Nightmare Fuel / Amnesia: Rebirth

Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

Frictional Games’ masterpiece has been rebirthed. And it’s just as terrifying as ever.

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General

• The protagonist, Tasi Trianon, is apparently named after the real-life Tassili Caves in Algeria, home to some of the world’s oldest known examples of prehistoric artwork. Some of the petroglyphs include depictions of figures that look like they came from psychedelic visions and some that do not look like they came from earth at all.
• The Ghouls. Holy shit, the Ghouls. Withered, mummified former humans that lurk in the darkest recesses of Tin Hinan. Complete with black eyes, shredded lips and a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, which have convinced people that their victims were killed by cave hyenas instead of some grotesque revenant. They behave and operate like pack hunters, skittering and skulking around their prey before striking. One of their victims was an entire regiment of the French Foreign Legion, who they quickly and easily overwhelmed. And they don't just kill - they torture their victims physically and psychological to ensure that they produce as much Vitae as possible.
  • They are able to burrow through stone, brick and plaster with apparent ease, making it easier for them to ambush their prey. All of their territory is covered in thick mats of a black, moldy substance out of which grow strange bioluminescent fungi. None of which looks like it came from this planet.
  • And the worst part? Some of them have a small portion of their humanity left.
• Remember Vitae and how it was harvested from the pain of torture victims to give Alexander a way home? Now imagine it being used to power an entire civilization.
  • There are hanging gibbets that are towed across the Other World on cables like sides of beef. Only in this case, the meat in question consists of living people that are carted off to torture pods and chambers to be squeezed dry of Vitae and then thrown away like lemon rinds.
  • And it’s not just physical pain that’s required to make Vitae - there needs to be emotional pain as well. The people of the Other World exploit this by torturing them, wiping their memories and then filling their minds with their most treasured memories before they are thrust right back into their agony to repeat the cycle until their bodies expire. With the same Vitae used to keep them alive for even more torture. All of this is done in capsule-like pods where they can be seen and heard writhing in agony. AND THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF THEM. Unending torture is horrific enough, but when that degree of inhumanity is treated as casually as the changing of a battery or lightbulb? That is the stuff of which nightmares are made of.
  • It's also mentioned that there was public opposition among the Otherworlders to the torture process. This means that the process used to be even more agonizing, and that the current process is the refined one that the population found more palatable; either that, or the process remained constant long enough for the Otherworlders to get desensitized to the suffering. Either possibility is horrifying. In a way, the Shadow may have been the best thing to happen to it.
  • Now realize two things - Vitae effectively stunted the Otherworld's energy development since it was so darn powerful and relatively easy to get/make. We have no word of fossil fuels or nuclear power sources with only power source sans Vitae being possibly oil in simple torches. Secondly, humanity would eventually come to emulate that civilization (mercifully as a pale shadow) in terms of industrial animal slaughterhouses, though at least we have (as of 2023.) developed lab-grown meat to eventually end the process.

