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Games Like Amnesia: Hide in the Dark, Don't Fight

Amnesia: The Dark Descent made a whole kind of horror: first person, no weapons worth the name, a light source to manage and something in the dark that you must avoid rather than fight. These games follow its rules, starting with the rest of the series and Frictional Games' own work.

The games

9 of the 16 games in this guide are not on Switch and are left out. Show them all.

  1. SOMA key art: a battered diving-suit robot with glowing lights beside a woman's face pressed to a wet glass window PsychologicalSOMAFrictional again: no weapons on a failing undersea station, with horror that turns inward.
  2. Amnesia: Rebirth key art: Tasi holds up a lit match, a pale clawed creature lurking in the dark beside her PsychologicalAmnesia: RebirthMatches, a lantern and growing fear across the Algerian desert, in the series' own rules.
  3. Outlast key art: a grinning, scarred inmate with glowing eyes looms beside a dark asylum corridor seen through green night vision SurvivalOutlastAn asylum, a camcorder with night vision and nothing you can fight, in Amnesia's footsteps.
  4. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs key art: a painted Victorian engine room of brass pipes, gauges and a ladder beside a red armchair, with a round hatch smeared with blood PsychologicalAmnesia: A Machine for PigsThe Chinese Room's story-led Amnesia: an industrialist's descent into his own factory and machine.
  5. Monstrum key art: a hulking orange-lit monster with a glowing face fills a dark ship corridor SurvivalMonstrumA randomised cargo ship, one of three monsters each run, and permanent death.
  6. Perception key art: Cassie's face in blue light with moths on her hair, beside the title and its braille lettering PsychologicalPerceptionA blind woman sees a mansion only by sound, and every sound she makes draws the Presence that stalks it.
  7. Hollow Cocoon key art: a pale long-haired figure with dark markings on her bare back stands among red ropes and paper talismans in a green-lit room Multiple endingsHollow CocoonTrapped in a 1980s Japanese mansion with a tall, pale creature you cannot fight, only hide from.

Start with the series. Amnesia: The Bunker is the most like a survival game: a World War I bunker, a revolver with very few bullets, a generator to keep fuelled and a creature in the walls that hunts by sound. Amnesia: Rebirth sends Tasi Trianon across the Algerian desert with matches and a lantern, solving puzzles and hiding as fear builds. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, made by The Chinese Room, is the most story-led, a descent through an industrialist's factory with fewer encounters.

Frictional Games' other horror is just as close. Penumbra: Overture came before Amnesia: a Greenland mine, physical puzzles and creatures you hide from in the tunnels. Penumbra: Black Plague continues it with no weapons at all, in a research complex under the ice where infected staff roam and a voice in your head works against you. SOMA keeps the no-weapons rule on a failing research station on the sea floor, and turns its horror toward questions about the mind.

Outside Frictional, Outlast follows the same rules: an asylum, a camcorder with night vision, and nothing you can fight. Still Wakes the Deep, also from The Chinese Room, puts you on a 1970s oil rig breaking apart as its crew turns into monsters, with only hiding, climbing and swimming. The Designer's Curse is a free game made in Amnesia's image, with music by Mikko Tarmia, who scored Amnesia and SOMA: puzzles in a dark manor while creatures you cannot fight hunt you. Monstrum randomises an abandoned cargo ship and one of three monsters each run, with permanent death, and ROUTINE leaves you on an abandoned lunar base with no waypoints, running and hiding from hostile machines.

For slower, more psychological dread, Visage is a house where families died and their ghosts close in, with only light to protect your sanity, and Layers of Fear is a painter's mansion that rebuilds itself behind your back. Song of Horror moves to third-person fixed cameras, but keeps the helplessness: an entity called the Presence hunts you, and any character can die for good.

Two more keep you unarmed in a house. In Perception you play Cassie, who is blind and sees the mansion only by echolocation, so every tap of her cane lights the halls and also calls the Presence to her. Hollow Cocoon traps a student in an abandoned 1980s Japanese mansion with an unnaturally tall, pale creature you can only hide and sneak from.

If you only try one, play Penumbra: Overture to see where Amnesia came from, or SOMA for a slower story about what makes a person.

Questions

What is the closest game to Amnesia: The Dark Descent?

The other Amnesia games, especially The Bunker and Rebirth, and Frictional Games' Penumbra games and SOMA, which share its no-fighting first-person design.

Who makes the Amnesia games?

Frictional Games made The Dark Descent, Rebirth and The Bunker, and published A Machine for Pigs, which was made by The Chinese Room.

Are there games like Amnesia with no combat at all?

SOMA, Penumbra: Black Plague, Visage, Layers of Fear and Outlast give you no weapons; The Bunker gives you a revolver with very little ammunition.

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