Now, I must come clean. I was never a fan of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, nor am I a fan of horror games where you run away, cower in fear, and hide in cupboards without a proper means of defence. That is not my jam, but I always held the original Amnesia in high regard due to its level of intensity and story. But felt it could do more with the foundation. Frictional Games have dipped their toes in other ventures and a more story-driven Amnesia game which didn’t set the world on fire. But now I feel (and hopefully many others will too) that they have struck gold with this entry, by going back to their roots! Amnesia: The Bunker is by far my favourite in the series, and quite frankly, one of my favourite horror games since RE7.
What is Amnesia: The Bunker 
Amnesia: The Bunker is the fourth entry in the series, after the critically acclaimed Dark Descent, and the less popular Rebirth. The story centres on the horrors of the WW1 Trenches on the Western Front, where endless bloodshed, rotting disease, and famine ravage the soldiers caught in the crossfire. However, there are worse things lurking in the depths of the trenches, as our protagonist Henri Clement, a French soldier in the middle of the war, is about to find out.
We see Henri in the middle of no man’s in an attempt to find his missing friend, Augustin Lambert, who went missing during a patrol. Thankfully Henri does indeed find Lambert trapped in a large crater, where he helps him escape. However, while carrying Lambert to safety, they are spotted by the Germans and Henri is knocked unconscious from an artillery fire.
Some time passes and Henri wakes up in a presumably abandoned bunker with no memory of how he ended up there. As he explores the surrounding area, he soon discovers the true, horrifying fate of the bunker from a dying comrade. It seems a savage creature had found its way into the bunker, and slaughtered most of the French garrison inside. In a bid to stop the creature, the bunker's officers fled and caved in the only exit to seal everything inside, including the soldiers left behind.
Henri is instructed on how to escape, by finding dynamite and a detonator to reopen the exit. With no other options, it’s up to players to find the two key items, blast open a path to freedom and survive the horrors which lurk in the bunker, by any means necessary.
War isn’t the only horror
The prior Amnesia games were focused on presenting ungodly, cosmic horrors, and leaving you practically defenceless, as you lurked in the darkness and progressed to your goal. You didn’t have the means to defend yourself aside from hiding in cupboards and making sure the lights stayed on. It was for the time, quite refreshing, as horror games were in a weird place. But after a while, and since RE7, gamers wanted more interesting experiences.
And what Frictional Games have done, is look back at their first series of games, Penumbra, which was horror focused, but allowed players to use items in the environment and tools to deal with enemies and problem-solving. Amnesia: The Bunker keeps to its strong, cosmic horror roots, but allows players more options on how to deal with the various threats in the tunnels and more importantly how to go about dealing with other obstacles. As the game instructs you from the get-go, experiment, use different tactics and items in the environment, and go about towards your main goal in your own way. And this is what makes Amnesia: The Bunker excel above many other horror games.
Players have the core goal of escaping the bunker, by obtaining explosives and a trigger for the detonator. Yet, throughout the bunker, there are many paths, blockades, and smaller objectives to complete, including puzzles, opening locked doors, and managing your resources, including light sources, all the while evading the stalking enemy.
To break this down, first let’s discuss the main enemy of the game, which stalks you throughout the bunker. Now stalker enemies have become quite a thing, especially with the likes of Alien Isolation and the RE2 Remake. But Amnesia does a really good job at betting Alien Isolation at a smart, unpredictable stalker in the depths of a maze-like game world. Personally, I found the Alien in Alien Isolation to be way too aggressive and thus, predictable and pushing hiding times further than they should be.
Amnesia’s stalker enemy feels much more balanced, and thus more unpredictable. Sound is a massive trigger for this thing, so running for a prolonged time will cause him to close in on you, while setting off explosives or traps, will cause him to appear. There’s a cool little warning sign when it’s nearby, aside from the creepy noises it makes while moving in the walls, where the lights flicker, and when this happens, it makes the situation even more tense.
