Remember Me arrived in June 2013 carrying a premise that sounded like a dare: a memory economy, a surveillance state, and a hero who could rewrite what people believe happened. Dontnod Entertainment built it as the studio’s debut, with founding member Jean-Maxime Moris directing. Capcom published it for PlayStation 3, Windows and Xbox 360.
Trailer, via Capcom USA.
Nilin and the Errorists of Neo-Paris
You play Nilin (Kezia Burrows), a memory hunter for an underground resistance called the Errorists. At the start, megacorporation Memorize has stripped nearly all her memories and locked her in the Bastille Fortress. A man named Edge, the Errorists’ leader and a voice she only hears over her comm device, talks her through an escape.
The setting is Neo-Paris, 2084. Memorize’s Sensen brain implant lets 99% of the population upload, share and delete memories. The Sensen also produced Leapers, memory-addicted humans whose implants degraded until they mutated and moved into the sewers.
Memory Remix Is the Reason to Play
The best idea here is memory remixing: entering a target’s mind, replaying a memory, and altering details to change what they think happened. It is a puzzle mechanic and a moral one at the same time.
Nilin’s first major remix targets Olga Sedova, a bounty hunter chasing her. Nilin makes Olga believe a Memorize doctor killed her husband. Olga switches sides and becomes an ally.
Later, Nilin recalls the crime that landed her in the Bastille: she remixed a Memorize commander into believing he had killed his girlfriend, and the altered memory drove him to suicide. The game does not let her off that hook.
Pressens, Combos and the Combo Lab
Combat runs on a modified combo system called Pressen. You build your own chains in the Combo Lab using four categories of moves:
- Regen, which heals
- Power, which deals damage
- Chain, which duplicates and doubles previous moves
- Cooldown, which regenerates S-Pressen energy
There are 50,000 possible Pressen combinations, with a limit of four active combos. Five S-Pressen moves unlock over the story, letting Nilin stun groups, move at high speed, or turn hostile robots into allies that self-destruct. Stealing memories from targets uses points called Remembranes to replay a memory in real time. Projectile weapons include the Spammer and Junk Bolt.
Where Remember Me Stumbles
Critics at release gave the game mixed reviews. They praised the world design, Olivier Deriviere’s soundtrack, the ambition of the story and the Memory Remix segments. They criticized other aspects of the story, poor design choices and combat they found formulaic.
| Release | Platform |
|---|---|
| June 2013 | PlayStation 3 |
| June 2013 | Windows |
| June 2013 | Xbox 360 |
The IGDB critic aggregate puts it at 7.0/10 across 12 outlets.
What Dontnod Got Right
Remember Me began as a PlayStation 3 exclusive under Sony Computer Entertainment titled Adrift. It was cancelled in 2011, then purchased by Capcom, which revived it as a multi-platform game.
That history explains the game. It is a debut with a strong spine and rough joints. The memory remix mechanic is the part worth remembering. Everything else is scaffolding around it.
Score: 7.0/10 from the IGDB critic aggregate (12 outlets).
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