The Penumbra Collection

I you have played Amnesia or Soma you might think that Penumbra is a bit dated in terms of graphics and gameplay. It's story is unique though and the setting reminds me of The Thing, but it's very different because only that The Thing takes place on Arctica and Penumbra on Greenland is the only common denominator. Penumbra is a vastly scarier experience because you play a lonely character, Philip, who is looking for his father whom he never met. Penumbra is originally an experience split into three pieces, Overture, Black Plague and Requiem. Overture is a suspenceful mystery in a dark place with occasional puzzles, an interesting story and a few modest scares. No jumpscares here! Black Plague steps it up a few notches by being A LOT scarier, there are a few segments where you'll be doing a bit of running akin to how a game of Amnesia the Dark Descent usually goes. Requiem is a puzzlegame that concludes the previous titles and brings a bit of closure to the first two installments. Requiem isn't a scary game as far as I can remember and the reason might be that Black Plague did too much to scare the player and progressed the story so much that Frictional would have to invent a few more things to top Black Plague. Requiem is worth a playthrough if you want to know what happens after Black Plague. On the whole, Overture is a more original title (except it's the only one where you can use items as weapons). Black Plague is scarier because of the introduction of certain enemies and the removal of any weapons or items that could be used as such. Requiem is a storydriven puzzlegame, not much of a horror game honestly.

Beware, in "Penumbra - Black Plague", the section Dreamland "It is hot here...", because it's crasching, under Wine. Resolved, with Virtual Machine, go on the story, copy saves in Linux and continue.

This series is the first games of Frictional Games and they are the best. Much better then Amnesia or SOMA. Penumbra: Black Plague - this one is real treasure. It has great improvements compare to it's predecessor Penumbra: Overture. (Gameplay is similar to Amnesia). If U like horror games - This package is highly recomended.

A game that has it all, a great story and wonderful gameplay. If you have ever played amnesia, these games are very similar to it. Lots of scares and is really my cup of tea! It's my favorite game trilogy! I really recommend it to anyone who is thinking of getting it!

I must have bought it few years back and only got to play it at the end of 2021 (literarily). The graphics is dated but what did you expect? For its time it's quite decent. The idea and story is pretty ok but there are some things that spoil the fun. The first game... well, it didn't pull me in. Played it for an hour or so and got discouraged. The second one went much better and I'm somewhere near the finish. Don't believe the "ability to manipulate everything" and so on. You can move some objects, open drawers and that's pretty much it. The rest are only story items. And this "natural gestures" thingy is more annoying than "immersive". Maybe if it was done with VR controllers... but it uses mouse. Sorry, having to draw circles to open valve is simply frustrating. The game (at least the Black Plague, but Overture at the beginning also seemed that way) is fairly linear. And some puzzles are a bit pixel-hunty. After all, if you liked Amnesia, you might like the Penumbras (if you can stand dated graphics) although the game seems to can't make up its mind about what it want to be - a puzzle game or a survival horror.