You can indeed fend for yourself, either by hiding or by fighting back. In this Amnesia title, you have the chance to literally defend yourself with a revolver or grenade, which are a godsend when you’re cornered. But ammo is incredibly limited, and you will need your weapons to deal with other things, such as padlocks on certain doors, or to set off fires, and destroy larger blockades. So sneaking around is still advised and the whole experience never let up, but in a really enjoyable way. I could never fully know when this thing would appear yet I know what not to ideally do to encourage it to pop out of the wall. It’s a perfect balance of knowing and not knowing, whereas something like Alien, while highly regarded, felt much more random and annoying.
But Amnesia does a great job with its stalking enemy, making it feel organic, intelligent and a worthy rival in the underground.
Tools of the trade
As you may have guessed, Amnesia: The Bunker gives you multiple ways to deal with various problems. Taking elements from the Penumbra series, and also incorporating some immersive-sim elements too, The Bunker is home to dozens of problems, but also plenty of ways to resolve them.
Players can deal with locked doors in several ways, from blowing them up with grenades to smashing them open with a brick, an explosive barrel, or blasting them open with a shotgun (if you get it that is). There are also moments where you can find secret paths into a locked room but finding it can be another problem to solve in itself. And certain doors can’t be blasted open, such as metal ones.
For one instance, I encountered a locked room, with an iron door where the padlock was on the inside. I could see the padlock via a hole in the wall, but there was also a vent cover allowing me a way to sneak in. But there were also flesh-eating rats inside too (oh yeah, there are killer rats in the underground too!). So what do I do? I could shoot the lock off, spending vital ammo and alerting the beast to my location. Or throw a grenade, kill the rats, and blast open the door. Or if I found the wrench item during this point, I could open the vent and sneak in. There are many moments like this, all presenting a similar issue, but there are multiple ways to deal with it.
It’s an immense experience, where freedom of choice and experimentation are key to succession and survival. It’s a lot of fun trying out new things and seeing how things pan out.
The Horror, the horror 
Amnesia: The Bunker doesn’t forget how to keep things intense, and introduces a mechanic where players have to keep the lights on, in order to keep the stalker from freely roaming. And also, to help you see of course. In the main save room of the bunker, there is a generator which needs to be fuelled often to keep the lights on. Fuel is found dotted across the bunker; you must collect, bring back, and fuel the generator. The power will last a limited amount of time when fuelled, so making trips back and forth is not advised, but you have limited carrying space to consider.
This mechanic was incredibly tense and while I had enough fuel in my first, normal playthrough, the couple of times the power went out was immensely terrifying! Especially when I was far away from the save room, or trapped within a large, complex area with that freaking beast hunting me. You do have a light, but it’s the most pathic wind-up light that lasts all but 5 seconds. And it’s still providing some small relief and visual clarity in the engrossing darkness. The limited power in the bunker and the possibility of the main light sources going out do indeed keep your nerves on edge.
Managing your time, what you collect and going back and forth to the save room and your objectives will always be on your mind. There’s an engaging and thoughtful process when you’re exploring as you’re always on a clock but running around and doing things hastily will indeed cause the creature to appear. But fuel can be used to burn corpses which will stop drawing in rats to the area, combined with bottles and cloth to make petrol bombs and set traps. Again, another layer to the lateral side of the game, making problem-solving much deeper.
There are of course other classic staples of the genre including limited resources, status effects such as bleeding which causes enemies to follow you, and limited saving. And more so the flexibility to do what you need to do in any order, much like the original Resident Evil, where you could explore the Spencer mansion and collect the crests in any order you want. I admire that Frictional Games went above and beyond the original formula and added in more interesting mechanics, that works so well. Most items have a purpose and it’s up to you to decide what they are. Use a flare to light up a dark area, scare away rats or set fire to something. It really does feel like a classic survival horror game mixing things up with an immersive sim title.
