Being Scared and Scaring Oneself in Video Games: The "Atmosfearic" Aesthetics of Amnesia: Rebirth

Art Style | Art & Culture International Magazine

Abstract

Atmosphere-centered philosophy and aesthetics are gaining more and more attention not only in widely established academic disciplines, but also in video game studies, a field that deals with one of the most popular forms of artistic and cultural expression in the 21^st century. The fact that spaces and constellations of objects produced by game designers and instantiated by players create atmospheres on a leiblichen level of perception is evident in a medium as sensorially sophisticated as the video game. As an illustration of Gernot Böhme’s neo-phenomenological and neo-aesthetic concept of atmosphere, a look at Frictional Games’ Amnesia: Rebirth (2020) demonstrates how frightening video game atmospheres are created. The focus is divided into three parts: light, space, and sound. Although these domains cannot be entirely separated from each other, the analyses highlight how different ecstasies (i.e., ways in which an object and its constellations affect subjects) of video game environments and conditions influence the player’s state of mind and their being there (Befindlichkeit) and evoke a fear-inducing atmosphere, or rather atmosfear. The media-aesthetic analysis demonstrates the way in which game design is reflected as aesthetic labor in the player’s experience. Caused by the constant concurrence of potential safety and potential danger within the uncanny game world, players develop an ambivalent attitude towards it. Each of Amnesia: Rebirth’s elements—for example, the tension caused by sparse lighting; darkness and collapsed architecture that forbid freedom of movement; the avatar’s unreliable condition; unstable soundscapes; sound-sensitive monsters—negotiate the player’s curiosity, feeling-for, feeling-as, and reflection, as well as the game’s requirements for progression. The joint influence of seemingly contradictory affective impressions of fear, hope, despair, chaos, uncertainty, and curiosity prevents both the formation of unanimous intentions and attitudes and the execution of unambiguous actions.