You wake up in a medieval castle. Shambling around, trying to shake the confusion(seen through gradually switching Dutch angles and filters), you can say with certainty only two facts - your name is Daniel, and you live in Mayfair, London. Finding the first of many notes(that, along with the flashbacks which are done via red tint, voice-over, without taking away control, evoking the feeling of recalling a memory, make up the storytelling - you are not hand-holded through, you get hints, and piece the whole together, yourself), you find your former self imploring you to do one thing... kill Alexander, the politically powerful Baron of the vast Castle Brennenburg in Prussia, which you currently find yourself in.
Immediately, we have questions. Why? For both the murder(which you get to make up your own mind on - is it deserved or not?) and the distance between what you call home and where you are now. What's happening? Clearly, something supernatural is going on(a gust of wind will blow open a door, for example... inside!), is spreading through the creaky, near-abandoned(sections in disrepair, cobwebs, maggots...) fortress, the foundation of which will shake, threatening to bury you in the rubble of this centuries-old building. These will be answered, by you paying attention and applying yourself, without culminating in any easy conclusion or removing all mystery. This uses your own imagination.
The elements that are not of this world are made all the more terrifying by the contrast(something uses well, in general - open/closed areas, shadow/brightness, etc.) between them and the clearly natural world around you. Eerie and murky though your surroundings may be, they behave as you'd expect. This is similar to the Penumbra series, also by Frictional Games, and is in many ways an upgrade. The physics engine makes a triumphant return - nearly everything is interactive. Pick up, rotate on both Z and X axes(by pressing R - I wish it would allow locking one of the two, and using the keyboard is slightly awkward, as is the "sometimes yet not always working" quality of using Right Mouse not only to push/throw/slam, that goes fine, no, when you attempt to use it for the opposite direction... if they just decided that it could only go "away" from you, that would be fine), move, pull open every door and drawer, etc. Everything has weight, glass can break, and so on. Need to mess around with all these objects? No. You can, and sometimes it'll help, not always(it might hurt! Fire=ow, as you might imagine).
This won't remind you that it's fiction, or what medium it belongs to. When you take a break, it's as if coming to from a nightmare - you spend a little time reassuring yourself that no, that wasn't reality. The closest this comes to a HUD is brief bloodied wounds when hurt, and the centered cursor, which changes to let you know when and how you can use something you're pointing to. Auto-saving whenever you cross between loading areas(always accompanied by two context-free lines, that you have to place, deduce the meaning of) means you don't think about that aspect; and whenever you stop playing, you can store progress, as well. Sadly, their efforts towards such does lead to some loss of consequence; I won't detail it, I mention it merely as one of the only criticisms of this as a whole. The opening asks you to lose yourself to this, and I concur. Let go. Play alone. In a pitch black room. With headphones. You can thank me later.
Having already explained how this, like its spiritual predecessor, breathes life into point and click adventure(in addition to puzzles that require you to break/lift etc. objects around you, there are the traditional, inventory-based combine/get key/bring to other place and use ones), a genre dead since 3D became prevalent, let me tell you why this stands out as survival horror. There are no weapons, and the well-designed, monstrous enemies are few in number as well as variety. Conflicts are rare enough that you never get used to them or feel safe(yet without leading to frustration), and are driven by the prevalent disempowerment of the player. You can't fight back, and have to hide, and failing that, run. As fast as you can. You can be obscured by the dark, and crouch around a corner and/or behind something. They will "patrol"/search if they don't know where you are, and if they spot you, they will chase you down - at same or greater speed as you can muster, killing you with two blows. Buy yourself seconds with debris and putting a door between them and you... get your bearings while they tear through it to get at you.
The thunderous score makes you incapable of "missing" that one is near, and they always feel like they could come by, in spite of the scripted spawns(not outcomes, those are up to you!). Ah, so, avoid the light, I hear you say? No, you will have to balance it - static sources that can't be turned off(!) such as candelabra and torches with the plentiful Tinderboxes(matches) or the carried rare-oil-consuming lantern that you find early. Why? Because that's how you manage Sanity. And if not, you will start hallucinating(blurring, seeing dead bodies, hearing a consistent, sharp note etc.), and you will be of no use. Acting is average. Writing, story and multiple endings(conclusive, yet leaving room for interpretation) are satisfying, based on setup and pay-off.
The 9 and a half hour length and lack of replayability is helped by being mod-friendly, and the free(at least on Steam) DLC of "Remember"(five short stories by Mikael Hedberg, the writer of this) and "Justine"(a 1-2 hour independent level, with a Portal-esque approach, testing your strength of character). There is a lot of disturbing content and some brutal, bloody gore in this. I warmly recommend this to any fan of Edgar Allan Poe, Clive Barker and The Haunting of 1963. 8/10
