Penumbra Overture

Penumbra: Overture is a first person survival horror game, emphasizing on survival and problem solving instead of mindless violence and gore.

Penumbra Overture is a horror, adventure and first-person game developed and published by Frictional Games.
Released on March 06th 2009 is available in English on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

It has received 3,676 reviews of which 3,320 were positive and 356 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.7 out of 10. 😎

The game is currently priced at 9.75€ on Steam.

The Steam community has classified Penumbra Overture into these genres:

Horror Adventure First-Person Survival Horror Indie Atmospheric Psychological Horror Singleplayer Story Rich Stealth Dark Puzzle Lovecraftian Action Survival Classic

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Penumbra Overture through various videos and screenshots.

Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

OS: XP/Vista
Processor: 1.0 Ghz
Memory: 256MB(XP)
Graphics: Radeon 8500 / Geforce 3(MX4 Not supported)
Hard Drive: 800MB Free Space
Sound: Soundblaster compatible

MacOS

OS: OS X 10.7.5 - 10.15.0 This product is not compatiable with macOS 10.15 Catalina or later.
Processor: 2.0Ghz
Memory: 1024MB
Graphics: Radeon 9600/GeForce 4 (GeForce4MX not supported, Integrated graphics might not work.)
Hard Drive: 2.0GB

Linux

Minimum:

OS: Linux Ubuntu 12.04 or newer, 32-bit libraries must be installed
Processor: 2.0Ghz
Memory: 1024MB
Graphics: Radeon 9600/GeForce 4 (GeForce4MX not supported, Integrated graphics might not work.)
Hard Drive: 2.0GB

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Nov. 2024

Banger of a horror puzzle game. The combat is awful but I'm glad to hear it's been removed from the sequel. Amazing atmosphere, sound, and writing. Still worth playing in or beyond 2024!

July 2024

A journey through sanity, despair and abysmal hand to hand combat.. Penumbra Overture is a great example of a clever adventure game that rewards its player for interacting with its internal mystery. On the tin this is a horror story about a lone individual trapped in a mine searching for clues about his heritage. If you have played any of the Frictional games before this one it should come as no surprise that Penumbra at its core is a vague prototype of the later Amnesia who in a way defined this fledgling genre. The same mechanics are here with searching for clues and items by scavenging the set pieces while harassed by monsters near and far. To address the elephant in the room.The combat in this game is bad, and yea it was quite frustrating at times trying to wack a particularly annoying creeper on the head. But then again it reminded me of that Silent Hill kind of combat that makes it clear that we are not meant to be fighters, and it kind of almost works.. I only wish the game had a way of more readily avoiding flailing around desperately trying to get past certain areas of the game.. The puzzles are great and even if the game is quite short it has a few really great examples of visual storytelling. Penumbra has flaws, and many of them are even more obvious in this day and age. However, there is a certain rough charm to it and I do enjoy the atmosphere, the storytelling and the rather cerebral puzzles it lays before you. I did read about players having trouble making it run smoothly on modern machines, but during my playthrough I encountered no glaring bugs. In the end this is a rather mixed but overall enjoyable experience that really works well as a couple of lonely nights entertainment when the autumn wind howls. I’d recommend it for its excellent atmosphere and story, but be aware that it might be hard getting it to work on newer machines. Few developers have put so much time refining the rummaging through drawers, and this is where it all started!

May 2024

Well, thats a typical Frictional games game. Guessing the first of them all, first person survival horror, where we play as a dude who finds himself in an old mine (research facility? cave? altogether?) trying to find answers about his father's past. The core gameplay is an first person adventure with some minor crafting, finding and using correct items in correct places, solving some puzzles and playing hide and seek with monsters (spiders, dogs and something else), You can also barricade doors, use some explosives or melee weapons\tools to fight them, but the protagonist is rather fragile and not a fighter, so he usually gets overwhelmed very fast. The saving system combines special points where you can save manually and checkpoints (usually its a good sign of moving in a right direction). Its an old and kinda short game, so it has no interactive map, no arrows and no clues, so you can stuck at some point if you missed some item. The episodic system means 3 parts of the game to compete the full story, so the 1st episode ends in a cliffhanger. Still good.

May 2024

i can't believe people can't fucking handle swiping their mouse to the left and the right to fucking hit something critics are fucking stupid

March 2024

I've owned this game for several years but never bothered to actually play until a few weeks ago. This game had a lot of ups and downs Pros: No sanity meter Instead of a lantern you get a flashlight/ glowstick Storyline is pretty easy to follow Enemies are easy to avoid and not super challenging Cons: Graphics aren't great (duh it's a 2007 game) Puzzles can give you quite the headache if you don't look in the right places Gameplay is pretty short, on average about 4.5 hours All in all, this game was pretty good same with black plague. I'd suggest if you're wanting to play some older horror games with decent stories and short gameplay this and black plague are good picks. I'm giving this game a 8.5/10 :steamthumbsup:

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Last Updates

Steam data	16 November 2024 05:11
SteamSpy data	21 January 2025 06:55
Steam price	22 January 2025 20:46
Steam reviews	20 January 2025 19:58

9.75€

8.7

3,320

356

Online players

Developer

Frictional Games

Publisher

Frictional Games

Release 06 Mar 2009

Platforms