Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a first-person horror game developed by Frictional Games. It is a spiritual successor to their Penumbra series that takes the fear elements of those games and raises them to an even higher level. The game puts players in the role of Daniel, who wakes up in a dark castle with no memory and is pursued by monsters. Players must conserve limited light sources like candles to maintain their character's sanity while exploring the castle and uncovering its mysteries. The game creates tension through its dark visuals and unsettling sound design. Though navigation can be frustrating without maps, Amnesia provides a compelling atmosphere and terrifying experiences.

1. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
Talk about a trip down memory lane: my first contribution for Z Connect was Fractional Games’
Penumbra series on PC, a first-person adventure/horror trilogy that combined mouse-controlled
physics with puzzle-solving pathways, with an extra dash of survival horror for flavor. Like a
standard movie trilogy, the first Penumbra offered a decent glance of what the developers were
capable of, while the second game capitalized on the first’s strong points, offering one of the
more memorable and nerve-wrecking PC experiences available. The third and final game,
unfortunately, stumbled just as things had reached a highpoint.
But now, the team behind the Penumbra trilogy has returned to give us another dose of
nightmares with Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a spiritual successor that takes what worked with
Penumbra and raises the fear factor up to 11. But will a revamped engine and fresh story make
Amnesia a title worth remembering, or is it destined to be purged from our minds?
True to its namesake, Amnesia’s story revolves around a man named Daniel, who finds himself
trapped inside a castle perpetually covered in darkness with no memory of the events
surrounding him. All he has to go by are journal scraps that he apparently wrote, giving him two
specific instructions: seek out and eliminate Alexander, the castle baron, and try not to be killed
by the “nightmare” that’s pursuing him. Both are rather difficult tasks, with several passageways
requiring keys or other devices in order to push forward.

2. Suffice to say, Daniel isn’t alone in the castle, but his biggest enemy is the one that surrounds
him at all times: the darkness. Aside from obscuring your vision, players who spend too much
time wrapped in blackness will find their sanity meter steadily dropping. Much like the
Gamecube classic Eternal Darkness, low sanity will result in hallucinations and trippy visual
effects that can seriously harm your character, from affecting the way he controls to making him
easier to be detected by the real creatures looming the castle halls. The only way to keep your
sanity in check is to be around light, whether it comes from an open window or a burning candle.
Light may be your most important weapon in this game, but it’s also one that requires
ammunition; hidden around the castle are tinderboxes used to light up nearby candles and
torches, which not only helps to partially light up a path for you, but to also set up “healing
spots” should you wander around in the dark for too long. To bring up another Gamecube
classic, it essentially works like the Dark World portions of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. There is
also a lantern that you carry at all times, but requires oil to use. Like most Survival Horror
games, it’s important to conserve your resources, because light sources will only grow less and
less common the further you venture into the darkness.
Oh, and did I mention there were monsters? Unlike games like Resident Evil or Dead Space,
Amnesia’s locales aren’t populated with wall-to-wall monstrosities…in fact, players could go for
hours without running into a single enemy. You’ll always know when one is nearby however,
once you hear that inhuman growl echoing in the hallway, or spot a shambling shadow in the
distance, and considering how you are never given any weapons to fight back with, keeping your
distance is the key to survival. Should you be unfortunate enough to come face to face with a
hungry horror, the pursuit will be difficult to shake off and even more difficult to forget. Put

3. simply, if you’re close enough to actually make out the features of the game’s shadow-veiled
creatures, you’re too close, period.
Much of the tension from Amnesia can be attributed to its aesthetics; while the visuals are a
noticeable step up from Penumbra, the devil is in the details, so to speak. From tattered curtains
to knocked-over furniture, to gruesome experiments and broken windows, the entirety of the
castle’s interior perfectly illustrates a Silent Hill-like situation of a seemingly normal locale
overrun with terror beyond imagination. Further compounding things are the trippy visual effects
and varied sound design, both of which are tied to the character’s deteriorating sanity; should
your sanity reach a critical state, the game literally plays tricks with your eyes and ears, from
flies crawling around your screen to teeth chattering in your ears (should you be playing with
headphones…of which the game recommends that you do). The effects as well as the returning
mouse-manipulated physics from Penumbra, all come together to form an engine that’s as robust
as it is terrifying. To top it off, the game features modding right from the start, with a “Custom
Story” section that can lead to some potentially great fan creations.
The aesthetics come at a cost, however; as intentional as it may be to cloud players with the
heavy amount of darkness, it can also lead to frustration. Since the game lacks a map of any
kind, you may find yourself wandering the same corridors several times until finally stumbling
upon that one corner or staircase hidden in the blackness. This is especially irksome when
solving puzzles that require backtracking between two or more rooms. There is also the usual
“logic” found in PC adventure games, where you must make use of your items the way the game
intends, instead of using the more obvious solution (a hammer and chisel, for example, is good

4. enough to make a hole to fit through, but not strong enough to break a door’s lock), although it
doesn’t nearly reach the more obnoxious puzzles from its predecessor.
As sore as your eyes may feel after long play sessions in the dark, Amnesia is worth the pain.
The game demands your full devotion, and rewards you with an intriguing atmosphere and
blood-chilling terror that is anything but forgettable.
Score: 79%