Frictional Games has made a name for itself as one of the industry's best horror developers, and deservedly so. The original Amnesia breathed new life into the genre at a time when its leaders were going with a more action-oriented approach, and the work Frictional has done since then has consistently been great. Amnesia: The Bunker is Frictional's latest take on its first-person horror series, and while it deserves credit for taking risks and shaking up the established formula, it's easily the weakest entry yet.
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Following a short introduction, Amnesia: The Bunker lets players loose in its semi-open World War 1-era bunker. The main character has very little to their name at the start, but thoroughly exploring the bunker can yield all kinds of helpful supplies like bandages, grenades, revolver ammo, and fuel for powering the generator. Amnesia: The Bunker players must regularly top off the generator with fuel to keep the lights on, but they have to be smart about doing so because fuel is a limited resource.
Fuel can also be used to start fires and craft helpful items like Molotov cocktails and torches. But because fuel is a limited resource in Amnesia: The Bunker, players have to seriously weigh their options before making a decision about what to do with any given fuel can they find. Like other survival-horror games, Amnesia: The Bunker uses limited resources to up the tension and difficulty, with players also having to contend with limited storage slots and very little in the way of ammunition for their revolver.
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The revolver in Amnesia: The Bunker is the best tool against the monster that stalks players throughout the game. This deadly beast is attracted to sound, so when players use brute force to get through a door, like by blowing it up with a grenade or smashing it with a concrete block, they will want to flee quickly or prepare to stand their ground with the revolver.
Previous Amnesia games have made a big deal about how the player character has no weapons, but even with the revolver, Amnesia: The Bunker players will still feel powerless against the monster. The monster in Amnesia: The Bunker can tank multiple hits from the revolver on higher difficulties, which means players have to be extremely conservative with their ammo if they hope to survive. Having to reserve ammo for driving off the monster means it can't be used on other things, like blowing up barrels or shooting off padlocks, in turn forcing players to resort to other methods for getting around the bunker.
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While Amnesia: The Bunker is semi-open world, it is more linear than it seems on the surface. The bunker is segmented into distinct zones and reaching them requires specific tools that are found in specific areas that have to be collected in a certain order. In this way, Amnesia: The Bunker plays more like a first-person Metroidvania than anything else.
Survival-horror fans may also be reminded of the original Resident Evil when playing Amnesia: The Bunker, as that game was also about exploring a semi-open area and finding items to access new places. But the difference is that Resident Evil's puzzles all have one solution, whereas Amnesia: The Bunker allows players to tackle each problem from multiple angles. For example, there may be a locked door that leads to an important new area. Players can spend time searching for the key, or they can blow up the door to the adjoining room and then go through a hole in the wall, completely bypassing the need to find the key. Doing this will be quite noisy, though, and could attract the monster.
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The monster in Amnesia: The Bunker is going to get mixed reactions from fans of the franchise. It's scariest in the game's earliest moments before players actually lay eyes on it. Walking through the pitch-black bunker while hearing its inhuman noises, stomping, and scratches is crawl-out-of-your-skin horrifying, especially when playing in the dark with a headset on. Frictional has done a tremendous job with the audio design to keep players on high alert the entire time they're playing Amnesia: The Bunker, from the monster noises to the loud, random mortar shellings that shake the entire screen.
Seeing the monster in Amnesia: The Bunker for the first time will jolt even the most hardened horror fans, but it eventually loses its aura and becomes more of an annoyance. On higher difficulties, the monster usually kills the player character as soon as it grabs ahold of them, and with no autosaves, this means repeating large stretches of the game over and over again until one can get back to a save point. At first, it's fun exploring every inch of every room in the bunker, collecting supplies, unraveling the story, and solving puzzles, but having to repeat it all multiple times because the monster showed up gets old fast.
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Avoiding the monster in Amnesia: The Bunker can be extremely difficult as it means making as little noise as possible, which means playing the game in a way that is not particularly entertaining. This means staying crouched, ignoring locked doors that could be blown up or bashed open, and even refraining from using the flashlight. The flashlight in Amnesia: The Bunker has to be wound up for it to work, and it makes noise that attracts the beast, so players have to choose between walking blindly through the bunker or dying at the hands of the monster. Flashlight charges don't last long either so while this mechanic successfully builds tension in the first hour, it eventually becomes an annoyance that gets in the way of players enjoying the game.
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Amnesia: The Bunker relies too much on one-hit deaths and the fear of losing progress for its scares, and it eventually becomes a chore to play as a result. The story also doesn't go anywhere particularly satisfying and the final stretch of the game is easily the worst part of it, so players struggle through some seriously frustrating encounters and aren't given much in the way of a reward. This makes it the weakest of Frictional's Amnesia games by far, though it's certainly not a complete loss.
Amnesia: The Bunker is genuinely scary, and its puzzles are fun to solve. Old-school survival-horror fans in particular will find a lot to like about the game. It randomizes certain elements in subsequent playthroughs to keep things interesting and that combined with its open-ended nature makes it the most replayable Amnesia game, even though it doesn't quite stick the landing like its predecessors. Luckily, Amnesia: The Bunker is a day one Xbox Game Pass game, so horror fans can brave its terrors for themselves without making any kind of major financial commitment.
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6/10
Amnesia: The Bunker
Amnesia: The Bunker is a first-person horror game from the makers of SOMA and Amnesia.
Left all alone in a desolate WW1 bunker with only one bullet remaining in the barrel, it’s up to you to face the oppressing terrors in the dark. Keep the lights on at all costs, persevere, and make your way out alive. A truly intense horror experience.
Immerse yourself in the multiple ways of tackling survival. In the shoes of the French soldier Henri Clément, you are armed with a revolver gun, a noisy dynamo flashlight, and other scarce supplies to scavenge and craft along the way. With randomization and unpredictable behavior, no play-through is the same.
Hunted by an ever-present threat reacting to your every move and sound, you must adapt your play-style to face hell. Every decision will change the outcome of how the game responds. Actions bear consequences.
Survival Horror
- Franchise
- Amnesia
- Platform(s)
- PC , PS4 , Xbox One , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S
- Released
- May 16, 2023
- Developer(s)
- Frictional Games
- Publisher(s)
- Frictional Games
- How Long To Beat
- 6 Hours
- X|S Enhanced
- Yes
- File Size Xbox Series
- 17 GB (November 2023)
Amnesia: The Bunker launches June 6 for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X. Game Rant was provided with a PC code for this review.
