DLCwolf Amnesia: The Bunker Review

Overall, a relatively short game: about 5 hours on easy mode, or 8 hours if played blind on normal, due to the higher number of character deaths. Unfortunately, my experience was significantly affected by a technical issue related to the graphics settings: I had set the frame cap to 120 FPS, and the game ran extremely slowly — like watching in slow motion. Only after lowering the cap to 60 FPS and enabling dynamic FPS did the gameplay finally become smooth — but also surprisingly more frantic. The setting is one of the game’s strongest points: believable, well-designed, with trenches and bunkers inspired by World War I. They’re not particularly detailed, but still effective and representative. Personally, I found the constant presence of the monster a bit excessive, and the generator’s runtime too short. For this reason, I recommend playing on easy mode to avoid excessive frustration from frequent deaths (I counted 18, mostly in the second half of the game). In my opinion, a good horror game should push you to survive, not kill you over and over. If you always restart from the last save — which, in this case, isn’t that frequent — you lose the sense of discovery and exploration, simply retracing familiar paths, heading straight to objectives, and trying to avoid traps and enemies. The gameplay mechanics are quite basic, and character movement feels stiff compared to current standards. That said, the tension works: the darkness, the feeling of being hunted, the claustrophobic and mysterious atmosphere definitely raise the adrenaline. But it’s essential to strike a good balance between fear, difficulty, death count, and resource management — especially the generator. In short: pay close attention to the graphics settings (they nearly halved the pace of the game for me) and choose your difficulty wisely. I suggest playing on easy rather than normal, to avoid excessive deaths and the constant presence of the monster. After all, you don’t need to die often to feel fear and suspense — it’s enough to feel hunted, to dread that the creature might show up at any moment. But if it’s always around, and appears every time you make a sound, it just becomes frustrating. That’s why I believe that, in a good horror game, fine-tuning the difficulty and core mechanics is absolutely essential — to deliver a thrilling experience while avoiding either too much frustration or an overly easy ride. Amnesia: The Bunker is a solid horror title, more than sufficient overall, but for truly intense and well-rounded experiences, I personally still prefer other games. Darkwood, for example.