Welcome to my mini review of Amnesia: The Bunker from Frictional Games. This is the fourth instalment in the Amnesia franchise, but they are also standalone so you can play in any order. Amnesia: The Bunker was released on June 6th, 2023, on PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series X|S, and PC. For the purpose of this review, I played the game on the Xbox Series X and played it via Game Pass.
The Beast will get you.
Continue reading to find out my thoughts on one of the latest entries onto Xbox Game Pass. You can also read our other reviews when you’re done here.
The Game
The game is set in World War 1, our protagonist is a French solider named Henri Clement. Henri has become trapped in an underground bunker and is being hunted by a horrific monster known only as “The Beast”.
It’s also a first-person horror. These are the best in my opinion because they immerse you into the gameplay even more than a third person would. That’s not to say third person horror games are rubbish, because they’re not. One thing I need to say at this point, Frictional Games have done a bloody cracking job with this first-person horror game.
The idea in the bunker is to find different tools to get deeper into this seemingly endless maze of corridors and dead ends. You must go deeper to get out. There are a very small amount of enemies in the game, but it’s the atmosphere that sets the tone. Artillery hitting the ground up above you, causing dust, debris, and who knows what else to move around you. These artillery strikes literally caught me off guard and I jumped when a shell hit the world above me.
That was only the beginning. Not too long into exploring the bunker, I started to hear The Beast. Footsteps, loud roars, you can hear it sniffing around whilst it creeps through its little crawl spaces in the walls ready to pounce out on you and make you need a new pair of pants. The British kind of pants, you know, boxer shorts, briefs, knickers… Those pants. Not trousers. Further into the game we come across some mutated ugly mother f**king rats. They’re bigger than the usual kind, and believe it or not, uglier.
Large rats, even bigger Beast
The aim of the game is to escape the bunker with all your limbs intact and still attached to your body. Sounds pretty simple… But in reality, it’s not. Whilst I enjoyed playing Amnesia: The Bunker, I found it got ridiculously hard for no real apparent reason after about 5 hours into the game. This then meant the game became less terrifying and a lot more frustrating, which is a shame, because it felt like it could be an absolutely terrifying game to start with. I’m not even joking, I was genuinely terrified of the game when I first started out. So just be warned it may become harder for you, but stick with it.
The gunplay is pretty good too. You soon find a revolver and later there is a shotgun. They’re both useless against the beast though, all they do is stun it and eventually it’ll run away. Although ammo is very scarce so don’t waste it.
There are other weapons too, such as grenades, gas grenades, and petrol bombs. You can make petrol bombs by combining an empty bottle, fuel, and a rag.
However, upon completing the game and reflecting on what an incredible game I had just finished, I realised that it would be hard… Imagine being chased by some crazy beast that wants your blood, try to hide from it, and not die… Exactly. The game lures you into a false sense of security, you think “OK this isn’t so hard, it’s just scary”. But then it becomes a holistic experience. Both horror and a hard difficulty smash into one, they collide like asteroids in space but put on a spectacular show whilst you sit there watching it all.
Patience is a virtue.
There’s only one real negative I can pin point… Loading between areas. If you move from the main hallways to the prison. For example, you will face the game loading whilst it loads the area up ahead. By loading, I mean freezing. It literally freezes for a few seconds whilst it loads the next area. Considering I played this on the Series X, I was rather disappointed. This could be because the game was also developed for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. However, I felt this was the only thing that let the game down.
I was blown away by the graphics during certain scenes of the game. For the most part, it’s dark, dingy, and down right terrifying. But there are certain areas which show that Frictional Games know what they’re doing when it comes to creating some beautiful vistas.
The sound effects are also very good. I highly recommend you play this game with a decent set of speakers hooked up to your TV. Or even with a headset/headphones. The game really sucks you in and gives you a huge sense of immersion with a headset on.
Conclusion
The game starts off very strong. It gives that real sense of fear whilst you’re crawling around the dark bunker. But as mentioned, it seems to get really hard for no real reason. This started to put me off of the game even though I persevered through, and boy am I glad I did. The story is fantastic and the lore you find around the bunker really helps you understand what awaits you, kind of.
I give Amnesia: The Bunker a score of 9/10. If you want to learn more about Amnesia: The Bunker you can visit the official site.