But if you don’t fancy things so intense, then easy mode is the way for you. Fuel and general resources are more plentiful but don’t expect the overall game to be much easier. In fact, I tried easy mode on my second playthrough, just to find everything I missed on my first, and there were more traps laying around which I didn’t expect. Oh yeah, there are traps which can work both ways, either you fall into them, creating noise to lure out the monster or damaging yourself. Or if you can, disarm and reap the grenade or flare which are handy. Or just lure the beast to them and cause some damage to it.
One of my favourite aspects was the personal lockers located near the main save room, which are locked and can only be opened with codes found on dog tags dotted across the bunker. Each locker has useful items such as grenades, health, or key items vital to progression (in easy mode, one has the shotgun, which is super useful if you get it early on). Most of the codes and their locations are randomised each playthrough, meaning you must find them each and every time, which is a great way to keep you focused and the exploration meaningful.
A bleak tale of war and notes … many, many notes 
Sadly, there were a couple of things which didn’t stand up as mighty as the atmosphere, and gameplay, as the story is not handled all that graciously. I wasn’t a fan of how the story was delivered, through its many, written documents, which really slowed the pace of the game down and didn’t create a full scope of the story with gravitas and purpose. This doesn’t mean the story is weak at all, as there are plenty of interesting notes about some of the soldiers, the creature itself and particularly regarding one soldier who guards the deepest part of the bunker. However, the core of the mystery is what we’ve seen plenty of times before, and the endings of the game don’t really leave much satisfaction. I don’t mean that in a way where I want a positive ending, far from it.
While I didn’t like much of the gameplay in The Dark Descent, I really admired and enjoyed the darkly bleak story and its horrifying endings. The Bunker has a story which is enjoyable in parts, with some cool lore, but doesn’t evolve much or end on the most engaging notes thematically. Plus, I felt the number of documents was too much, and the UI for reading these were not great, unlike the old RE games, which clearly displayed them and always had a meaningful and fascinating story to tell.
There is a little bit of jank here and there, with items clipping out, the odd moment where you would get stuck on something in the environment, and the janky nature of moving items by hand, and opening/closing doors. It’s not at all bad, and it never got in the way when it mattered, but I feel the engine does struggle a little bit at times and should be updated more so to include smoother actions and animations.
Regardless of these issues, this doesn’t make Amnesia: The Bunker any less a magnificent game. With the high replay value and immensely enjoyable gameplay mechanics, you will find yourself coming back to the underground over and over.
I finished my first time in normal, at around 8 hours, then tried easy mode to see how things were, which was much more forgiving and allowed me to explore the bits I didn’t my first time. But there were some neat changes the second time around, such as more traps, which kept me on my toes. It however felt quite balanced but made sure one problem was lesser than the other. And on hard mode, wow, it’s a good challenge, to say the least. The Bunker was great in making me want to return again, and again, which any great survival horror game should do …. Looking at you Callisto Protocol.
Overall?Frictional Games have knocked it out of the park with Amnesia: The Bunker and made me realise that this style of gameplay is what their best at. I didn’t like the gameplay in The Dark Descent or the many clones that followed. But The Bunker is a phenomenal step in the right direction, returning to the Penumbra roots, and building on that foundation in a meaningful, engaging and intelligent way. I love the freedom of choice, survival horror gameplay, and the intensity and balancing between tactical, thoughtful and enjoyable gameplay that never lets up until the bitter end. This is a fantastic game and I highly recommend it to anyone, whether they love or hate horror, as this really is a game worth checking out! I hope Frictional Games’ next project builds on this formula, to make an even better game.
++ Rich and terrifying atmosphere, and environment
++ Interesting and engaging immersive sim/survival horror gameplay
+ High replay value and neat dynamic changes in each playthrough
+ Intelligent lateral components and problem-solving
- Story is not delivered in the most engaging manner
- Engine is showing its age and has some notable jank
A review code for Amnesia: The Bunker was kindly provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
