Penumbra: Requiem

A solid add-on expansion that offers a more puzzle-oriented twist on the series' interesting blend of gameplay and extends the adventure by a few hours. It's a decent way to wrap up the Penumbra series.

Penumbra: Requiem is a genuinely spooky game and this is mostly due to the excellent sound effects and so if you enjoy being scared this is a great game for that, and with the budget price the game is worthy buying for most adventure game fans.

While its puzzle and gameplay structure remains entertaining and satisfying, the expansion removes a few major elements of what made the Overture and Black Plague so appealing. That by no means makes it a bad game.

Sure, it’s worse than the first two stand-alone episodes and I can understand why some might be angry with the producers, myself expecting a tad more out of it. Even so, I consider the 10 dollar cost money well spent, but it’s important to know that you need the second game of the series previously installed to run this expansion.

Penumbra: Requiem has an approximate durability of about five hours and is a fun puzzle game, with some really clever and absorbing puzzles.

Penumbra is back … and this time is completely different. Connected to previous parts by notes and recordings, the third Penumbra is an interesting Poral-clone. Thanks to a different approach to level design and to solving puzzles you can’t blame it for copying. [Oct 2008]

The series is greater than the sum of its parts. So, consider Requiem as not a full-fledged Penumbra game but rather a small add-on that should keep you busy and humbled for a weekend.

As a game it’s not unpleasant but as an add-on it’s anything but essential.

A good horror/puzzle game that's unfortunately got itself confused with "Portal." [Issue#13, p.64]

Fair challenges, but a backward step for the series. [Christmas 2008, p.70]

As the third installment in the series, Penumbra: Requiem falls short when compared to its predecessors. Delivered as an expansion pack to Black Plague, developer Frictional Games introduced some notorious changes that generally don't fit too well. Despite some very good riddles to be solved, Requiem lacks of plot continuity and that special flavour that the originals had.

Penumbra: Requiem, as a game, doesn’t know what it is.