Main Game

• The game begins in the 1930s with the protagonist surviving a plane crash in the Algerian desert. Miraculously, you are able to walk away without injury. However, you have no memory of the crash itself or the amount of time that has passed since. And the passengers and crew are nowhere to be found.
• Tasi finally finds her husband Salim, only to discover that he's been dead for some time. He died alone, afraid and in the dark without the one he loved by his side.
• The entirety of the fortress you explore early on in the game. The entire place is positively riddled with corpses with various different signs of death. Malnourishment, suicide, dismemberment and decapitation. It's absolutely horrific. All in an Ottoman-era fortress repurposed as a French outpost that is slowly collapsing from years of neglect. Is that creak of wood just the place settling, or is it something that could rip your throat open?
  • One section in particular, shown off in the opening of the gameplay demo trailer, is positively seething with horrific sights, from the mangled corpses to the Ghoul that's pounding and clawing its way into the room after you. And there's a chance that you'll see one perched on a ledge, watching you before leaping back into the darkness. And when you leave, the door is still pounding.
    • Speaking of that decapitated corpse, guess who that is! It's Jonathan Webber: expedition engineer and the first victim of the Ghouls. He was an upbeat and pretty friendly family man, completely eviscerated and left to rot in the baking Algerian heat.
• In Al-Mamaru Fort, you can read an excerpt from a book of Middle Eastern folklore that describes in horrific detail the many "Djinn" that are said to haunt the deepest reaches of the desert. It's sure to have a first time player looking over their shoulders in fear of these specters. Or rather, the creatures that inspired them.
  • The fort also has a telegraph machine set up by the French Foreign Legion. It's still functional and if you type in "SOS", you get a reply: "YOU DIE." Complete with one mother of a Scare Chord. Just who the hell was on the other line?!
• Your introduction to Leon, one of the group members that has long since been turned into a Harvester, both for how it's done and for what it reveals. In a dark maze, you hit a dead end and have to turn around. From the pitch black darkness, Leon rushes towards you and grabs onto you, before he's taken aback by Tasi's presence and regains his sanity for a brief moment before scuttling back into the dark as the game of cat-and-mouse begins for real.
  • Upon escaping the maze, Leon angrily claws at the door while screaming threats and obscenities at Tasi before ambling off into the dark again.
  • When Tasi escapes after he tracks her down again and chases her through the sewers, she ends up taking his right arm with her as he begs her to stay.
• Tasi's pregnancy, or rather how unnatural it feels. The baby seemingly grows months at a time in the span of hours, and Tasi is terrified at the though of the baby being something unnatural or flat-out monstrous as a result of her being infected with the toxin that turns people into Harvesters.
• The Shadow makes its return from the first game once Tasi finds and uses an Orb to open a portal. And it is pissed.
  • The gelatinous residue it leaves behind is much redder and fleshier than it was in The Dark Descent. In the first game, it seemed like more of a nuisance. This time, it’s as if reality itself wants you dead in its cancerous grasp.
  • The aftermath of its true power is also shown in full terrifying glory, having turned the entire Other World into a shell of what it was, tearing most of its surface to ashes, transforming magicians and alchemists into Wraiths, leaving Empress Tihana as the only intelligent being alive there. Unless you count the poor souls tortured to keep her alive.
• The fate of Thruston Herbert. The poor man sought glory through the archeological discovery of the Other World, only to be trapped there and left to slowly die of starvation. While he did enjoy embarrassing Daniel for shits and giggles in the first game, even he didn't deserve such a ghastly way to go.
• The ruins of Tin Hinan are found alongside ancient Roman structures that hold canopic jars, Mycenaean stoneware and fragments of Roman frescoes alongside data storage devices that hold the memories of people as far away as Greece and even Siberia. The servants of Tihana have been abducting and torturing people for their Vitae for a long, long time.
• One section of the game has you navigate an entire den of Harvesters. They're all in a strange catatonic state, as if they're sleeping upright or are hunched over and unaware of anything around them. And yes, if you get too close or make too much noise, they will notice you, and you will be swarmed.
  • Look into one of the doors in the Roman ruins and you just might see the hunched-over shadow of a Ghoul cast against the wall as it noisily chews on its meal.
• One particularly unsavory moment gives Tasi the chance to torture someone to extract Vitae. The visuals are hidden, thank God, but the sounds are enough to give you a good idea of what you're missing.
• The way Ghouls are created. The survivors of the Cassandra are brought to a sacred oasis by Tihana's spectral form with the promise of survival. The crew are more than happy to oblige and drink from the water, infecting them with a disease that slowly, slowly turns them into Ghouls. A transformation that is accelerated by intense stress and fear, producing a positive feedback loop when they start seeing black veins grow across their arms and black tendrils grow out of their eyes.
• The fate of Richard Fairchild. He's a pretty decent guy, only to spend most of the story pre/post the start of the actual game being tortured. He's so broken that he, very apologetically, lashes out at his rescuer in desperation, begging for them to take her instead. Consequently, Tasi, taken over by her Ghoul-self, fights back and kills him.
• Eventually, Tasi's water breaks. Not long after, she is caught in a bear trap and hung upside down. While she is found by Yasmin before long, Yasmin is about to fully become a Ghoul and can only get Tasi down and put her own leg in the bear trap to slow herself down and give Tasi a chance to flee. Yasmin fully loses her sanity moments later and breaks down the door, chasing Tasi across the desert sands and screaming at her all the while. No matter how far you go or how fast you run, Tasi will be caught. If not for the doctor's intervention, Tasi would have been mauled to death then and there.
• Tasi gives birth to a baby girl, Amari, with the help of the doctor. However, this is done in the middle of the desert in a cave with no painkillers, while she's tied down to prevent her from losing herself to the Harvester toxin. And then the doctor kidnaps her newborn daughter in an attempt to barter with Empress Tihana.
  • Tasi, to her credit, doesn't take that sitting down. She fully embraces the Harvester side of herself and gives chase before bashing the doctor's head into the stairs repeatedly. Jesus...
• Amari is revealed to have contracted the same disease that killed Tasi's first daughter. It gets worse — the only way to treat this disease is to use the substance that comes from immense pain and suffering, Vitae.
• Each of the endings are chilling for their own reasons, some more than others.
  • The Provider ending sees Tasi and Amari escape to Paris, seemingly free of the horrors they had just been through... Except that World War II will begin soon, putting their safety in HUGE jeopardy, as well as the fact that Tasi may or may not still be at risk of turning into a Harvester in the middle of a populated city like Paris.
  • The Iconoclast ending sees Tasi use the Shadow to put a permanent end to the Vitae production that Tihana uses to prolong her life. This not only kills Tihana and the countless torture victims, but also kills Tasi and her newborn daughter. Another interpretation is that Tasi and Amari, much like Daniel in the bad ending to the first game, are essentially trapped in the dark for eternity.
  • The Harvester ending is easily the bleakest. Tasi gives up Amari so she can survive her illness under Tihana's care, but is turned into a Harvester and left to wander the empty husk of a world that has long been destroyed by the Shadow while thousands of people are tortured repeatedly for the rest of their lives. With the last, tiny scrap of her humanity left, she lodges her sketchbook into a pile of hardened alien sludge as if to place the final memory of her life as a human being on display.

