Remothered: Broken Porcelain is the second chapter of the much appreciated Remothered: Tormented Fathers. NThis is neither a sequel nor a prequel, but rather a completely new story. While it may seem like a title completely unrelated to its predecessor, Remothered: Brocken Porcelain has its origins on the bloody lore that the developers created. The title is developed entirely by Stormind Games, and is written and directed by Chris Darril.
During the Gamescom 2019 we got to see a hands-off demo of Remothered: Broken Porcelain. There are many innovations introduced in this new chapter, let's go and discover them.
Remothered: Broken Porcelain will be set in a small Sicilian village. We will play the role of Jennifer, a young twenty-year-old girl whose job is that of a cleaning lady: the location in which the events will take place will be the Ashmann Inn hotel, one of the oldest hotels in Sicily.
The demo shown to us represents an advanced stage of the narrative. Our character will be intent on cleaning one of the many bathrooms inside the hotel, until something strange happens. From the loudspeaker inside the bathroom, a disturbing song is played which, whoever has played the first chapter, will surely know. Our protagonist, between fear and curiosity, will go to the next room, where a colleague of her was doing the cleaning, but once there she will receive bad news.
All the staff had mysteriously disappeared, only the hotel secretary remained. Outside, a snowstorm had just darkened, making virtually all escape routes unusable.
Remothered: Broken Porcelain takes place during the day, but the developers were extremely skilled and managed to create a gloomy and distressing atmosphere, making the most of the blizzard. Jennifer, intrigued by what is happening, goes to look for her colleagues, but finds they are the secretary holding a tray of food even though there was no guest in the hotel. Curiosity is sometimes a voracious enemy and this is the case with Jennifer. The secretary leaves the tray near a grate of the air duct and then disappears. The amazed and incredulous protagonist of this move by her colleague, after making sure that we were no longer in her field of vision, decides to see clearly.
Next to the tray there was a post it with a sentence as macabre and under the plate there was a live pigeon, with legs and wings tied so that it could not fly away, surrounded by worms. Suddenly an almost rotten hand came out of the grate grabbing our wrist. Frightened Jennifer broke free and took a few steps back, but soon after she was grabbed by the secretary who tried to hit us. The protagonist's colleague was no longer in herself and showed something abnormal. Her face was in fact gray in color, as if it were slowly decomposing, and hideous worms came out of her eye sockets.
Here the Remothered: Broken Porcelain demo begins to show its Survival Horror nature. At first glance, the game mechanics of this new chapter of the saga seem the same as those of its predecessor: we will have to move stealthily without letting us see enemies. However, the developers have added many interesting new features, designed to help the player during the game phases, but at the same time also able to provide a greater level of challenge. If in the first chapter our only one was to escape from Mr. Felton, on Remothered: Broken Porcelain our protagonist will have the opportunity to defend herself. If we are caught red-handed by the secretary or any other enemy, Jennifer will have the opportunity to land two blows using the blunt weapons that we will find around the map.
Ithe enemy will simply be stunned for five minutes and we will have time to escape and progress through the story. The enemies when they hunt us down, they will not follow scripted actions, but they will have an artificial intelligence as it was for the first chapter. The latter has been revised and refined: the enemies will not always be on their trail, but they will perform certain tasks. If we manage to escape from a chase, the villain on duty will go away and return to perform the task that through our fault he had interrupted. The enemies will be extremely sensitive to noise and therefore when we move we will have to be extremely careful in order to avoid them noticing us.
There will be several sound traps along the map, such as caged birds: if we get too close to them they will start chirping, thus attracting the enemy on duty. They certainly could not miss the shelters, a fundamental component in a Stealth-type Survival Horror game. Jennifer will be able to take refuge in wardrobes, trunks, under the bed, practically in any place where she can physically enter.
Certainly there is no lack of peek with which we can check if the enemy on duty is still looking for us, obviously all without attracting attention. As it was for the first chapter, also on Remothered: Broken Porcelain the furniture can be fully opened. We can rummage through all the drawers throughout the hotel for blunt weapons or diversions such as bottles, ideal for distracting the enemy and running away.
The engine with which Remothered: Broken Porcelain is developed is Unreal Engine 4, a graphics engine known for offering good visual rendering and excellent performance in fact, this new chapter does not seem to differ visually from its predecessor. The graphics are pleasant to see and the settings manage to give a suggestive, disturbing atmosphere that conveys a constant sense of anxiety, which is indispensable for such a title. The lights are well made and are able to give a dark and gloomy atmosphere. Remothered: Broken Porcelain would certainly be a perfect title in which to introduce Ray Tracing effects in real time, in order to provide even more realism to the environments.
The corridors of the hotel are a constant reminder of The Shining, the popular horror cult released in the now distant 1980. The music, as it was for the first chapter, is extremely engaging and gives greater depth to the title, creating even more anxiety and a sense of anguish. The demo of Remothered: Broken Porcelain ran on PC with a by now antiquated nvidia Geforce GTX 970 on board. Although the video card now feels the weight of the years it carries on its back, the game ran fairly well, with some frame rate drops too , but nothing transcendental. With today's video cards this will be a problem that does not exist, also because the first chapter, released two years ago, managed to have a very high frame rate and this second chapter will certainly not be outdone.
Overcoming is never easy but Chriss Darril and Stormind Games have succeeded in this feat. Although the first chapter was already excellent, Remothered: Broken Porcelain seems to be even better. The gameplay has been revised by introducing several improvements such as defense, which is extremely useful. The mechanics of stealth have remained almost the same, while the artificial intelligence of the enemies has undergone a positive evolution. The technical sector remains more or less at the same level as the first chapter: the settings are able to put awe and fear, a basic element in a horror game.
Remothered: Broken Porcelain will only see the light in the course of 2020, and will be available for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. If you are no longer in the skin, in the meantime you can add it to your wishlist on Steam, so you know the release date first.
