Amnesia: The Bunker takes horror series in a new direction

Frictional Games announced Amnesia: The Bunker, the latest entry in a horror series that owes its success to some of YouTube’s earliest viral horror game videos. Amnesia: The Bunker doesn’t want to just be yet another survival-horror game, though, as the developers are teasing that it will be a “semi open-world” adventure sandbox where players can interact with a lot of stuff in the environment and influence the events of the game.

Taking a cue from immersive sims, Frictional Games wants Amnesia: The Bunker to emphasize player choice as they explore a World War I bunker as an amnesiac French soldier, solving puzzles and dodging an evil creature. Players start with only a pistol with just one bullet and a dynamo flashlight. Their experience will unravel uniquely from there. Amnesia: The Bunker won’t have many scripted set pieces and will instead react to the player’s decisions as they solve puzzles and take on the creature. For fans of games like Prey, it looks like Amnesia: The Bunker wants to elicit a similar feeling. 

Unfortunately, the reveal trailer for Amnesia: The Bunker doesn’t show those systems in action yet, simply teasing us with a creepy trek through the bunker. Still, taking this approach to the next Amnesia game should create some interesting emergent gameplay moments and give the game enough variation to make it just as fun to watch people play as Amnesia: The Dark Descent was on YouTube in 2010. In fact, Frictional Games says there are multiple solutions to every puzzle and that “objects, threats, and resources change in every playthrough,” so there will be quite a bit of randomization that will make Amnesia: The Bunker even more interesting to watch. 

Amnesia: The Bunker will be released for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in March 2023. When asked about a potential PS5 version, a PR representative for Fractional Games told Digital Trends that “the game is being released natively for PS4 and Xbox Series X/S — compatible with Xbox One and PS5. It seems strange, but that’s how it is.”

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