Promotional Material

• Frictional Games' Youtube page has several live action promotional clips to drum up excitement for the release of Rebirth and they are a masterclass in Found Footage horror.
  • Box 1, Reel 2 is a slideshow of a secret research expedition to Algeria during World War I, showing the decontamination protocols, images of their base camp, corpses of privates killed by unknown entities and a shirtless soldier with a sinister, almost unearthly look on his face, flushed as if his face had been badly sunburnt.
  • Box 6, Reel 3 is a reel-to-reel audio recording of a professor analyzing the vivisection of what is presumably a bound and captured Ghoul, which quickly begins thrashing and screaming. After the creature is unable to be pacified, the doctor declares it to be a lost cause and shuts the tape off.
  • Box 7, Reel 2 is completely black and only the audio - which has the sound of an unknown creature squealing in the distance - could be recovered. The now lost footage is left to your imagination.
  • Box 11, Recent Acquisitions is a shortwave radio signal of a hoarse female voice humming a lullaby. Which not only implies that the Harvester ending is canon, but that Ghoul!Tasi is still alive and trying to use what's left of her humanity to send for help with a radio!
  • Box 11, Recent Acquisitions (Card 15) shows a person filming themselves with a compass exploring a snowy field. When they approach a heap of strange, black metal plates, the compass starts spinning wildly until the digital camera crashes.
  • Box 12, Recent Acquisitions shows an amateur archaeologist opening a tin box and finding an aged, bloodstained letter written by a man describing the symptoms of his transformation into a Ghoul and lamenting about how he's unable to put himself out of his misery. The video ends after the man is startled by a loud crash.
  • Box 12, Recent Acquisitions (Card 12) is footage of a doctor inspecting a recently discovered mummy on an autopsy table, recording his finding and making notes of how well preserved it is, even jokingly giving the body props for keeping all his teeth. Just as he's about to turn up the lights for a closer inspection, the doctor drops his camera when he realizes that the mummy is breathing.
  • Box 16, Card 5 is camera footage of a man browsing around a walk-in closet filled with decorative lamp parts and antique junk. When he approaches a brass container used to hold an Orb, the camera starts violently glitching out as ghostly roaring is heard. The operator calls for his friend to find a different camera, complaining that it's "acting up."
  • Box 17, Card 9 is camera footage of a man and a woman exploring a cave system. The man briefly stops to investigate a crude shrine made of twigs, mud and branches before moving towards a bend in the tunnel. He hears a distant noise and stops dead in his tracks. Then he hears the loud roar of a Ghoul and sprints back the way he came, the woman throwing the camera down as she escapes with him - Ghoul in pursuit.

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