《Tenebris Somnia》评测

You can tell a game about film nerds is made by actual film nerds when they manage to slip in a reference to Battleship Potemkin’s Odessa Steps sequence. There’s clear love and appreciation for the craft of filmmaking on display in Tenebris Somnia, from director Andrés Borghi, executive producers Airdorf Games, and publisher New Blood, but is that enough to paper over the gameplay cracks? I yelled “Action!” on PC to find out in this spoiler-free review…

If there’s any justice in this world you’ll already have seen the trailers for Tenebris Somnia, which have one hell of a hook: The game features horror FMV cutscenes including practical creature effects with, as the creators have taken great pains to point out, “absolutely positively no goddamn gen AI.” The good news is that this isn’t just a marketing gimmick: There’s a lot of them interspersed throughout the roughly five-hour (in-game) runtime, and they directly relate to events in the story itself.

But what about the game? Tenebris Somnia is a weird one alright, as it borrows the visual and gameplay language, and bitcrushed audio, of old 16-bit games; I’d like to think the game’s title and garish colour scheme are references to the films and lurid neon cinematography of Dario Argento, but I’m not entirely sure this isn’t wishful thinking on my part.

In any case, the story follows Julia as she goes to check on her ex-boyfriend, Iván. She’s been having nightmares about him and is concerned they’re more than just bad dreams. It’s not a spoiler to say she’s right to be worried: The start of the game has you, as Julia, visit your old apartment where Iván still lives (she still has keys) to find the place in a state of disarray. Worse, it quickly looks like some kind of weird occult ritual has taken place, and reality itself may be on the outs.

What follows is something that owes a lot to the adventure/point-and-click games of yesteryear as Julia navigates an apartment building in a search for answers, and to possibly rescue Iván. Rather than being a retro sidescroller like fellow 2D horrors Uncanny Valley, The Last Door, and the recent (and excellent) Silver Pines, Julia can move freely around most areas – background doors can be investigated, and telltale rectangles at the bottom of the screen let you know that there’s an accessible door just out of frame.

The action predominantly occurs across four floors, with occasional new areas opening up. This isn’t a Metroidvania (like the recently released Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse), although there can be quite a lot of backtracking. Fittingly, I’ll come back to this point. First, the set-up: Iván and Julia are filmmakers, who became a couple during the shooting of Iván’s short film Devora. This film plays a pivotal role in the story, for multiple reasons that are best discovered for yourself. What I will reveal is that you do get to see the full short, and it brings up a whole slew of metatextual references.

It also, unfortunately, highlights one of the few stylistic flourishes I couldn’t quite get along with: There is almost no dialogue in the FMV cutscenes, which I took as a way for the creators to differentiate between realities. However, while I think the lack of dialogue in Devora is supposed to show a link between that and the esoteric realm Julia finds herself in, some other filmed sections later on also don’t use dialogue, which blurs the line in a messy way between what’s what. It also starts to feel really awkward as the cutscenes rely on facial expressions from the actors, in situations that would one hundred percent involve someone actually saying or shouting something in real life. Luckily, it’s about the only misstep regarding the FMV sections.

As Julia explores, she encounters the denizens of the weird reality seeping into the apartment building: Relicta. These vary between ghostly red spirits, human-like beings, and actual monsters. Most are brought to life in FMV through stunning creature and make-up work; it didn’t surprise me to find out Andrés Borghi was responsible for the visual effects in the excellent When Evil Lurks (2023), an Argentinian/American co-production about a world dealing with routine demonic possession. (It’s bleak but definitely worth watching.)

The monsters in Tenebris Somnia include masked piles of sentient guts, bloated vomit-bags, two-faced hags, and a handful of creative bosses like a woman with long limbs and a hole in her face. The bad news is that it’s a little too easy to end up trapped by an enemy as it carries out its attack animation, and there are a few types with insta-kill attacks. That can sometimes be avoided, but it’s really difficult to do, and I’m still not sure how I managed.

There’s a late-game boss encounter that relies on luring them onto specific points at specific times that is intensely irritating too, but luckily most boss fights are fun to do. It’s worth noting that the game has four possible endings, with (as far as my playthrough went) the chance to have one of two very different final boss fights.

Thankfully, Julia isn’t defenseless. There’s a limited choice of weapons that include a pipe and shotgun; ammo is scarce enough that firearms don’t feel overpowered, nor is typical survival horror resource management necessary, as (more often than not) you’ll find stockpiles of supplies when you need them most.

So the balance is perfect for these things. What about the other, main part of gameplay: puzzles? This is where the game falters the most. The best puzzle games (Call of the Elder Gods is a prime, recent example) make you feel like a genius when you manage to solve a conundrum. There’s none of that in Tenebris Somnia. Item-based puzzles are deceptively simple as you’ll often pick up random things (like a mop handle, X-ray picture, and broken scissors) before you come across where they’re needed, leading to pretty straightforward moments of “I must have to use this here as I don’t have anything else in my inventory.”

