Developer Stormind Games' Remothered: Broken Porcelain is a survival horror game that tells the story of a young girl with a mysterious past who must escape the dark secrets of the world she lives in. Broken Porcelain had a lot of potential to be a properly horrifying game, but it suffers from a wide range of different issues like poor controls, a convoluted plot, and a variety of different game-breaking bugs. In its current state Broken Porcelain is nearly unplayable, and even its few positive story beats can't save it.
Its tough to explain exactly what the plot of Remothered: Broken Porcelain is. Players are put in the role of a young woman named Jennifer who was sent to work at Ashmann Inn as a maid after she was expelled from boarding school. While attempting to escape the Inn one night she is attacked by the head maid, Andrea, and realizes that there is something seriously wrong with the people who work at the Inn. On her journey to leave Jenn also learns more about her mysterious past as well as the dark nature of her employer, Stefano Ashmann. The issue with the story is that it tends to skip between several different timelines and perspectives, which makes it difficult to keep track of what's happening.
That could be forgiven if the game was also interesting during play, but that isn't the case. Most of the gameplay is centered around avoiding Remothered: Broken Porcelain's enemies, which the game refers to as stalkers. Players must sneak around the inn and hide inside chests and wardrobes to avoid being attacked. While she can't outright kill her pursuers, Jenn is able to pick up small weapons like knives or trowels that can be used to stun the stalkers and give herself more time to run. At the same time players will also need to pick up specific things like keys or other story-centric items to open doors or progress further into the game.
One of the biggest issues with Remothered: Broken Porcelain is the controls, which barely work half of the time. The most obvious example of this is in trying to pick up items from inside desks or dressers. The reticle will bounce around all the different drawers which makes it difficult to open up a specific one. Even if players do manage to get a drawer open, its still frustrating to try and pick up the object inside and will sometimes close the drawer instead. Players will run into similar issues with sneak attacking enemies, as sometimes the button prompt will refuse to show up, which will leave the player open to attack.
Enemy AI is similarly frustrating, as the stalkers in Remothered: Broken Porcelain seem to be simultaneously all-knowing yet very dumb. Some stalkers randomly spot Jenn through walls or cover, but then walk right past her despite being out in the open. Stefano Ashmann carries a revolver with him while pursuing Jenn, but for some reason will only fire it at point blank range. This means that players just have to stay a few feet away from him to avoid getting shot, which is just not how firearms are logically supposed to be used.
Remothered: Broken Porcelain is plagued by a multitude of game breaking bugs, too, which compounds its smaller issues and makes them incredibly frustrating. There were times where Jenn would become randomly stuck in the environment or behind a stalker which would lead to annoying deaths. Cutscenes seemed to suffer the most from these bugs, with some of them ending prematurely, audio cutting out, or even characters' bodies and faces refusing to move while they spoke. Worst of all, though, there were several times that Remothered:Broken Porcelain just crashed entirely. At time of writing, this review was started after a few patches had already been added to the game post-launch, so these are problems that still persist.
Remothered: Broken Porcelain may not get video game horror right often, but there are still a few gems tucked within it. Its focus on the romantic relationship between Jenn and her coworker Lindsey is inspired, and the representation feels authentic. Sadly for Remothered: Broken Porcelain that is not nearly enough to save it, and its prevalent issues make it tough to recommend to even the biggest fans of the series.
Remothered: Broken Porcelain is available on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. A PlayStation 4 code was provided for the purposes of this review.