The survival horror genre has come a long way since its inception in the 90’s. Long forgotten are the days of the limited ammo and locked camera angles, making way for the complete lack of defense and first person perspective that allows you to explore dark and creepy worlds meant to chill you to your very core. Remothered: Tormented Fathers, the first entry in a planned trilogy, is an overlooked game in the genre.

The game follows Rosemary Reed, who is investigating the disappearance of a young girl named Celeste thought to have run away from her adoptive parents’ estate. She feels that the father, Richard Felton’s strange medical condition, and the disappearance are linked and that the secrets are buried in the family’s remote estate. Early into the story, you’ll meet Felton and his nurse Gloria, both of which feel… off. They claim that Felton lives there alone with her wife, who locks herself away listening to a single song on loop, only leaving her room after the nurse has completed her duties. After being initially turned away by the strange duo, she decides to do what any level headed individual would – she breaks into the creepy mansion in the middle of the night.

After a startling revelation rears its disgusting head, we find Rosemary locked in the dimly lit mansion with Felton stalking her. The elderly, partially naked man doesn’t make for the most terrifying of antagonists, but roams the halls of the home reacting with better than most AI to any sound or visual cues let off by the intruder. This requires the player to carefully observe the environment, sticking to the shadows and listening for his lumbering footsteps and vulgar comments. Ms. Reed has a very small toolbox at her disposal, with meager defensive items (most will be good for a single use unless upgraded) and tools to distract the stalker. The latter range from glass objects that break upon impact, items such as alarm clocks that you can set up to lure him away from your set path, and ropes used to tie doors closed. In addition to Felton, there are a few other enemies that will roam the dilapidated sprawling home, with the Red Nun looking as if she was ripped straight from a Guillermo Del Toro movie. All of the stalkers follow the same patterns and mechanics, limiting any true challenge. It gets a bit hectic around the midpoint of the game when two different enemies are stalking the same areas, but the same tactics will be utilized.

The gameplay boils down to stealth segments, since you’ll be running for your life to either outrun or hide from your assailants should you be found. You’ll also find the dreaded QTEs, and puzzles that are simply use (insert item here) on (insert object here), very much in line with the older Resident Evil titles. This borrows heavily from that series in terms of the third person perspective, the eerie mansion you explore, as well as the strange condition affecting the elderly Felton. The home doesn’t have any secret labs tucked away in it, but will start off small with many areas locked away that will become available naturally as the story plays out, requiring you to go where the story directs, keeping you in a very linear box.

The home you explore sets the tone, with dimly lit corridors, highly detailed assets, and well placed shadows that make for an immersive experience. The same cannot be said for the character models, which succeed in showing vivid detail in the eyes and facial expressions, but fail in almost every other area. Hair looks stringy and static when it shouldn’t, cloth doesn’t flow as it should, animations are jerky, character models are stiff and bend in ways they shouldn’t, and lip sync issues are never ending. The biggest offense is the way Rosemary sneaks around in high heels, as if her legs have an extra point of articulation that most humans do not.

The game provides a decent level of player direction, giving you clear cut objectives in addition to large icons letting you know that something is in the area that can be interacted with. My biggest gripe with the gameplay is the constant threat imposed by the enemies, since the game suffers in the same way that Outlast 2 does with the constant threat of being chased. This succeeds in building a sense of dread so thick you could cut through it with the sickle brandished by the old man, but as there is rarely a quiet period, it is a very stressful affair. In the event you are caught, you can escape unscathed if you have one of the various defensive tools and manage to complete the associated QTE. Otherwise you’ll take damage, eventually end up heavily wounded and walk at a snail’s pace, which typically means you’ll die.

Much like the survival horror games of years past, you’ll need to manually save regularly, as checkpoints are few and far between. These save points are scattered about the mansion conservatively and allow you to recoup some health, resulting in the mirror cracking a bit. I didn’t fully explore this mechanic, but logic tells me eventually you’ll lose the ability to interact with the mirror if this is used too often. The biggest toll death took on me was the horrendous load times, which seemed to vary for some unknown reason.

Depending on how many times you backtrack to save and how often death comes knocking at your door, the game will vary on its length. I saw the end credits rolling a little under the two hour mark, with speed runs found on YouTube finishing in less than 40 minutes. There’s very little in terms of replay value unless you missed some of the obviously placed collectibles. Every loose thread is covered, but the whole climax feels a bit lacking and is overly drawn out, prompting my Xbox to go into sleep mode, dimming the screen multiple times throughout the long winded ending.

Remothered: Tormented Fathers is a decent entry into the criminally underused horror genre, but the price of admission is on the high end despite the lack of polish and extremely short lifespan. Here’s hoping that the next chapters improve on the overall presentation. I would recommend peeking behind the closed doors of the Felton mansion, but wait for an inevitable discount.

6 out of 10

Pros

• Chilling Atmosphere
• Well Rendered Environment
• The Red Nun

Cons

• Tons of Visual Issues
• Long Loading Times
• Underwhelming Ending
• Short

Remothered: Tormented Fathers was developed by Stormind Games and published by Darril Arts. It is available on PC, PS4 and X1. The game was not provided to us for review on X1. If you’d like to see more of Remothered: Tormented Fathers, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

 

 

Check out OpenCritic for a better idea of how our review stacks against others.