I left 2020’s Amnesia: Rebirth, feeling that perhaps Frictional Games was charting a new course I wasn’t especially interested in. While Rebirth was a solid game, and featured genuine masterstrokes in some of its design choices, the artistic direction and alien backstory left me cold and pining for the gothic frights of earlier entries in the series. I respect the developers desire to make something new in their flagship franchise, but it felt like a misstep.

Enter Amnesia: The Bunker, which shares a mythology and genre with the earlier series entries, but little else. Frictional again opted for something new and unexpected, but this time they went much more primordial in their aesthetic choices, and smartly enough that I was able to let go of my lingering disappointments. Like Rebirth, The Bunker casts off many of the earlier hallmarks of the series, but in this case those choices almost universally created a better experience with regard to player experience, horror, and gameplay.

“This army runs on morale. And morale runs on wine.”

Set amid a hellish World War I battle in 1916, the player takes on the role of an amnesiac French soldier who was wounded and wakes to find himself alone in a forward command bunker. The exit has collapsed, and nearly all of his comrades-in-arms have been slaughtered by something lurking in the dark. The young soldier must venture through the underground to each corner of the expansive structure, searching out key equipment which will allow him to clear the exit and escape the bunker, as well as the terror lurking therein.

The setup is an interesting one for the series, as the bunker itself feels bigger than it actually is, and most sections are available to explore from early on. Similar to Metroid or Resident Evil, players must track down a small arsenal of tools to access new areas and progress the story, but are given little initial direction in terms of which spoke needs to be explored first. The overall design works especially well and feels realistic, and is a natural environment for developing tension. Every expedition out of the lamp-lit central safe room is a drain on your very limited resources, and probably your resolve.

“This Thing I Have Done…”

Released in 2010, the initial series entry, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, introduced a mainstream audience to Frictional’s unique brand of grotesque malaise, which historically featured a nearly-defenseless protagonist who had to rely on stealth and distractions to elude their otherworldly foes. This came along at a time when combat-heavy survival elements still dominated the horror genre, and a game in which players weren’t given a weapon and left with only wits and awareness to defend themselves immediately caught attention.

The title featured well-crafted sanity mechanics, which could be as deadly as any monster in the dark, and over the course of the game players marked a dreadful, harrowing journey through a European castle while struggling to keep both their body and mind intact. The revolutionary title won solid acclaim, but follow-ups A Machine for Pigs (2013, co-developed with The Chinese Room) and Rebirth (2020), were never quite able to capture the same fine-tuned gameplay balance and persistent terror of the original.

For all the praise I will heap on the 2010 installment, The Bunker is a wholly different experience, and thematically shares little with its legendary predecessor apart from a particularly excellent execution and well-realized creative vision. While the pattern of remaining attentive and hiding or fleeing when dangers arrive persists, The Bunker gives players a number of tools by which the player can improve their security.

But Amnesia veterans shouldn’t fear coddling: the horrific beast of arcane origin that stalks the bunker is far more intelligent and dangerous than anything seen in a previous game. The longer the player remains in an area, the more likely this creature will hone in and make an appearance, and any amount of player noise will hasten its arrival. The Bunker instills a terrible awareness of time, as the player is constantly considering how long the fuel-guzzling generator can keep the lights on, and trying to note subtle audio cues—which are often obfuscated by bombs and gunfire outside the bunker—to determine how close the monster is. Once the beast arrives, the choices are to run, hide, or fight, and each of carries a distinctive drawback and expends valuable resources.

“Every time I take a step, I swear it can hear me.”

The gameplay loop at the heart of The Bunker works exceptionally well. From a central administrative office and safe room, players make sojourns into the branches of the bunker in search of key components, which when brought together, will allow the player to escape. You have the option of choosing a loadout from your available equipment, but must balance this with the knowledge that for every object you carry, one less inventory space will be available for valuables you might find, and which may be necessary for the success of future searches. More than once, found myself having to make supply runs because I was too encumbered to pick up everything in a particular area, increasing my risk and agitating the beast that hunted me.

Players may also choose to turn on the bunker’s generator, which will light portions of the environment through a series of daisy-chain switches. Light makes the monster slower and less aggressive, and opting to use the generator can readily make the difference between successfully securing a critical piece of your escape and unceremonious evisceration thirty feet from the safe room door. But fuel is precious, and the generator can only be powered for so long before abruptly plunging the environment into darkness. The game offers a pocket watch with which to time the remaining energy supply, but it costs a precious inventory space and may mean leaving behind something far more valuable in exchange for the peace of mind it provides. Little decisions like this really ratchet up the tension, and the single save point means players have to remain attentive at all times.

This is totally going to work. Monsters HATE chairs.

The game also is remarkably good at marking progress, especially for a title which is largely non-linear and unscripted. Being able to finally use the bolt cutters to open the half-dozen locked cabinets you’ve passed, or the hex-wrench to open vents feels like a weighty step forward. While I never lost my fear of what hunted me or felt comfortable in the dark, each milestone lifted my spirits and kindled belief that I might indeed escape the bunker.

