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Amnesia: The Bunker is an excelent Survival Horror game that gets to the point with a simple, but effective and well executed premise. Play as a soldier trapped in a WW bunker, who must explore, gather and manage resources, and open an escape route while surviving a deadly monster that lurks in the dark waiting for you to be his next victim.
Compared to previous entries in the Amnesia series, it might not be as heavily focused on the horror experience or the story. This focusses on gameplay mechanics and replay value instead. Whether you find that better or worse it's up to you, I personally consider it a good thing because from what I've seen I found the previous Amnesia games rather "empty" and with very little to offer in terms of gameplay, even if they might beat this one in other aspects.
The Positive:
Survive the horror, by using your brain and tools to navigate through the bunker searching for a way out, while doing your best to avoid the monster that's waiting for his chance to kill you. You have access to a few weapons, types of grenades, and other utility tools you can find or craft. You can somewhat fight back, although the stalker cannot be killed until the end of the game, so while you have tools to distract or temporarily make him retreat, keep in mind that those resources are limited so, especially in higher difficulties, you should think carefully how and where you use them. Think of it as a shorter, more condensed, version of Alien Isolation (probably the closest experience to it).
Overcome obstacles in multiple ways. Most tools, and "problems" you find (rats, traps, locked doors, etc.) have more than one way to interact or be dealt with. Judge, experiment and decide what would be the best course of action for your survival depending on the circumstances, what you've found, and what you need.
No two playthrougs are the same. The majority of resources, Lockers, Codes, Traps, Rat spawns, Inventory expansions, etc. are randomized at the beginning of each playthrough, so there's no fail-safe route to success in this game as the same room that was a waste of time to check on your previous run might give you something very useful in the next. Adapt and do your best with what you have.
Generator management. A very important mechanic that makes the game more unique. You can fill the Generator with Fuel canisters you find scattered across the game. While the generator is turned on so will be the lights, and the stalker isn't a fan of lights, which means he might not bother you unless you provoke him or give away your position by making loud noises. While the lights are off, he'll be allowed to randomly come out and patrol just because he feels like, making your exploration a lot more dangerous. This adds to the importance of decision making and resource management, as the generator drains fuel on a timer basis, and there are other uses for fuel too, so at least in higher difficulties (where Fuel drains faster) you need to think strategically which tasks you can do in the dark to save some fuel for other tasks where you totally need the generator turned on.
Extremely customizable difficulty that adds even more replay value. On top of the four base difficulties (Easy, Normal, Hard, and Shell Shock), you can also create your custom difficulty by adjusting individual parameters. Want to have the most terrifying stalker possible, but no rats and a much bigger inventory? You can do that. Balance and customize the experience however you wish with over 30 different settings.
The Negative:
Optimization is terrible, apparently due to the game running on a very old engine. Even if you're past the recommended requirements, don't expect to be able to run this game at steady FPS on highest quality graphic settings because the game/engine is just not ready for it. You'll most likely have to turn off or lower certain graphic options.
Randomization is a double-edged sword. A lot of the challenge in this game comes from its heavy RNG, which you can trivialize by saving/loading. Got a Code for a locker but died? Well, you can reload and open the locker without having to repeat the area where you found the code, because you already know it. So there are quite a few tasks you can cheese or even outright skip through this method, of course unless you choose not to. It's up to you how you want to play but the option is there.

Amnesia: The Bunker is a fantastic horror game set in a WW1 bunker being stalked by a relentless, AI-driven monster, Your survival depends on finding tools, crafting items and, most importantly, keeping the lights on! Frictional game's latest addition to the Amnesia franchise shows us how true horror masterminds work. It is not a perfect game, but in reality what game is perfect. Below I will state my opinion, pros and cons. So, let's get to it!
Small disclaimer - I used a speed-running tactic at the very beginning to cheese a few achievements to begin with so I could enjoy the game without any stress. Here is a link to the strat being used to "speedrun" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGQsGzjbIcQ
Small disclaimer #2 - I used CUSTOM MODE to do the rest of my achievements to attain 100% just incase anyone wanted to know if custom mode lets you unlock achievements

Pros

⚫It is a truly fantastic, immersive horror game that keeps you ALERT at all times, especially with the time constraint with the power running out. Great addition!
⚫"No 2 playthroughs are the same" - Devs statement. This is true as all of the codes and monster encounters are completely randomised.
⚫Multiple solutions to get where you need to go or do what you need to do.
⚫The atmosphere was utterly terrifying making me tense at every corner I turned and I could feel my heart beat when I stared into the dark oblivion of the empty bloodstained, tight ominous corridors of an abandoned WW1 bunker.
⚫The Physics-based interactions have been done to utmost perfection. What else do we expect from Frictional Games?
⚫Amnesia: The Bunker looks utterly gorgeous, although you can hardly see in the dark, the game looks stunning.
⚫If you are a fan of the original Amnesia games then it retains the original influence from Amnesia, what I mean by this is when Henri see's the monster his vision becomes very blurry and it shakes, it also has red ripples at the edge of the screen that moves.
⚫The sound design was my absolute favourite selling point. As you are alone, you can hear EVERYTHING. I mean, you would probably be able to hear a PIN fall and that, that adds to the built up tension already because if you are not making "THAT" sound.... WHAT IS?!?!?!

