Amnesia: The Bunker

The Bunker fits well into the family of Frictional releases. Simpler and more direct than some earlier titles. It features fewer puzzle elements, and seemingly less scripting. It will not hold your hand, much. Get in there and figure it out, while under the stress of fear. Pretty much classic Frictional, with reminders of Alien Isolation and Monstrum. (Immersive sim fans may find some of the physical experimentation a bit underwhelming.)

The 'Amnesia' series taught us to expect cycles of rising tension, punctuated by periods of either relief or a monster showing up to wreck our day. 'Dark Descent' and 'Rebirth' avoided just being excellent walking simulators by virtue of some lite strategy surrounding light control. In 'The Bunker', I got murdered, from full health, in a calm moment, when I stood next to a hole The Hunter happened to check. It happened shortly after that again, in a different place, because I wasn't checking my six often enough... again in a moment I thought was safe. In total I died forty-some times in my playthrough, and each one was a combination of my own fault and The Hunter's excellent, not-giving-any-chances predatory skills. If the other games have tension meters that look like capacitor discharge graphs, all escalating buildup and release, 'The Bunker' is a flatline running near the top of the chart. There's one place the player can feel relatively safe, with the tools they need to plan out what to do next and what resources to commit to the next leg of their almost entirely self-directed mission, but the player may spend 5% of their time there. As soon as they unlock the door, before they even step out of the 'safe' room, all bets are off. The bunker itself is heavily Jaquayed with some lite tool-based Metrovania area locks. It's not an A-to-B-to-C affair, there are navigational options. You get to learn your procedurally generated purgatory well enough to sprint it in the dark. And sometimes you will. Heavily recommended. It takes what worked already and tweaks it into a familiar yet new set of scares. Doesn't render The Dark Descent obsolete... but The Dark Descent couldn't replace this one, either.

The setting is really simple: it's WWI, you're stuck in a bunker, and you're French. Horrifying, isn't it? Hold on, you need to know more? Ok, so, in addition to the above, it turns out there's a monster stalking you. Now, unlike the Kaiser's mates on the trench lines, this nice fella won't accept a white flag to end the conflict, so the traditional French strategy is out of the question; you need to get out of there. This is where the fun begins. You're told what the goal is (leave the bunker) and then you are left on your own, with very little ammo and your wits to figure out how to do so. There are some critical items you need to break free, but in order to get these you will have to solve puzzles and get other intermediate items that will eventually lead to you finishing the game. Throughout you will have to strike a balance between not making too much noise to avoid attracting the monster's attention, but be quick enough in your "mini-raids" so that the lights don't go off. Because there's an issue; the generator that keeps the lights on needs refuelling, and refuelling it will only give you so much time. In addition to this, you have a limited inventory, so you need to optimise what you go out with so that you have the tools you need, but at the same time enough space to loot as much as you can. The bunker is divided in different sections and the only safe place is the administration office, and boy are you going to love the administration office. I bet half my playtime was me crouching in there, both doors locked. The atmosphere and story are truly brilliant. The bunker is really well done with a lot of good details, and I love the fact that they didn't forget that there was still a war going on outside. The one thing I will say; you will need to have some diapers at hand because there's no other practical way of playing it. Once you've finished the game you get access to a lot of settings to customise the experience, so the replay value is there. 9.5/10.

A wonderful genre bending adventure that blends puzzle/tactile elements of Frictional's best work with resource management and defense of a Resident Evil game. There are also rewarding elements of exploration and creativity that feel akin to that of an immersive sim title. Add in a terrifying creature that rivals the best moments of Alien Isolation and you have one hell of a experience. The story here isn't anything outstanding, but that is fine. Compared to the slog that was Rebirth, it's nice that Frictional scaled back to something that doesn't detract from the gameplay. I hope this is Frictional testing and refining this type of experience for a larger project because this feels like a natural evolution of Penumbra and it's a far more attractive prospect than the walking simulator trappings Amnesia had stumbled into.

This is absolutely one of my favorite games of 2023. This installment plays wholly different than the previous titles due to the introduction of weaponry. Ammunition is extremely scarce, and you cannot craft more. There are also padlocks that cannot be opened by any means other than shooting them. This forces you to conserve your ammunition to either fend off the beast or use that one remaining bullet for potential goodies. The gas grenades, in my playthrough, seemed to do absolutely nothing. Perhaps I wasn't using them correctly, but they only ever served as a hinderance to myself. Rats weren't afraid of them and the beast walked right through without so much as a cough. The beast seemed quite omniscient at times as well, since it often spotted me through large objects, such as crates, that I was hiding behind; or when I was hiding under tables and beds without moving or having a source of light or sound. Kind of annoying, but I was able to work around it. I also found a soft-locking bug that can only be fixed by reloading a save. When holding both your revolver and the flashlight, press the Reload and Flashlight button in quick succession. This will bug the animations and cause them not to play, as if they cancelled each other out. Afterwards you cannot interact with anything or open your inventory. You MUST reload a save. I must say the ending did catch me off guard, and I found the one useful item that beast gets distracted by and used it during the end sequence. Better use it wisely though, or you'll throw it, watch it bounce sidewars and fall down a deep, dark hole like I did. I really do wish it was a bit longer, but for $25 I definitely can't knock off stars for its length. I hope Frictional Games continue doing what they love so that I may continue to play through their stories.