The Devils of Pozières

The Bunker’s gameplay feels so good because it is remarkably consistent. There are very few scripted events, and as you learn to manage your sound and recognize the beast’s patterns and behaviors, you can react in a way that will reap rewards. While you are always very much the prey, and at an almost insurmountable disadvantage in direct confrontation, you can, with keen attention, learn to avoid or delay moments where you’re in danger.

As you grow accustomed to the game and its cues, confidence can be found, albeit only for brief periods. You learn to trust your auditory perception, letting it coax you into pausing or hiding with enough time to avoid the beast or elude it altogether. It’s a triumph of design that these instincts prove true, as nothing feels worse in this type of game than being unexpectedly killed when you don’t feel you were given adequate warning.

That being said, there are situations which may feel unfair to those who are still learning. Unlike earlier Amnesia games, where hiding was often your best option for escaping death, ducking into a seemingly secure corner has a shelf life in The Bunker, as it does not stop the generator from running and the beast is an increasingly adept hunter in the dark. If you’ve managed to get yourself trapped in a cul-de-sac when the lights go out, the creature will almost certainly find you before calling off its search. In this, The Bunker can be especially challenging, but it rewards you for learning the remarkably sophisticated systems.

In time, I learned to gauge if the beast was near or far, and if the frustrated roar it let out meant it was giving up the hunt or just redoubling efforts. The game rewarded me for suspending my attempts to figure out the coded behaviors governing its hunter, and they were complex enough that I was able to really sink into the horror of the title.

Amnesia: The Bunker contains layered systems, all of which work harmoniously to pull on your resources and resolve from different angles. Bullets are a wonderful and direct form of defense, but they are also exceedingly scarce and have a multitude of uses apart from driving off the beast. Drawing too much attention and having to hide, even successfully, wastes fuel, which may have been unnecessary provided the player was able to complete a particular task quickly and quietly in the dark. While I never quite got comfortable enough to play a baiting game with the beast, I recognized that it was possible to misdirect the creature and have it break down doors, saving precious supplies and enabling shortcuts which would be expensive to open by other means.

“This act will not go unpunished.”

Terror is real in Amnesia: The Bunker, and I never grew even marginally comfortable or disinterested in the horror it created. Seeing the monster mangle me a dozen times made the experience no less traumatic, and the single save point mechanic meant that I was never quite ready to lay down and die when cornered, as doing so meant having to make the careful crawl to my objective all over again. Unlike most singleplayer horror games, this one pushes you to play well lest you not succeed, and this makes the journey through every dark hallway meaningful, and every creaking of vent, squealing hinge, or scratch on stone feels like it has stakes.

And yet, with the terror there is a push-pull where you can revel in moments of triumphant resilience. In one moment, I was in the dark, at a dead end, with the creature prowling nearby rooms between me and my escape route. This is a situation where I was almost assuredly dead, but many gameplay hours earlier, out of bullets and with frayed nerves, I had pushed a fuel barrel up against a critical locked door as I had no other tool to open it at the time. Time and time again I passed the door, more content to not be hunted in the cul-de-sac environment than to shoot the barrel and find out what exactly was contained in Officer Reynard’s office. But my earlier cowardice proved to be my salvation, and as the beast honed in on me, I drew my revolver (now with a single bullet chambered) and drew a bead on the barrel as it charged.

The gun’s report, normally something that guaranteed unwanted attention and sent me scrambling for safety, was a victory horn: the barrel exploded, leaving me bloody, the door in splinters, and the beast scrambling for a place to lick their wounds. All of this was an entirely unscripted sequence put together by mechanical knowledge, and it created a moment of joy rarely rivaled in video games.

“God knows what I've done. I wonder if His judgment could be worse than my own?”

The Bunker landed when I was far enough removed from the disappointment of Rebirth to approach with the enthusiasm warranted by a new entry in the storied series. Hoping for a return to form, I was granted something far more exciting: a new apex for my beloved Amnesia series. The Bunker reached such heights by the unexpected route of casting off the gothic, body, and cosmic horror of previous entries and going in a new direction: that of prey eluding the hunter. This title introduces a number of new gameplay elements, mechanics, and dares to discard long standing hallmarks of the series to great success.

Frictional Games continues to innovate, trying new things while retaining only the core element of a (mostly) helpless protagonist. If they misfired with their last outing, they’ve iterated on the formula to great success in The Bunker. Not since Visage have I felt such raw terror playing a game, and I can’t immediately think of another title where the systems were so harmoniously layered and well-designed.

Verdict: 9.2

Strengths

Well-crafted systems that layer well with each other, creating an impressively immersive experience
Spiritually true to the series while successfully iterating on the genre
Among the best single player horror experiences out there
Top-tier audio design (decent headset strongly recommended)

Weaknesses

Misunderstanding mechanics or reliance on earlier entry experience may lead to frustration
Experience may be too intense for some
Story leaves more questions than answers

You can purchase Amnesia: The Bunker on Steam, Playstation, and Xbox.

You may also like: Amnesia: the Dark Descent, Alien Isolation, Soma

Game Review: Amnesia: The Bunker (2023)