Amnesia: The Bunker

About Amnesia: The Bunker

Amnesia: The Bunker is a first-person horror game made and published by Frictional Games, the studio behind Amnesia: The Dark Descent and SOMA. It came out on 6 June 2023 on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, and it was on Xbox Game Pass from its first day. You play Henri Clément, a French soldier who wakes up alone in a bunker on the Western Front. The other soldiers are gone or dead, the officers have left, the way out is blocked, and something is moving in the tunnels.

The bunker is a semi-open place you learn room by room. A generator in the central office powers the lights, and it burns fuel you have to find. A pocket watch shows how long the fuel will last. While the lights are on, the bunker is safer and easier to read. When they go out, you are left with a dynamo flashlight that you crank by hand and that whirs loudly every time you use it. The Beast hunts by sound, so running, breaking doors, shooting and setting off explosives can all bring it out of the walls.

You start with a revolver and one bullet, and supplies stay scarce. Your inventory is small. Locked storage boxes, tools, grenades, gas, flares and scraps of cloth are scattered around, and you combine and use them to open new routes or buy yourself a few seconds. Explosives break through wooden doors, and only fire or a blast will clear the rats that gather on the dead. Many problems have more than one answer: a lock can be shot off, smashed with a brick or opened with a key you found. Item and code placements are randomised, so a second run is not the same as the first.

Saving is only possible at lanterns in the safe rooms, and there are only a few of them, so a death can cost you a long stretch of progress. It differs from the earlier Amnesia games in giving you tools to fight back a little, but the Beast cannot be beaten, only driven off for a while. The fear comes from listening: the scratching behind a wall, the sound of the generator dying, footsteps that might be yours.

A first run takes about five and a half hours, according to the time-to-beat figures on GOG, and a lucky or practised player can finish much faster. The free Halloween update, unlocked after you finish the game once, added a harder Shell Shock mode, a custom mode with more than 30 settings, new behaviour for the Beast and a training level.

Critics were broadly positive. It holds a Metacritic score of 77 on PC and an OpenCritic average of 77, and Steam players rate it Very Positive. Some reviewers found the save system and the randomness punishing.

It suits players who like stealth horror and planning their moves, and who are happy to fail and learn a place. Players who want a story told mainly through cutscenes, or a game with real combat, may find it slow and punishing.

How to play Amnesia: The Bunker

1. Explore the bunker from the central office, reading notes and maps to learn the layout.
2. Find fuel and pour it into the generator to keep the lights on for longer; check your pocket watch to see how much is left.
3. Gather items such as bricks, cloth, grenades, flares and keys, and combine or use them to open locked doors and boxes.
4. Move quietly and listen for the Beast; hide or throw something to distract it when it comes close.
5. Save at a safe room's lantern when you can, and work toward the way out of the bunker.

Tips

• Refuel the generator before you head into a long area; darkness makes everything harder.
• Crank the flashlight only when you need it, as the noise can draw the Beast.
• Keep your one bullet for when the Beast is right on you; a shot drives it off for a while.
• Bricks and bottles are useful for breaking locks and for throwing to lure the Beast away.
• Explosions open wooden doors and clear rats, but they are loud, so expect the Beast to come looking.
• Learn the map in the office; knowing where the safe routes and the lanterns are is worth more than any item.

Questions