Amnesia: The Bunker

Amnesia: The Bunker is ahead of the class, achieving what many of its peers aspire to but often fall short of. If you’re a horror fan, this is a must play.

Nothing in Amnesia: The Bunker feels like a waste of time except a strangely out-of-place final boss encounter. And though it’s a shame Frictional Games couldn’t muster up a spookier atmosphere to elevate the experience to its zenith, this is still an A-plus horror experience that all fans should play.

Amnesia: The Bunker is a fantastic horror experience. Moreover, it is reminiscent of Alien Isolation. Yet, a simple antagonist AI undermines the tension. Thankfully, the darkness and The Stalker keep you on your toes.

Amnesia: The Bunker is the best horror experience in the entire franchise. Frictional Games has fixed some issues with previous games, and wanted to leave the "free horror" label behind. The Bunker has the ability to blend the real terror experienced throughout WW1, and adds the fantasy of the monstrous creature that we used to in Amnesia storylines. The Bunker will, from now on, be the model to be followed by all those who base the terror gameplay experience in “walking simulators”, showing that there are more survival resources than just the legs to run.

Using the conflict of the Great War as a background, Amnesia: The Bunker talks about human nature beyond the monsters that terrify us so much.

Amnesia: The Bunker throws the player into a dark and distressing atmosphere, which however gradually gives way to a much less terrifying reality, composed of a few problems and a lot of backtracking.

Amnesia: The Bunker is a pleasant step up from its predecessor Rebirth, but it all too often falls into the problem many horror games have - resource management and monstrous harassment are balanced in such a way as to inspire annoyance more readily than fear. For much of its campaign, The Bunker is an absorbingly gloomy experience with a nice sense of rhythm to its progress and an effective illusion of dynamism in both its monster and environment. This is somewhat offset by enforced backtracking, a piddling inventory, and an embarrassingly rubbish flashlight. If it had expanded its promising ideas and balanced its threat-to-tedium ratio better, this could have been a fantastic experience. But, y’know, it didn’t do that...It still did well enough though, and for the average horror game these days, well enough is pretty good!

Amnesia: The Bunker is Frictional Games' scariest title since the team made a name for itself with 2010's Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The game's new approach to an 'open world' style environment is welcome in enabling player freedom, even if we'd have liked the team to push that design principle even further. You don't get as direct of a storyline told here as you do in Amnesia: Rebirth, but the game is certainly spookier as a result of its new setting and its move to free the player of any linear shackles. We reckon fans of the original — or horror game aficionados in general — will very much enjoy exploring this monster-filled bunker on Xbox Game Pass.