Warning: This article contains mentions of transphobia.

Full disclosure: I approached the opportunity to preview Remothered: Broken Porcelain cautiously. Having read some of the feedback on its predecessor, Remothered: Tormented Fathers, I had some concerns when it came to whether the sequel would have learned from the first game’s fairly significant missteps around writing about trans characters.

I want to believe that it will have. I don’t think the mistakes in the first game were mean-spirited so much as they were the (admittedly painful) hallmarks of a story that wasn’t quite sure what it was trying to say, which might offer some room for learning.

Still, as a writer for a queer publication and a non-binary person whose sense of self vacillates between feminine, masculine and something in between multiple times a month, I feel a responsibility to call things what they are. At least, as far as I’m able to from the demo.

Let’s just dive in, shall we?

The first thing worth noting is that the recently released story trailer, while not demonstrating a lot of gameplay, looks visually great. Equally intriguing was the trailer seeming to offer a horror story that centered on two queer girls without necessarily framing their queerness as something to be afraid of, ashamed of, or repulsed by.

It didn’t quite restore all confidence; not least when the story summary of Tormented Fathers offered at the beginning of Broken Porcelain to players entering the series for the first time still used a lot of the troubling language from the first game. Nonetheless, it at least seemed more like there was an earnest desire to try and represent things respectfully that might not have been present in the first attempt at telling a story involving marginalized characters.

For what it’s worth, Broken Porcelain knows what it’s doing when it comes to atmosphere. The feeling of a persistent, creeping tension is deliberate and solid. The visuals of both character models and scenery are a noticeable step up from the first game. The voice acting, while stiff in places and subject to some significant bugs, treads in familiarly engaging genre territory, and is complemented by satisfying soundscaping and a competently evocative soundtrack.

In this sense, the game is very aware of its inspirations, too. It shows, which might be for good or for ill. It borrows both visual and mechanical ideas from survival horror games in the vein of Outlast and Resident Evil, with stealth and outwitting stalking enemies, limited combat options, and puzzle solving.

Though movement and environmental interaction feels overall smooth as a support to the stealth and puzzle solving, what I’ve seen of the story and mechanics so far does feel a little like I’m playing a game of “spot the reference.” Personally, I’m not entirely sure it’s working for me. Still, the demo alone isn’t enough for a conclusive statement. If all goes well, the full game should hopefully feel like an homage and not a stale reproduction.

Further, Broken Porcelain provides the opportunity to play as a character, Jennifer, who seems to have been the source of a great deal of the first game’s mystery, as well as following up with the first game’s protagonist, Rosemary Reed. In this way, Broken Porcelain should hopefully offer some satisfying answers to fans of Tormented Fathers.

Meanwhile, what looks to be an improved approach to movement, crafting, combat, and puzzles should have plenty to offer to new players. Additionally, the aesthetics may be appealing to fans of giallo films.

What is somewhat concerning though, given that Broken Porcelain is slated for an October 2020 release, is that the game is still troubled by a number of fairly significant graphical and technical bugs. For what it’s worth, the developers do seem to be aware of the majority of these issues, as provided to me in a preview document.

Among these are: issues of camera clipping during some combat sequences, problems of prompts for action not appearing when they should, issues with syncing voice acted lines, some visual artifacts lacking realistic physics, and some lag when textures are loading in. Certainly, I experienced several of these during my time spent getting settled into Broken Porcelain’s universe.

One can assume fixes are being worked on as we speak. All the same, given the timeframe in question, I think it’s safe to say players picking up the full game might want to expect some patches in the first week or so after launch.

To circle back to where we started, it’s hard to say with confidence whether or not Broken Porcelain has learned from its predecessor’s narrative errors, for now. The bits of story shown in the preview around the Ashmann Inn and its shadowy inhabitants are intriguing. Even more promising is the fact that these characters do feel more alive and three-dimensional than those in the Tormented Fathers playthrough I watched.

These feel like signs the creative team wants to do better and treat its subject matter and characters with more empathy. Nonetheless, the first game seemed so confused about what it was trying to say about gender that it (perhaps unintentionally) replicated harmful myths about trans men and trans women. Against that backdrop, I simply don’t know enough yet to give Broken Porcelain an unqualified pass. Only time will tell whether I can put more emphasis on my caution or my optimism.

A PC preview copy of Remothered: Broken Porcelain was provided by Stormind Games for this preview.

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Remothered: Broken Porcelain

7

Score

7.0/10

Pros

• Compelling character models and level design
• Intriguing set of characters
• Interesting mechanics
• Competent soundscaping and soundtrack

Cons

• Unclear if it’s learned from the first game’s harmful story elements
• Might rely a little too much on referring to other horror games
• Voice acting is a bit stiff in places
• Suffers some fairly significant bugs at present