Without exaggeration, Remothered: Broken Porcelain is one of the worst games I’ve reviewed over the years. A broken, messy game that did very little right and just left me frustrated. Yet in their next game, Stormind drastically improved with the still deeply flawed but much more engaging A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, which managed to adapt the movie’s tone and feel into a more unique horror experience. With spooky season upon us and Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy closing out the trilogy, will Stormind redeem themselves and deliver a surprisingly solid finale, or fall back into their previous failings? 

‘Cause this is Thriller! Thriller Night!

One year after Susan’s daughter, Agata, went missing, Susan receives a mysterious tape that reveals that she’s not only alive, but being held at Villa Asham in Sicily. Heading out to find her daughter, Susan is thrust into a battle for survival against a dangerous cult and their connections to Cristo Morente. The story here is mostly serviceable with a small cast of characters, but very few surprises. 

While I played the horrendously bad Broken Porcelain, I never got around to the original game, Tormented Father, which is much better reviewed and has a cult following. Thankfully, even the opening hour of Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy left a much more positive impression on me than its predecessor. It feels much more refined and polished than the previous entry, but it still doesn’t quite reach its potential and retains that awkwardness and clumsiness, just without the frustration of playing.

Remothered is a survival horror franchise that emphasises enemy avoidance and stalker pursuit against threats that are nearly impossible to kill. It’s clearly inspired by Clock Tower and the criminally forgotten Haunting Grounds (Capcom, please give this game a second life). If you are tired of stalker enemies in horror games, then this one is absolutely not for you.  But if you are foaming at the mouth for more, Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy might actually be worth checking out. 

Enemy designs, whilst cool, lack variation for the most part. The novices look identical.

The core gameplay loop and premise are simple: you are trapped in a location with a single, near-invulnerable threat hunting you down. You’ll creep between rooms, solve relatively simple puzzles, and gather key items to reach the next story event. The game has two major areas, and you’ll spend much of it exploring the same rooms and backtracking extensively. Both are reasonably well designed, with plenty of escape and hiding opportunities, but the game loses steam by the time you reach the second large area. You’ll also be occasionally whisked away elsewhere for bigger puzzles or other encounters with the Novices. 

If you get spotted, escape is your only real option, either by looping around the map to break line of sight or hiding in a closet or under furniture. You can also throw various items to stun them, hit them with weak melee weapons or use defensive tools for a getaway if you get grabbed. The problem with the stealth is within some weird design decisions: doors close by themselves, so if you are trying to follow a stalker into another room, the door will close, and you will have to wait. And you can’t even open doors slowly to reduce the noise. The stealth gameplay here is just very basic.

Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy has some novel ideas, like using mirrors to uncover and spawn new paths around the map that encourage deeper exploration, or a mini-game while hiding that requires you to keep your cursor in the circle. Pass the mini-game and the stalker moves on; otherwise, they find you and the chase continues. It is a straightforward mini-game I found hard to lose, but it did add a little extra tension instead of having an enemy just not look for you. 

The Bride is the only real unique enemy.

At its best, Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy builds real tension. It has some good horror moments throughout, plus a couple of solid jumpscares (with quite a lot still missing). Some puzzles force you to pay attention to the environment, and knowing a murderous nun is around makes it even more intense. But it eventually loses steam, especially as you reach the end of each area, as the game’s backtracking can feel overly extensive. You’ll be running back and forth from corner to corner constantly throughout the runtime, and it becomes too easy to predict. 

As I mentioned previously, this is a much better game than Broken Porcelain, and I didn’t run into many bugs during my time. I did once have a stalker run around in circles, but that was really. There are no real game-breaking bugs, and I was never frustrated. It still falls into the same repetitive gameplay loop that never surprises, and it feels incredibly safe, but that’s fine.

Playing on PC, I’m happy to say that outside a few cinematics, the game fully supports ultrawide resolutions during gameplay with no loss of FOV. The graphics themselves are mostly fine, with well-detailed environments and some incredibly cool enemy designs that actually surprised me. That said, it’s not perfect, and the presentation is a little rough, with janky animations and character models that fall into the uncanny valley.

Look out for mirrors.

While the voice performances are mostly solid, especially from the antagonists, the sound mixing here is awkward. Take for comparison Grace from Resident Evil Requiem. In Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy, Susan is clearly out of her depth and often sounds panicked. Grace, by contrast, keeps it under her breath, while Susan blurts things out loud despite being in earshot of a murder nun. Although, the legendary Silent Hill composer, Akira Yamaoka, has done some work on the solid sound.

Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy wasn’t the total miss I expected, and I’m happy to be proven wrong. Dare I say I actually enjoyed my time with Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy? It won’t blow you away or keep you on the edge of your seat, but it is a fun horror experience. If, like me, you hated Broken Porcelain, keep an eye on this one. If you are on the hunt for a new stalker horror game, Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy is a safe bet. 

PhyscolRemothered: Red Nun’s Legacy is available now on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5..

Reviewed on PC.

A copy of Remothered: Red Nun’s Legacy was provided by the publisher.