Cons

⚫Game length is... very short. For £21, if you don't care about 100% or just only want to play it once... it is not worth that price. It runs about 4-5 hours.
⚫The ending arena is very Haphazard. I thought the "standoff" was very rushed and boring.

My Verdict

Even though I done a speedrun of the game 3 times in a row at the beginning to cheese the game before I played it properly, I enjoyed every single moment of it. I thought having a gun would make it less scary, as well... it's a gun after all but they have limited your ammo to the EXACT amount for it to still be terrifying and tense.
Amnesia: The Bunker does not rely on "CHEAP" jumpscares, like most "horror" games nowadays but instead it plays on it's already tense, atmospheric horrific world that has been built around itself. This is how you make a good horror game.
Amnesia: The Bunker is a fantastic step forward for the series. It manages to modernise the mechanics, graphics and gameplay all while maintaining the "AMNESIA" we have all come to love (AND FEAR) for generations. It manages to retain who it is - AMNESIA - all while adding and giving us players, modernised mechanics such as the gun which I thought at the beginning was dumb but as I progressed... it was even MORE TERRIFYING especially when I shot.

Replay-ability 10/10! Atmosphere 10/10. Immersion 10/10. Amnesia: The Bunker 10/10. I love this game!


I AM SORRY I DID NOT BUY AND PLAY IT SOONER!!

Top notch survival horror game, among the best ones, but still way from perfect. I hope that The Bunker will popularize roguelike survival horror subgenre - a mix which seems so natural and perfect, yet which is completely underutilized.
Now, regarding flaws I mentioned. The main flaw is only one, and it's 50% of an issue and 50% of just me and what I hoped this game would have, but here we go:
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- Game is not balanced against saves.
The main gimmick of this amnesia entry - the fuel which grants you temporare redundancy in monster aggressiveness, making exploration much safer. This sounds good on paper, because it is good, but it simply not working against metainformation I have as a player. Time/fuel is a precious resource, which I can save by simply reloading my save after I investigated the location, because all the items and notes and everything will be on the same spot. Even if I'm not the munckin who breaks the game immersion for ingame resources - it still just work like that. You have 120 seconds fuel time. Initial investigation of location takes you 200 seconds, which is brilliant, as you will lose your safety net midway in the location, preferably at unknown part of the location - that's an incredible feeling. After dying, next raid to the location will take you only 100 secs - as you memorized everything. Not great. You didn't want to mess with the game's resource balance, yet involuntarily you just did. Why do we punish players who against all odds complete locations on their first investigation? What could be the solutions to that?
- Randomize items location after each saveload - meh solutuion, as it's still abusable, but whatever.
- Create complex game logic which will calcute whether player advancing location too fast, tweaking stalker's behavior and changing some small elements on location to delay the player - good workaround, but kinda hard to inplement. And it won't fix the issue of having the same room layouts anyway, I know where it's best to hide, on my second try, where to bait stalker to go, etc and I prefer not knowing anything of that as it's much more thrilling, fear of running from chasing beast to the unknown part of location without even knowing whether it's a dead-end - that's the stuff I hope game will be able to provide each and each subsequent playthrough.
- Develop a game around 1 life with iron will mode, full restart on death, no saves, fully random layouts each playthrough.
Easy solution. Nice solution. If you are saying something like "Hey, just delete your safe after each death" - you are missing the point. Game should be DESIGNED with single life in mind. Make beast not instakilling you on touch, or give player some options when beast grabs you - some item which saves from grasps or wasting a bullet to be saved from the beast, you got the idea. Increase the ammunition and resources amount for a little bit - just a little, to accomodate the panicking player losing his only shotgun shot with no more option to reload to get that bullet back. Make hideout spots slightly more powerful, make it more obvious when hiding under the table will work and when it won't, or let me have a chance to escape being damaged if beast grabs me out from under the bed/table. Make beast not really killing you on it's first successful grab, and just locking you in its lair from which you can escape - like in the Forest, that will be a nice kind of spook - player appears in fully uknown location and should traverse back to the safety room. Point is, you are making a horror game, make me be scared of death in addition with being scared of spooky beast, because right now you only have the later. Darkwood made one-life approach just right, and they got shitton of story content, so I believe Frictional is no worse. Do the option checkbox which will enable savings - not the checkbox option which will disable the savings. Disable achievements, hide true endings behind saveless playthrough - stuff like that. Do the meta horror in scarrying your customers from buying the game.
And yeah, full randomization of layout is required. When I start new playthrough - I know exactly where all quest rooms will be, where are their keys, where are other quest items - you need to go full roguelike to achieve greatness.
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Okay, some other flaws:
- Too much fuel.
- Brick is too powerful.
- Shotgun is obtained waaay too late. Cutters as well.
- All bottles are empty.
- "Safe room is no longer safe in shell shock mode" - said Dumbledore calmly while staying in the locked fully safe generator room while playing shell shocked mode.
Thank you, buy this and bye