REVIEW: Don't let the madness take you in Amnesia: The Bunker

Amnesia: The Bunker is the fourth title in the Amnesia series and the third to be developed by Frictional Games, also responsible for SOMA, one of the best horror games ever made. Unlike the rest of the series, however, the new Amnesia is a claustrophobic and more contained experience, but none the less frightening. Quite the opposite…

Terror is where you least expect it

Amnesia: The Bunker takes place in the trenches of World War I. In it, you embody a French soldier who, upon being wounded, wakes up without knowing how he got to an abandoned bunker. All of his battle colleagues are dead and, apparently, the responsible is a terrible creature that everyone believes to be immortal.

It's up to you to figure out a way to blow up the only way out of the place, blocked by rubble, while avoiding the terror that lurks in every corner of the underground complex in which you find yourself. Every little noise made is capable of putting the monster in its wake, so you can't be too careful.

The game borrows ideas from classics like resident evil e Silent Hill in the way it is driven, forcing you to memorize the location of valuable items that help you overcome the various obstacles on the way. The big catch is that you can't carry a lot of stuff at once, and there's only one place you can store stuff and save your game.

Your creativity is your salvation

Certain challenges are only won if you have the right object at the right time, so it's up to you to be prepared, and this requires both your memory and your luck, as there are times when there is simply no way to get back to the chest in time to solve the problem found. Oh, and all this in constant darkness, as the site's generator, which keeps the few lights on, drinks fuel like a 1970 Corcel.

Of course, there is a way to stay lit in the dark using a flashlight, a very traditional element within the Amnesia series, only this time it is unreliable, as it keeps turning off by itself, and requires you to wind it up, which generates a good amount of noise in the process.

The great thing about the game, then, is surviving and somehow getting out of this frightening place, and in that regard Amnesia: The Bunker is brilliant because it gives you the resources to do this in so many ways, encouraging you to be creative. This means that there are different ways to accomplish this feat, whether avoiding the bogeyman inside the bunker or fighting it long enough to escape its clutches.

Right from the start, you'll have a revolver in your hands, but its ammunition is quite scarce and, obviously, it generates a considerable bang, in addition to not exactly stopping your pursuer. On the other hand, it is possible to use the weapon in puzzles, as well as other junk found in the base, such as bottles and generator fuel cans, which can be combined and turned into Molotov cocktails to be used as defense or as tools.

Conclusion

The ambiance of Amnesia: The Bunker is absolutely sensational, upping the tension factor a lot throughout the game, even when you're not inside the subterranean complex in which much of your adventure takes place. This constant nervousness is multiplied exponentially thanks to the exemplary sound design work. She makes terrifying noises that follow her every step inside the bunker, never giving a single moment of peace and heightening the sense of paranoia that permeates the seven hours it will take you to finish the new Amnesia. 

That the series was already of an absurd quality, there is no denying, since it delivered one of the most influential horror games for over ten years, with Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and with Amnesia: The Bunker it reinvents itself, bringing a more contained and claustrophobic journey, which can and should be enjoyed more than once, due to the wide variety of possible solutions to its many obstacles and puzzles.

Amnesia: The Bunker is an excellent choice for those looking for an immersive first-person horror experience of the highest quality. For Xbox owners, even better, as it is among the games in the Xbox Game Pass catalogue. Just download it, turn off your lights, put on a good pair of headphones and let yourself be carried away by terror…

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Text proofread by: Pedro Bomfim (18/07/23)