Amnesia: The Bunker 2023
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Days in Journal
2 days
Last played
June 8, 2023
First played
June 7, 2023
Platforms Played
"Amnesia: The Bunker is a first-person horror game set in a WW1 bunker. A relentless, AI-driven monster stalks you. Survival depends on finding tools, crafting items..."
So reads the Steam blurb for Amnesia: The Bunker, and besides the perennial tumour that is 'crafting' you'll notice the monster is described as 'AI-driven.' I hate to inform Frictional Games of this, but ALL enemies in ALL video games are AI-driven. This marketing vomit was done solely because of the current fascination with AI. During one of my later bouts of taking a break from this game simply out of boredom, I went on YouTube to confirm a theory I had: this game wasn't developed for you, the player. It was developed for xQc, and Gab Smolders, and Gmanlives (whose endorsement appears on the Steam page), and all manner of piddling content creators who'll tell you this game is 'SO SCARY.'
In fact, a lot of them had played through and uploaded footage of the full game before it was even released. So why play it yourself? Because there is a massive circlejerk between streamer culture and indie horror games where you're supposed to buy it because your favourite parasocial fixation 'raised awareness' about it. Because the developers are just like you, they watch Twitch and don't read books and are part of the club.
Games like this frustrate me in how perfunctory they are, how cold and uninspired their thought process is. You can isolate each neurotransmission the devs had. "Survival horror -> limited inventory, unintuitive equipment, crafting, blank slate protagonist, jumpscares (gotta keep the YouTubers happy), and scatter a bunch of notes lifted wholesale from r/TwoSentenceHorror around so the player can fool themselves into thinking they're uncovering some kind of scary plot." Don't fuck with me. There is no plot. It's bitterly disappointing that this game could take a setting as unique as a World War I horror story and render it so mundane. All you need to know is that you're trapped in a bunker with a hairless gorilla and have to run around doing errands. There's a cutscene at the start and a cutscene at the end, but both are meaningless.
And for me, this just isn't enough. A horror story can't hold up on raw scares alone, no matter how loudly Markiplier screams when scary thing happens. Good horror stories always have something more - hell, just go back to the first game in the Amnesia series. Dark Descent is a great game, built not just on dread but also on mystery and intrigue. The Bunker is built on jack shit. I longed to see a loading screen just so that I could know I'd progressed in some way, but none were forthcoming. Having a central hub was a mistake. It highlights how small the scope of this game is.
Puzzles consist of finding codes on the back of dog tags. That's the whole sentence.
Our friend the AI-driven monster isn't scary either, so the horror factor is dead in the water. He feels weightless and pre-programmed, with each encounter just feeling you're fulfilling the conditions to drive him away, such as firing X number of bullets. He doesn't react to grenades or explosions or bricks, he reacts to boxes being ticked.
God forbid you want an experience just for yourself. I miss when games were art and not 'content.' Funnily enough, the first Amnesia, which on its own stands as a classic, was a hugely popular Let's Play title when streamer culture was in its infancy. It helped create this monster - horror games designed for YouTubers, not players.
Amnesia: The Bunker is just the culmination of this philosophy. It has as much story as Five Nights at Freddy's and as much gameplay as Granny. I must impress upon you - this game is going to get a lot of positive meme reviews and YouTube traction, but if you play games for anything more than being a monkey with a fidget cube, this isn't worth the time. At the end of it, as is typical of Let's Play bait, you're no better off. There's nothing to derive from it. You haven't experienced a thrilling, cathartic journey like the best horror games provide. You've pissed away 3 hours of your life on a nothing game made by a cynical, creatively bankrupt developer whose output is now indistinguishable from its sea of imitators. You should've just watched jacksepticeye play through it, like Frictional Games intended.
So reads the Steam blurb for Amnesia: The Bunker, and besides the perennial tumour that is 'crafting' you'll notice the monster is described as 'AI-driven.' I hate to inform Frictional Games of this, but ALL enemies in ALL video games are AI-driven. This marketing vomit was done solely because of the current fascination with AI. During one of my later bouts of taking a break from this game simply out of boredom, I went on YouTube to confirm a theory I had: this game wasn't developed for you, the player. It was developed for xQc, and Gab Smolders, and Gmanlives (whose endorsement appears on the Steam page), and all manner of piddling content creators who'll tell you this game is 'SO SCARY.'
In fact, a lot of them had played through and uploaded footage of the full game before it was even released. So why play it yourself? Because there is a massive circlejerk between streamer culture and indie horror games where you're supposed to buy it because your favourite parasocial fixation 'raised awareness' about it. Because the developers are just like you, they watch Twitch and don't read books and are part of the club.
Games like this frustrate me in how perfunctory they are, how cold and uninspired their thought process is. You can isolate each neurotransmission the devs had. "Survival horror -> limited inventory, unintuitive equipment, crafting, blank slate protagonist, jumpscares (gotta keep the YouTubers happy), and scatter a bunch of notes lifted wholesale from r/TwoSentenceHorror around so the player can fool themselves into thinking they're uncovering some kind of scary plot." Don't fuck with me. There is no plot. It's bitterly disappointing that this game could take a setting as unique as a World War I horror story and render it so mundane. All you need to know is that you're trapped in a bunker with a hairless gorilla and have to run around doing errands. There's a cutscene at the start and a cutscene at the end, but both are meaningless.
And for me, this just isn't enough. A horror story can't hold up on raw scares alone, no matter how loudly Markiplier screams when scary thing happens. Good horror stories always have something more - hell, just go back to the first game in the Amnesia series. Dark Descent is a great game, built not just on dread but also on mystery and intrigue. The Bunker is built on jack shit. I longed to see a loading screen just so that I could know I'd progressed in some way, but none were forthcoming. Having a central hub was a mistake. It highlights how small the scope of this game is.
Puzzles consist of finding codes on the back of dog tags. That's the whole sentence.
Our friend the AI-driven monster isn't scary either, so the horror factor is dead in the water. He feels weightless and pre-programmed, with each encounter just feeling you're fulfilling the conditions to drive him away, such as firing X number of bullets. He doesn't react to grenades or explosions or bricks, he reacts to boxes being ticked.
God forbid you want an experience just for yourself. I miss when games were art and not 'content.' Funnily enough, the first Amnesia, which on its own stands as a classic, was a hugely popular Let's Play title when streamer culture was in its infancy. It helped create this monster - horror games designed for YouTubers, not players.
Amnesia: The Bunker is just the culmination of this philosophy. It has as much story as Five Nights at Freddy's and as much gameplay as Granny. I must impress upon you - this game is going to get a lot of positive meme reviews and YouTube traction, but if you play games for anything more than being a monkey with a fidget cube, this isn't worth the time. At the end of it, as is typical of Let's Play bait, you're no better off. There's nothing to derive from it. You haven't experienced a thrilling, cathartic journey like the best horror games provide. You've pissed away 3 hours of your life on a nothing game made by a cynical, creatively bankrupt developer whose output is now indistinguishable from its sea of imitators. You should've just watched jacksepticeye play through it, like Frictional Games intended.