[Introduction]
"Penumbra: Overture", an action-adventure horror game developed by the Swedish developer Frictional Games, has recently signed a publishing agreement with Lexicon Entertainment, an independent publisher in the UK. The game is set to be released in the spring of next year. The storyline is built around family history, fully integrating mysterious phenomena and horror elements. It features advanced physics engines and graphic special effects. The game will be divided into a trilogy series, with "Penumbra: Overture" being the first chapter.
Like all good dreams, Philip initially felt that this dream was real - his mother had died, and apart from the feeling of forgetting, he could no longer remember what her funeral was like. Until one day, two weeks after his mother's death, he received a letter from the dead. This letter, sent by Philip's father, left him astonished because his father had passed away before Philip was born. In the letter, his father told Philip to retrieve a safe and burn the book inside it. Philip was very surprised by the letter from his father. If what remained behind was just humanity, this was what he feared most! However, after retrieving the safe, he did not follow his father's instructions to burn the book but instead carefully read it. Now, he had opened the door from the grave. Philip searched for clues left by his father, hoping to find even a trace. All the clues seemed to point to one place - Greenland. To understand the letter from his deceased father, after much deliberation, Philip left the symbol of human civilization and decided to head towards Greenland to find the notes mentioned in his father's letter. Philip urgently needs your help. Upon arriving in Greenland, Philip got lost in a blizzard. As he approached exhaustion and madness, with his body temperature continuously dropping and facing imminent death, he discovered a strange metal hatch cover under the snow. From the outside, it seemed to lead to a frozen wasteland. Inside, perhaps more profound, immeasurable, and unpredictable events awaited. But at this moment, Philip had nowhere else to go. To solve the puzzles left by his father and unravel the unknown mysteries of his family history, Philip decided to step into the unknown wilderness. The game begins with Philip opening the metal hatch and entering, and then the player must figure out how to continue the unpredictable future. Understanding what exactly is happening is just part of the game design environment; more scenes and areas will be revealed as the plot develops and through the player's careful exploration.
"Penumbra: Overture" is a first-person action-adventure game where the focus is mainly on the storyline, adventure, and puzzles rather than using violence and bloodshed to create fear and shocking horror effects. The development team cleverly uses the plot to guide Philip in searching for clues and solving past mysteries. The game's characteristics are more similar to the "Silent Hill" series and the "Resident Evil" series. However, unlike these games, it does not adopt their rich weapon systems. Perhaps creating a bloody horror atmosphere through attacking grotesque monsters is not what this game aims for. After all, seeking thrills through bizarre and eerie monster images has become unoriginal. Instead, relying on the psychological perceptions deep within the characters to express emotional tension and create a terrifying atmosphere is a better strategy. Therefore, players essentially have no weapons in "Penumbra: Overture." The weapons provided in the game mostly have little power and cannot save themselves. Thus, their only weapons are their own mechanisms and strategies. In other words, unlike regular combat systems, melee battles controlled by the mouse can increase the authenticity of the chaos. The game emphasizes confrontation with enemies without relying on brute force. In most cases, unless absolutely necessary, players should use their intelligence rather than weapons or muscles, trying to deal with enemies through various coordination and interactions. Similarly, enemies will also fully utilize AI, hunting or intimidating players together. Additionally, during the game's adventure process, stealth actions are an important means for players to ensure safety. Stealth actions allow players to avoid direct encounters with enemies, eliminating the need for direct confrontations, allowing them to smoothly cross enemy-guarded scenes. Moreover, the key lies in utilizing environmental terrain. For example, outside a room filled with enemies, players can throw stones to knock on the door, luring enemies out with the sound. Players can also hide in closets, set traps, unexpectedly knock enemies unconscious, or block doors with obstacles. Players can use these methods to divert enemies and pass through or escape.
As a survival horror game, we can easily see from the already published screenshots, demo videos, and trial versions that the development team strives to break free from the influence of classic horror adventure games like the "Silent Hill" series and the "Resident Evil" series. The team attempts to express horror through another form of action, which is the "fear without weapons" introduced above, besides obtaining survival opportunities by avoiding threats through stealth actions. Another tool for creating fear is - puzzles. These puzzles are based on physics and logical reasoning, and players can solve them using many different methods or means. Although the difficulty of the puzzles in the game is not high, such as puzzles that require arranging four coins in the correct order to open a door, they are well integrated into the game's storyline. This is the development team's hope to provide meaning and stories for all events occurring in the game. The game places more emphasis on exploration. A player truly immersed in the game's plot can discover many interesting things in the game's adventure world. However, these interesting elements do not include any NPCs who can directly converse with you. Players' focus is more on notes and books, recording their adventure experiences, examining different environments, and learning more knowledge. To align with the fear coming from within rather than external monsters, the game's character shaping no longer follows the typical action hero archetype. The player-controlled Philip is a professional scientist who has never ventured into dangerous areas or used weapons. In the game, his main tool is his mind. Careful thinking and investigation, wisdom, and creativity will be his chances for survival, especially as Philip begins his adventure nearing death. Although there are wolves and spiders with green eyes in the game, their appearances are relatively normal. Compared to other first-person action-adventure games, "Penumbra: Overture" not only creates a good visual experience using its self-developed new 3D engine but also designs an advanced physical system for environmental interaction. The game's adventurous nature is no longer limited to opening drawers, pulling levers, moving objects, or picking up objects to complete adventures. The game hopes that players can perform various actions or explore adventures in a highly interactive game world using mouse operations, such as using this system to secretly peek into certain rooms after opening a door.
The game will provide players with more terrifying exploration scenes. The game's scenes are very vast, with more details incorporated into the story plot, including sunken ground, deep excavations, snowy scenes, and a fishing boat. Secrets about the unknown will surface through continuous exploration. Each scene has a distinct style, and the objects placed in the environment are also different. These different objects are very useful for players to prevent enemy attacks, for example: rocks can be thrown at enemies, large wooden boxes can be pushed to block enemies, and even obscure light to make enemies blind. These are undoubtedly good escape measures for players in dangerous situations. Moreover, the setting of each scene room is not a simple old-fashioned storeroom; some rooms have a long history. Carefully checking the corners and positions of different rooms can reveal puzzling things. The realistic and harsh climatic conditions and lighting effects in the game are performed exceptionally well. Almost all scene environments have real-time lighting effects. Bright sunlight shines through the gaps in the roof, dim lights scatter across every corner of the room, making the entire room appear lifeless. The main storyline takes place in the underground world of Greenland, which, despite its name implying "green land," shows no signs of greenery. Thick snow covers the entire scene, and the barren ice plain seems to be the best place for players to explore. After entering the underground facility, you will feel the stark contrast between the dim indoor tones and the snowy outdoors. The indoor setup is very simple, with documents scattered randomly on the ground, broken ladders, and road signs, suggesting that this underground world was once left over from a construction site. The background music and sound effects in the game are average. Players won't hear repeatedly the same sounds in the game, and every sound effect expression can highlight speed and impact.
The game will be set as a trilogy, with "Penumbra: Overture" being the first part of the trilogy. The game will be released globally, with each game priced at 19.99 euros. The reason for the low price is mainly due to the relatively short playtime of the game itself, with each game having approximately eight hours of gameplay. At the same time, it hopes that players can fully experience all three games in the series. To allow more players with lower configurations to enjoy this game, the game will not support DirectX 10, but the game will activate the depth-of-field effect (Depth of Field) to enhance the game's realism and use motion blur (Motion Blur) to improve the visual sensation of character acceleration and slow-motion. Players with higher configurations can experience more stunning visual effects.