Remothered: Broken Porcelain wants to queer horror – but will have to win back queer players first

Broken Porcelain gets off to a confusing start – you die, with no idea why. Thrown into what looks like a hospital basement, you find yourself in control of a young girl. All you can do is explore the room, collect a few items, and try but ultimately fail to escape the hulking figure that crawls out of a ventilation shaft and bludgeons you to death.

It is, to be fair, a suitably terrifying opening to this second chapter in the Remothered series, a survival horror franchise that launched in 2018 with Tormented Fathers. It also confused me so much I restarted the preview build of the upcoming game twice, thinking I must be able to somehow escape or defeat the killer.

It turns out that no, the in media res opening is part and parcel of the game’s twisted narrative. Post-bludgeoning, players regain control of the same girl, learning it is and find themselves in a strange and gloomy hotel in 1973. The girl is Jennifer, working there after being expelled from an all-girls boarding school, and she’s about to have to run for her life for real – but not before we meet Linn.

Linn is another maid at the discomfiting Ashmann Inn, and despite an argument prior to the events played here, the girls are close. In fact, their relationship is central to the events of Broken Porcelain, with it blossoming into romance as the two young women attempt to survive the horrors that unfold. We don’t get to see every facet of it in the preview build, but as the trailer above showcases, Jennifer and Linn’s connection will be a major part of the game.

With the already-isolated inn totally shut off when a winter storm sets in, the fellow staff and residents start getting a little… unruly, and you’ll soon get a feel for what the game has to offer. If your first thought when you hear “survival horror” is Resident Evil, think again. This brand of terror is more about being relentlessly stalked by near-unstoppable figures, avoiding their attention, hiding wherever you can, and distracting them if necessary. The Remothered series began as a spiritual successor to the Clock Tower games, and like that vintage horror franchise, creating a sense of claustrophobia in the player by trapping them in locked, finite, restrictive environments is key.

It works brilliantly – the game is frequently terrifying, my pulse quickening as I desperately try to find somewhere to hide from the mad Andrea, another worker at the inn, who decides she wants to introduce Jennifer to her scissors. As Jennifer, you usually only have a defensive weapon such as a screwdriver, if even that, so the urge to escape becomes even more palpable.

There’s also something weirdly anachronistic about Broken Porcelain – despite the 1970s setting, the fashions are more 1890s, yet the buildings and rooms have technology that in some ways feel closer to the present day. The mish-mash of mis-timed things adds to the unsettling air that permeates the game though. Everything feels slightly wrong, nothing fits, and it brilliantly helps to keep the player on edge throughout.

The actual mechanics are often clunky though – Jennifer frequently gets stuck behind or between objects, and movement feels awkward even in more open spaces. The enemy AI is also questionable – sometimes a pursuer will head straight for your hiding spot, even if they didn’t see you dart into it, other times they’ll leave the area immediately. Hopefully both of these issues can be addressed by the time of the full game’s release.

However, while Broken Porcelain is shaping up to be a horror story where queer romance is a central and pivotal element, developer Stormind may have its work cut out regaining the trust of queer players. The previous game in the series, Tormented Fathers, attracted criticism for [SPOILERS] the reveal that the central killer was born a woman, forced to present as male, and driven mad by supposed hormonal imbalances. It’s a genre cliché straight out of Silence of the Lambs, and attracted condemnation for its transphobic interpretations.

Hopefully, Broken Porcelain will move away from that particular plot thread, although matters are complicated by the fact that Jennifer is not a brand new character. Returning players will know her from the first game, albeit (to avoid further spoilers) under a different name. Connections to the transphobic elements could be unavoidable, although we’ll have to wait for the full release to see how it pans out.

There’s perhaps reason for LGBTQ+ players be more optimistic about this sequel though – creator Chris Darril has spoken in defence of the game’s lesbian themes, calling it “a simple and innocent love story between two girls”. He also attacked people complaining online about the games core relationship for spreading “idiot/silly propaganda”.

Fingers crossed, then, that the full version of Remothered: Broken Porcelain abandons the problematic elements of its predecessor, builds on the touching romance between Jennifer and Linn (no ‘bury your gays‘ tropes, please), and irons out the technical quibbles. Gaymers won’t have long to wait to see how it fares – it launches 20 October on Steam, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.