As I make my way through the desolate corridors of a World War 1 bunker, I glimpse a locked door before me. In previous Amnesia games, this would send me on a wꦇild goose chase for a nearby key or alternate route, but in Amnesia: The Bunker, a locked door is an obstacle that ca♓n be tackled in myriad different ways.

I could throw a grenade at the door and watch it crumble away, only I don’t have one of those. I could traipse back through the bunker and f😼ind a brick to break it down until the path forward cracks open, but my flashlight is running low and I don’t want to charge it up and make a noise that attracts the beast. Speaking of, I haven’t seen him for a while no💫w, it might be best to go hide for a bit until I - andddd he’s snapped my neck. Should have just sucked my thumb under the table.

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This happened to me a lot in Amnesia: The Bunker. Rather than being a narrative-focused and linear puzzle experience, The Bun♋ker leans more into survival horror and gives the player freedom to get around obstacles in multiple different ways. It&rs𓄧quo;s a big change for a series that had already carved out its own identity, but it’s one that works - The Bunker sometimes feels like a trial run for a new focus, but it’s still one of the best, and scariest, Amnesia games in history.

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As its name implies, The Bunker takes place in a derelict, abandoned World War 1 facility. You cont🌺rol a French soldier named Henri who suffers from, take a guess, amnesia and has to find a way out of the rat-infested bunker. Thankfully, unlikeꦏ Amnesia: Rebirth, The Bunker is more about gameplay this time around, with the story really only mattering for a brief introduction and epilogue. You fill in the rest of the details yourself.

Instead, the Bunker is all about the stories that you make as you try and escape. Although the objectives are static, how ꧃you go about finding items, getting through doors, avoiding enemies, and keeping the lights on is totally up to you. You can choose to be cautious and sneak around, barely even using the fla🎉shlight for fear of making noise, or you can charge around with your revolver out and show that Beast what for. It’s a massive change from the other Amnesia games, but it makes The Bunker stand out.

That being said, there are times when things aren’t quite as freeform as you’d like. One great example of this is when I found myself in a room with an 🔯explosive barrel, a door locked with a chain, and a vent covering a hole. My brain immediately took the explosive barrel as a hint that I could spend a bullet on blowing the door and vent wide open, but after three tries I was met with nothing but a ringing in my ears and an empty chamber.

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As it turns out, both the padlocked door and the bolted-up vent needed a special item to unlock, something I didn’t find out until a few hours, and many deaths later. I can understand locking off rooms or areas until you’ve progressed enough, but it was a rare time where the game’s veil was lifted and I could see how things really w🀅orked.

The save system can also get in the way of experimentation. Rather than being able to save anywhere or having checkpoints, The Bunker will only let𒀰 you save your progress by lighting one of a few lanterns found around the map, which means that you either need to go back to the save room often or risk losing progress. Considering how easy it is to make mistakes or get killed by The Beast, it feels oddly restrictive and especially fr📖ustrating in the early hours when you’re still figuring things out.

Although the more open approach to horror feels like a🦩 natural fit for Amnesia, it does mean that one of the series’ defining traits has been removed - the sanity meter. You can stand in the dark for as long as you want in The Bunker without ever worrying about seeing weird visions or needing to find the light. Sanity was a very marmite mechanic and I know some players hated managing it, but I thought it made Amnesia stand out among the rest as a key part of its identity. Its absence is felt here, even if The Bunker is plenty scary without it.

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In fact, I’d go as far as saying that The Bunker is the scariest Amnesia there’s been yet. Yes, even more so than The Dark Descent. The game’s main enemy, nicknamed T🦹he Beast, made me shout more times than I can count, and he never stopped being a constant threat, even as I figured out ways around him or felt like I’d gotten used to💯 his patterns.

The real reason that The Bunker is such a triumph in its horror is because of t🌺he setting. The titular bunker is claustrophobic, dark as all hell, and constantly being bombed from above. It’s the perfect setting for a horror game and the real star of the show.

Amnesia: The Bunker is a bold new step for the series and it’s the shot in the arm that I think it’s needed for some time now.ꦺ This first attempt isn’t perfect and has some teething issues as it figures out its new identity, but it makes up for it by being a truly terrifying experience that shows how bright t🌠he series’ future can be.

Amnesia: The Bunker review card.

Score: 3.5/5. A review code was provided by the publisher.

Amnesia: The Bunker
Survival Horror
Systems
Released
May 16, 2023

WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
3.5/5

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