Some puzzles also require you to return to a specific place to solve them, but this idea isn’t consistent when it feels like it should be (such as repeated references to a personal memento that, once found, goes inside a statue and not back where it was originally). Some puzzles are also repeated, although to the developers’ credit at least one of these also involves a frankly genius gameplay tweak that involves negativity (no spoilers here, remember). There’s also a boss fight that flips the switch on gameplay in a way that makes perfect sense considering the situation, but that’s all I’m saying about that.

Room-based puzzles fare less well, as these are often obtuse enough to lead lead to completely unnecessary backtracking (told you we’d come back here!). I strongly suspect the game is perhaps a little too vague at points to complete without a guide, and it definitely lets me collect things in an order that didn’t feel particularly organic or how the developers intended. Nothing game-breaking, thank goodness, but it definitely feels like an area that needed more testing.

The perfect example of how Tenebris Somnia is uneven in its tone and execution is in a Cinematography room puzzle. A scene is set up of a man on a bench near a tree, a shotgun in his hands. A cheesy script details how he can’t live without his partner, who died, so intends to commit suicide to join her. There’s a camera and a huge monitor that need connecting, which then reveals a surprisingly sweet outcome to the scene. However, it also requires tedious back-and-forth actions that then undermine this sweetness, partly because it’s very easy to believe you’ve solved the puzzle when you haven’t.

Throughout it all, these annoyances start to add up. The good news is that the overarching narrative involving the love of film never wavers. One thing I really like about all this is that, despite being made by Argentinians, there’s little cultural specificity (in a good way).

To explain what I mean, let me put it this way: My background is in filmmaking. I studied it, and I taught it. I was involved in running a pop-up arthouse cinema and film festivals, and I had work shown in festivals, so I loved all the little references to these things throughout the game. A lecturer notes how nothing can save a bad script; learning photography is shown as a key part of learning to use film (my university was one of the last in the UK to still teach with 16mm); and the nervous excitement of seeing your work shown on a big screen.

As I stated at the top of this review, it’s abundantly clear that everyone involved in making Tenebris Somnia has an appreciation and knowledge of filmmaking that’s true passion. You don’t put as much care and attention into FMV sequences as shown in this game if you’re not in love with your work.

This makes the general lack of creativity in the actual game even more apparent. That’s not to say there isn’t any, but it’s in short supply compared to the movie parts. Great ideas include: VCR-based puzzles. Another puzzle has you choose to remove save points from the game. Some enemies can only be seen on a screen, but attacked off-screen (i.e. in the room with Julia), which is a neat trick. But then there’s stuff like how Julia’s “damaged” state turns her momentarily invisible (instead of red, which is common in games), how a boss fight’s attack soft-locked the game for me, and how the game more often than not just looks ugly.

That last point might be unfair, given the point of Tenebris Somnia replicating something from the NES era, but it’s compounded by the times the game does get fancier with its look and style. Sometimes, especially when the colour palette gets limited, Tenebris Somnia looks striking. Mirrors show Julia’s reflection, which is a lovely modern touch. Plus, the game really cuts loose with mixed media later on, so it’s clear the developers had it in them… but choose to restrain themselves. I’d like to see less restraint from them for future games, to see them really get nuts with this kind of thing.

So that’s Tenebris Somnia: stunning FMV married to occasionally decent gameplay. I do really like the cool lore for the Relicta and the realm Julia finds herself in, especially the way it gets parceled out. Plus, the story isn’t afraid to get dark, nor ignore questions of ownership or whether it’s okay to tolerate bad behaviour if it’s coming from a supposed auteur. All-in-all, Tenebris Somnia might stumble along the way, but there’s no denying it’s a hell of a calling card for the people involved – I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

Tenebris Somnia is out October 16 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch 1 & 2, and PC via Steam.

TENEBRIS SOMNIA VERDICT

Tenebris Somnia excels when it uses its fantastic horror movie sections to carry the story forward and reference in-game events. It does less well when it comes to the game’s often-obtuse puzzles and occasionally clumsy combat. Play it for the high production values of the FMV side, and stay for the deep story that pays tribute to filmmaking.

TOP GAME MOMENT

7.5 good

A boss fight that surprised me by messing with the controls.

• Stunning FMV sequences with excellent practical effects
• Inventive and grotesque creature designs
• Deep, intriguing story with compelling horror lore
• Clever filmmaking references and metatextual storytelling
• Creative gameplay twists and memorable boss encounters
• Well-balanced resource management
• Obtuse puzzles lead to excessive backtracking
• Occasionally clumsy combat and frustrating enemy encounters
• Inconsistent pixel art visuals and occasional technical issues