Ten years have passed since Frictional Games’ seminal horror classic Amnesia: The Dark Descent traumatised the gaming world, and it’s been five since the release of its astonishing sci-fi horror Soma; finally, though, the Swedish studio is set to make its long-awaited return, this time revisiting its decade-old franchise with new series entry, Amnesia: Rebirth. Yet while that might initially feel like an unexpected regression, especially after the dazzling freshness of Soma, Frictional sees Rebirth as the latest evolutionary step in the studio’s journey – one it’s been on since its inception in 2007 – to create a very particular type of horror experience.
“The thing is,” explains Frictional’s co-founder and creative director Thomas Grip of the studio’s fascination with the genre, “in a shooter you shoot people, in a puzzler you puzzle things, and in a strategy game you strategise things, but there’s not really any activity that’s central to horror games… it’s the emotions that you evoke.
“I think that’s quite different from how you approach other genres and it adds so much more focus on how you structure narrative… and that’s a very interesting way of making games.”
