In his guide Vimy Ridge, British journalist and navy historian Alexander McKee described how deafening sounds could possibly be registered as contact. “I felt that if I lifted a finger I ought to contact a strong ceiling of sound,” he wrote about experiencing a bombardment through the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917. As recollected by professor Santanu Das at The Guardian, Wilfred Owen, the poet behind “Dulce et Decorum Est,” echoes an analogous expertise after three weeks on the Somme in 1916: “I’ve not seen any lifeless. I’ve accomplished worse. Within the dank air, I’ve perceived it, and within the darkness, felt.”
Amnesia: The Bunker, the most recent first-person horror story from Frictional Video games, places you within the muddy boots of a French soldier throughout World Warfare I. Consistent with the Amnesia collection’ earlier video games, in addition to Frictional’s Penumbra and Soma, you’re compelled to outlive cat-and-mouse chases in ensnaring areas. This time, nevertheless, the construction isn’t linear. The bunker is a labyrinthine nightmare, combining free-roam navigation with streamlined immersive-sim components. Crucially, as within the modern Alien: Isolation, a creature hunts you all through the journey. All it takes is a miscalculation of time or a single incorrect step to name its consideration.
In The Bunker, sound is as harrowing as it’s useful, signaling hazard earlier than you flip a nook. You possibly can hear growls and rumblings above your head and contained in the partitions, and in holes that solely your predator can use — the higher to ambush you. It took me hours to truly see the monster for the primary time, and even then, it was a fleeting glimpse, within the moments earlier than it swiftly killed me.
Systemically, The Bunker is structured round a protected room and a generator, which act because the central hub and start line for roguelike-esque journeys into the bowels of the concrete complicated. The generator supplies energy to most rooms (after you manually flip the switches on), and tends to maintain the signature monster at bay. Nevertheless it burns gas quick. As you desperately seek for gas cans, a stopwatch shows how lengthy the lights will keep on, every needle tick underlying your decision-making course of with a mattress of normal anxiousness.
![The protagonist prepares to throw a grenade in a flare-lighten corridor in Amnesia: The Bunker](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LBNYLyE5xoSzm9QAlNDKd19tpy4=/0x0:1920x1080/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1920x1080):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24730413/Amnesia_The_Bunker_Review_7.jpg)
Picture: Frictional Video games
Some sections of the bunker sprawl throughout giant subterranean areas, typically tormented by rats and tripwires. Since you may solely reference the map in designated protected rooms, it’s essential to collect as a lot data as attainable throughout every journey, memorizing layouts or, when you’re fortunate, discovering canine tags and notes from troopers that trace at your subsequent vacation spot. Over time, I shortly realized that abandoning these expeditions midway by way of them wasn’t at all times the most suitable choice — even when the alternate meant continuing in full darkness. There are solely so many gas cans to search out, and losing them to revisit locations repeatedly means you’ll must journey farther to get extra, doubtlessly dropping gentle a lot earlier on within the course of.
Finally, your objective is to search out dynamite and clear the one escape route from the titular construction. However the gradual search takes time, and there’s minimal hand-holding previous the tutorial. Moreover, your restricted stock area forces you to make powerful choices about what to convey and what to go away behind. You possibly can retailer important gadgets just like the stopwatch within the protected room stash (when you’re OK not understanding precisely when the generator’s gas will run out) in trade for worthwhile crafting supplies or progression-related instruments.
There are pocket luggage yow will discover to extend your stock, however by no means sufficient that I felt actually and safely outfitted for no matter was ready forward. After you’re cornered by the creature a number of occasions, you’ll suppose twice earlier than stashing the wrench (which unscrews vent covers to entry in any other case locked rooms) or the lighter (a quieter gentle supply that may additionally ignite fires and energy a torch) on future journeys. Surviving in The Bunker means continuously balancing the makes use of and downsides of each merchandise.
![The protagonist aims down the sights of his pistol in a corridor in Amnesia: The Bunker](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bAbQwK996SKeBLRkSbAM_tNSENk=/0x0:1920x1080/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:1920x1080):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24730417/Amnesia_The_Bunker_Review_6.jpg)
Picture: Frictional Video games
The mechanical flashlight is an infinite gentle supply, and, theoretically, one of the crucial helpful gadgets within the sport; however it is advisable to loudly wind it to make sure prolonged illumination, and the monster is drawn to noise. Utilizing grenades or your pistol is much more tense on account of their resounding bangs. These dangers are sometimes needed, although: Capturing a padlock or clearing up a hall blocked by vermin can create essential shortcuts for the inevitable backtracking. As defensive measures, immediately attacking the monster solely borrows time. Hurting it leads to the creature fleeing momentarily, sufficient for a fast getaway. As soon as it returns, it’ll act extra aggressively, whereas additionally gaining resilience towards subsequent assaults. Throughout an encounter, one bullet was sufficient to scare it off. Within the subsequent, the monster merely withstood the shot, and I ran out of the ammunition I had wanted to double down.
These moments rival these of the perfect stealth video games, when the slightest noise can imply revealing your place to far more highly effective foes. Frictional has made a reputation for itself by creating these moments out of stylish but terrifying methods. The Bunker’s standout achievement, then, is making a nonlinear sandbox the place you’re continuously studying from your personal unhealthy habits. I’ve by no means been so acutely aware of how a lot noise all the pieces makes round me in a digital area, cautiously coming into rooms to keep away from kicking an empty wine bottle or activating the flashlight intermittently once I knew the monster was close to. As McKee described, it’s your mundane actions, at the side of the crude and hostile setting, that create a strong ceiling of sound — one which solely grows thicker the longer you inhabit the bunker.
Amnesia: The Bunker was launched on June 6 on Home windows PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Collection X. The sport was reviewed on Collection X utilizing a pre-release obtain code offered by Frictional Video games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media could earn commissions for merchandise bought through affiliate hyperlinks. Yow will discover further details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.