian 12
• AirPods Pro (2nd generation)

I have audio in KDE, but not in Gnome, so I'm convinced there's something about the DE.

In Gnome's output configuration I see these options:

• High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink)
• High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink, codec SBC-XQ)
• High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink, codec SBC)
• Handsfree head unit

I can't select the first option (defaults to whatever I had selected before). BUT, if I have a video playing and switch between the options I get audio for ~0.1 seconds.

The Handsfree head unit options has sound, but very poor quality.

In KDE I just have the "High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink)" option.

If I had to take a guess, then "High Fidelity Playback (A2DP Sink)" should work in Gnome, but it's not selecting for some reason.

I'll keep this spoiler free.

I'm one of many that dropped this game within an hour of play on release. I haven't touched it since then, but with the recent release of a new Amnesia title I got back to thinking about this one. I saw some positive comments (with reservations) and how it gets a better as you progress. So I decided to give it another chance.

There are quite a number negatives. Admittedly, a lot of the negatives have to do with my preferences/tastes. Babies/children give me the heebie-jeebies, so I didn't connect to the protagonist. Granted, that's more of a problem with me rather than the writing/story. People don't have to relate/connect to everything, but it helps in a horror title.

The pacing is constantly interrupted with flashbacks. It's most noticeable around the first quarter of the game and towards the end. This game features a talking protagonist. That talks. A lot. It shouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, but it happens when you are exploring, are in the middle of figuring things out, or have figured something out and have already come to terms with it. Then you have to wait for the protagonist to deal with it making you wait. Control does get taken away at times making you wait yet again.

I feel like the game "started" when you reached the fort. That's when you finally feel the tension and stress you were looking forward to. Eventually (around mid-game to late game) the fear+tension drop, or go away almost completely. I don't want to speculate on this/gameplay a lot as this isn't the main reason why I played this. It also didn't bother me as much because I'm happy focusing on the environments+story as long as the gameplay isn't too distracting or is serviceable.

Those were my biggest gripes with the game.

Positives. Eventually the story starts to unfold and you begin to piece together the picture. Especially once you reach a certain place. This is when I finally a found a footing with the game and determined to complete it. Also, completing the first Amnesia title makes the story much more interesting.

In the end I'm glad I gave it another shot. Per the comment that inspired me to give it another go, try it if you enjoyed Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness/etc. This game, in a way, delivers on that front.

tl;dr the story and environment get interesting (eventually)

I really enjoyed the original Amnesia title, especially Soma. I went ahead and played the demo (~1 hour) and this game feels/plays/looks like what I'd expect from a Frictional Games title.

Eventually I realized "the monster" was limited to staying in the "vents", which made sense as the demo is meant to tease the experience; a very stressful one at that. I'm really not looking forward to being hunted/chased by this thing.