Amnesia: The Bunker marks an evolution for one of the best horror series

In his book Vimy ridge, British journalist and military historian Alexander McKee described how deafening sounds could be registered as touch. “I felt that if I lifted a finger I should be touching a solid ceiling of sound,” he wrote of experiencing a bombing run during the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917. As Professor Santanu Das of The protectorsays Wilfred Owen, the poet behind “Dulce et Decorum Est”, a similar experience after three weeks on the Somme in 1916: “I saw no dead. I have done worse. In the damp air I have observed it, and in the darkness felt.”

Amnesia: The Bunkerthe latest first-person horror story from Frictional Games, puts you in the muddy boots of a French soldier during World War I. Part shade And Soma, you’re forced to survive cat-and-mouse chases in entangled spaces. This time, however, the structure is not linear. The bunker is a labyrinthine nightmare, combining free-roam navigation with streamlined immersive sim elements. Crucial, as in the innovative Alien: Isolation, a creature hunts you the entire journey. All it takes is a misjudgment of time or a single wrong step to get his attention.

In The bunker, sound is as distressing as it is useful, signaling danger before you turn a corner. You can hear grunts and rumbles above your head and within the walls, and in holes only your predator can use – all the better for ambushing you. It took me hours to first see the monster, and even then it was a fleeting glimpse, in the moments before it quickly killed me.

Systematic, The bunker is structured around a safe room and generator, which act as the central hub and launching point for roguelike forays into the bowels of the concrete complex. The generator supplies power to most rooms (after you manually flip the switches) and tends to keep the signature monster at bay. But it burns fuel quickly. As you desperately search for jerry cans, a stopwatch counts how long the lights will stay on, each tap of a needle underpinning your decision-making process with a bed of general dread.

Some parts of the bunker extend over large underground areas, often infested with rats and tripwires. Since you can only refer to the map in designated safe rooms, it’s critical to gather as much information as you can on each trip, memorize layouts or, if you’re lucky, find dog tags and soldiers’ notes pointing to your next destination. Over time, I quickly learned that abandoning these expeditions halfway was not always the best option, even if the alternate expedition meant going into complete darkness. There are only a limited number of fuel cans to find, and if you waste them visiting places repeatedly, you’ll have to travel farther to get more, potentially losing light much sooner in the process.

Ultimately, your goal is to find dynamite and clear the only escape route from the titular structure. But the gradual quest takes time, and there’s minimal hand-holding beyond the tutorial. Plus, your limited inventory space forces you to make tough decisions about what to take and what to leave behind. You can store essential items such as the stopwatch in the safe in the safe (if you don’t know precisely when the generator runs out of fuel) in exchange for valuable crafting materials or progression-related tools.

There are sack bags you can find to increase your inventory, but never enough to feel truly and safely equipped for what lay ahead. After being cornered by the creature a few times, you’ll think twice before stashing the key (which unscrews vent covers to access otherwise locked rooms) or the lighter (a quieter light source that can also ignite fire and can power a torch) on future journeys. Survive indoors The bunker means constantly balancing the uses and drawbacks of each item.

Image: Friction games

The mechanical flashlight is an infinite source of light and, in theory, one of the most useful items in the game; but you have to wind it up loudly to ensure long-lasting relief, and the monster is attracted to noise. Using grenades or your gun is even more exciting due to their reverberation pony. However, these risks are often necessary: ​​firing a padlock or clearing a vermin-blocked hallway can create crucial shortcuts for the inevitable return. As defensive measures, directly attacking the monster only lends time. Hurting it causes the creature to flee for a moment, enough for a quick escape. Once it returns, it will act more aggressively, while also becoming more resilient to subsequent attacks. In one encounter, one bullet was enough to scare him off. In the next one, the monster just withstood the shot and I ran out of ammo I needed to double up.

These moments rival those of the best stealth games, when the slightest sound can mean revealing your position to much more powerful enemies. Frictional has made a name for itself by creating these moments from elegant yet terrifying systems. The bunker‘s outstanding achievement is therefore the creation of a non-linear sandbox in which you constantly learn from your own bad habits. I’ve never been more aware of how much noise everything around me makes in a digital space, carefully entering rooms to avoid kicking an empty wine bottle or occasionally activating the flashlight when I knew the monster was nearby. used to be. As McKee described, it’s your everyday actions, coupled with the gross and hostile setting, that create a solid ceiling of sound – a ceiling that only gets thicker the longer you live in the bunker.

Amnesia: The Bunker was released on Windows PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on June 6. The game was rated for Series X using a pre-release download code from Frictional Games. Vox Media has partnerships. These do not affect editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased through affiliate links. You can find additional information on Polygon’s Ethics Policy here.