PC Gamer UK 01.2021 @InternationalPress75

LEFT: Time for a

check-in!

RIGHT: This isn’t

Tali’s first child.

PRESS TOUR A recent history of weird button prompts

A

mnesia: Rebirth casts

you as Tasi Trianon, a

young explorer with a

rough case of amnesia.

Big surprise. Besides

bobbing and weaving around

cosmic horrors, getting your

memories back is the top goal

here. Early on, you’ll recall the

tragic fate of some loved ones and

chip away at the extra tragic local

colonial history. But soon enough

Tasi will gather enough memory

scraps to piece together a

particularly big one: she’s four

months pregnant.

Tasi’s pregnancy isn’t marginalised,

stowed away for certain cutscenes

and story beats. As the player you will

need to literally babysit, pressing a

button to make Tasi hold her belly to

feel and listen for her unborn child.

I’m not very far into Rebirth, but the

simple existence of a ‘Press X to

check fetus’ system already gives

the horror new dimensions.

Sure, it sounds goofy without

context, and immediately brings to

mind Call of Duty: Advanced

Warfare’s infamous ‘Press F to pay

respects’ scene. But that moment is

an empty gesture – you don’t spend

the next ten hours pressing F to

salute soldiers to maintain your

Respect stat. It’s a button prompt that

effectively turns the page. Amnesia

makes its baby button prompt a lever

you can pull at any time, and for

good, spooky reasons.

I would tell you exactly how the

baby button works, but the key here

is that the explicit function of the

baby button isn’t really explained. I

only put together how it works

through play. Rebirth is leading with

action and theme: you’re pregnant,

protect the baby. It’s mum roleplay.

All I know is that checking in on

your baby restores a bit of sanity

whenever the screen flashes blue

to signify a kick, an interesting

alternative to finding or making light

or solving a puzzle. It might seem

odd to give the player a free, super

accessible sanity pump, but if you’re

put into a position where finding

light or fleeing aren’t an option,

standing still to clutch your unborn

child just so you don’t go insane

means you’re close to done for

already. It’s a desperation button, and

one that’s elegantly integrated into

the story and character. Now you

have a legitimate systems-driven

directive to roleplay a mother in a

horrifying situation.

MOTHER SPACE

It’s nicely positioned next to

Amnesia’s fear system, too, in which

the character’s grip on reality is

expressed through camera control

and visual fidelity. Those are both

hindered and obscured by ambient

threats like standing in darkness, or

looking at horrific scenes and

monsters. The way you manoeuvre a

space, where you’re looking, and how

dark it is affect your fear, while more

traditional physical threats affect

your person. And in Rebirth your

person is a person within a person, a

health bar you feel and care about.

I know I care because I catch

myself checking on the little one all

the time, even if I’m not succumbing

to fear. Controlling a pregnant

character makes me feel more fragile

and makes me pay more attention to

her presence in a space, even if Tali

moves and controls like most other

first-person horror protagonists. After

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a sprint into safety or a tumble down

some rocks in the pitch darkness of a

deep subterranean cave, I

instinctively hold X to see how the

baby is doing, not because my sanity

is slipping. But even as I’m walking

around a safe outdoor area I’ll listen

in purely out of curiosity.

The unreliable perspective has me

a bit scared of the baby too, though.

Given Tali’s amnesia, I can’t fully

trust what she’s seeing and hearing. It

could very well burst out of my chest

in the third act Alien-style, a mangled

monster-demon from another

dimension. Maybe it’s not actually

there at all. Is it just a coping

mechanism imagined by Tali or, far

worse, the directed hallucination of

some cosmic force steering me

towards its incomprehensible goal?

While it might sound needlessly

complicated when you’re already

worried about running out of lantern

oil and matches or the monster

scraping at the door, checking in on

the baby doesn’t feel like a chore. It’s

the prime directive. It’s what I care

most about and somehow my greatest

fear. That’s just good game design:

thematic camouflage for the numbers

and stats and resources directing the

game systems that I trust without

question. Now all I have to do is find

the courage to see it all through.

GIVEN TALI’S AMNESIA, I CAN’T

FULLY TRUST WHAT SHE’S

SEEING AND HEARING

To incessantly

scream

“Jason!”,

Heavy Rain

(2010)

To hide in a

mass grave,

Homefront

(2011)

To shut up

Starscream,

Transformers:

Fall of Cybertron

(2012)

To kiss

your wife,

Middle-earth:

Shadow of

Mordor (2014)

To pay respect

Call of Duty:

Advanced

Warfare

(2014)

To time travel,

Titanfall 2

(2016)

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