Amnesia: The Bunker Review: When You Forget The World Outside The Darkness

The Amnesia series has been terrifying gamers since 2010, taking us through various time periods and locales, but The Bunker takes us to perhaps the grimmest setting yet: the nightmarish world of World War I trench warfare. The protagonist, a French soldier named Henri Clement, risks his life to save one of his wounded comrades from No Man’s Land, but is knocked unconscious by an explosion. When he awakes, he finds himself seemingly alone in his unit’s underground bunker, wracked by gaps in his memory. He discovers that he’s far from alone, and that amongst the corpses of his former comrades, there is a creature stalking the halls more terrible than even the worst horrors of the war above.

The previous game in the series, Amnesia: Rebirth, was a more linear story-based experience that was pretty forgiving towards failure. In some cases getting caught by a monster would even result in the player being shunted forward towards the next puzzle or plot area.

Amnesia: The Bunker is a departure from its predecessor in that it returns to the fundamentals of old-school survival horror where resource management is critical and death can cause you to lose a punishing amount of progress.

After completing the prologue, Henri will find himself in the bunker’s administration room, which serves as the game’s hub and safe room where you can lock the doors, save, store items and generally gather your thoughts. There’s also a handy map on the wall where objectives are marked and a nearby generator that can be filled with fuel Henri has found. The generator is a crucial part of survival, as when it is fueled and turned on, it will keep the corridors of the bunker lit. Not only does the light make the bunker easier to navigate, but it also deters the creature, who prefers to stalk in the darkness.

The creature feels omnipresent. You’ll hear it skittering through nearby tunnels. It will emerge from crawlspaces in the dark and you’ll hear it wailing and stomping, as you desperately try to figure out where it is and how to get away without it hearing. This is comingled with the bunker periodically rumbling with explosions from the war above, dust tumbling down from the ceiling, reminding you that you’re trapped in a hell beneath another hell. The use of sound design and effects like this is masterfully used to create a perpetual state of gloom and terror.

There’s a stopwatch you can use to time how much fuel remains in the generator when you’re out exploring. If the fuel runs out then all the lights go off and you face a frightening trek back through near-complete darkness knowing that the creature could be roaming around the next corner. This mechanic forces the player to carefully plan out their sojourns and memorize the map so they don’t get lost in the dark. Not only does it create a powerful sense of tension but also creates a new dimension of challenge to be overcome.

There were a few terrifying occasions where I would be desperately scrambling back to the saferoom, hearing groans and the increasingly loud padding of inhuman footsteps behind me, making it back just in time to slam the door shut behind me and lock it. It was an indescribable relief to light the lamp and save my game. The fact that it’s possible to lose half an hour or more of progress when you venture out far from the saferoom and get caught by the creature makes it all the more satisfying and exhilarating when you succeed.

Anyone thinking that the addition of guns would turn the Amnesia series into an FPS and dilute the scares can rest easy. Shooting the creature will only stun it for a couple of seconds – maybe buying you enough time to run a little further before it catches up with you. Given how incredibly scarce bullets are though, this is actually the worst way to use your gun.

You learn early on that your revolver can be used to shoot locks off doors or to blow up explosive barrels, destroying obstacles. However, loud noises will draw the attention of the creature so doing anything loud needs to be planned out in advance – perhaps planning out a route to hide in a nearby closet first.

I was always delighted by how I would be able to intuitively figure out creative solutions to problems. Frequently you’ll come across packs of giant rats feasting on the corpses of your fellow soldiers. Get too close to these nasty critters and they’ll bite you, not only causing you damage but also drawing the attention of the creature with their loud hissing. The rats are also effective in building a sense of fear and desperation as when Henri is wounded, he’ll leave a trail of blood behind which the rats will follow. This makes it all the more crucial to find cloth to craft into bandages before the rodents consume you.

 If I only needed to distract the rats, I would toss a chunk of meat nearby, causing them to leave the body alone long enough to pass by. If I needed a more long-term solution, I would douse the body in gasoline and set it alight. Cremating the body will not only cause the rats to flee, but it’ll stop them coming back as the charred body will no longer be edible for them.

Tripwires are another common hazard in the bunker, and they can cause disaster if you stumble onto them in the darkness or panic and run over them without thinking, but they can actually be used against the creature with a little forethought. Throwing something into the tripwire can set them off at a distance, creating an explosion or a cloud of poison gas, making the creature retreat outright – far more effective than simple bullets.

There’s very little hand-holding in Amnesia: The Bunker, and survival is a hard-won process of learning, experimenting and adapting to the environment. There’s so many different items you can craft and problems can be solved in so many different ways. Fortunately, the puzzles and solutions to various problems strike just the right balance of being intuitive without being overly obvious. At the start, I was stumbling around in the darkness, frightened of every noise, but by the end of the game, I was able to think rationally in stressful situations, memorizing the environment and learning the ways of the creature – a bit like Arnie at the end of Predator. This is a real mark of skilful design – where the real levelling up is in the mind of the player.

As you explore the bunker there are plenty of notes to be found detailing the events in the lead-up to the bunker being overrun. They do an excellent job of allowing the player to slowly piece together what happened. However, unlike previous Amnesia titles, there’s a lack of scripted interludes for Henri to recover his scattered memories or characters to talk to and provide context for his predicament past the prologue.

I rather missed the lack of conversations and narration, but I realized the intentionality behind it, as it makes The Bunker a pure horror experience where the feeling of loneliness and isolation only adds to the scares. It is just the player against the creature in the darkness and a desperate struggle to survive. The story is mostly optional, but there for you to uncover if you’re interested.

Amnesia: The Bunker is purist survival horror at its best with a thoughtful take on the genre and mind-shredding scares. Even the most hardened gamer will feel their pulse racing as they are stalked through the underground hell, feeling a desperation to see daylight. The challenge is not just mastering your environment but mastering your own fear of the evils that lurk in the darkness.

Final Verdict: 4.5/5

Available on: PC(Reviewed), PS4; Publisher: Frictional Games; Developer: Frictional Games; Players: 1; Released: 6th June 2023

Full disclosure: This review is based on a review copy of Amnesia: The Bunker provided by the publisher.