There are tons of interesting horror game design ideas out there. Alien Isolation is one of my absolute favorites. It built on established concepts and managed to hook me with its incredibly faithful take on the franchise. The xenomorph following you around the ship and responding to you was impressive. The fact that it also learned from your actions was a huge step forward for the genre as a whole. It was terror in its purest form. From what I’ve played, Alien Isolation seems to have been a clear inspiration for Amnesia: The Bunker.
As the name suggests, this horror gem is set during World War I. Although the nations appear fictional, the uniforms are distinctly French and German. There is no doubt that we are somewhere on the western front. I wouldn’t be surprised if Frictional Games were inspired by low budget horror movies on the same subject as Trench 11, Bunker and the underrated Deathwatch. Although you are alone here and not in a group as is usually the case in films, I felt the same fear, desperation and tension that a group of characters would feel. Interactive media has the ability to put us in the shoes of the person we control. It shows a lot in the horror genre. Personally I think that the trenches lend themselves very well to psychological horror, thrillers and the like. So it’s a pity that the genre as such, both cinema and video games, doesn’t use WWI as a backdrop very often.
In the game, when I wake up alone and on the brink of death, my first thought is to find out where I am. I keep walking around some objects that I find. When I leave the infirmary, I begin to understand the magnitude of my problems. It is clear that I am in an abandoned bunker complex next to the trenches. After that you are largely on your own. It’s your problem to survive; The developers will not help you. The introduction and prologue provide a good framework and presentation. They’re not perfect and the war sequences seem cheap, but once the help section is over and the game hands you the reins, the experience finds its place. The first staggered steps from a hospital bed to going through the bunker corridors and finding the starting items are impressive. You’ll soon find you’re not alone, so grab a revolver and a loud, bad light that you leave on like an old ship’s engine. This is nothing new for Frictional Games. The idea is that even the objects require some work on your part. You have to open the barrel of the revolver with one button and reload the cartridges in the different chambers with another. The studio is great at creating interactions with the world and its objects. It’s also a master of interactions between you, the environment, and objects. You turn on your lamp, it illuminates the area so you can see the monster is nearby, hear the sound and start chasing you. It does this painlessly, with no intrusive user interfaces, warning lights, text, or arrows.
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As before, you can pick up, rotate, look and move items. You have to find clues, codes and other things you need. I quickly and instinctively got used to it. However, I was a bit surprised by the direction. First, World War I is unusual. Then it deviates a little from the usual game design of the developer to create such an open world without loading sequences. Also, the game is very free. You will quickly find a room in the bunker that is your safe room. You can complete it and the monster will not reach you here. There is a saving function here in the form of a flashlight and a generator. You may be wondering why waste time in a space like this. The entire setup calls for you to conduct bunker expeditions from this room. You have to find items, codes, routes, fuel and also craft new items in your small safe room.
I have already mentioned on a previous occasion that there is a generator. It replaced the madness meter from Amnesia: The Dark Descent. You don’t want the lightbulbs in the bunker to go out. The monster chasing you doesn’t like the light. You will quickly realize that you have to plan how to proceed. You must decide how many fuel tanks to fill the generator with and which ones to keep in the Bunker Box. The supply of this precious liquid is not unlimited and it is extremely dangerous to explore the bunker in the dark. In addition to the monster, there are traps of various types that are easy to trip over if you’re not careful. The lamp you are carrying is dim, making noise and attracting the monster. The focus is on you, the generator, and you have to go on expeditions to finally escape. There is also a map in the safe room that you can use, but outside, in the corridors, only the monster and your breath keep you company.
Since Amnesia has been about light from the start, this is a perfect way to represent the narrative and the world. I love the layout and the design options. The only thing I would like to criticize a bit is that you can block your progress if you run out of fuel. Lights are required in some areas, and if you run out of fuel you won’t progress. I’m also not entirely convinced that you can’t go higher than 60 FPS. As I understand it, it has to do with your game engine and all interactions with objects in the world. Things break when you cross that line. I hope the developers take this into account in the future. The graphics themselves are good. They won’t boost the industry, but they’re doing their job. The art is great and it feels immersive. I’m even more impressed by the sound quality. It is always clear where the sounds come from, they are qualitative and create tension. While visually it doesn’t quite compete with big-budget titles, there’s something else here that impresses. To avoid repetition, there are aspects of the adventure that are randomly generated. The codes are never the same, the objects change places, etc. You can get some important items before others, such as a gas mask. That means everything has replay value. Especially if you want to increase the difficulty.
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Although we now know that the developers will be releasing an adjustable difficulty, it is missing in the current state of the game. It’s a shame because I like the ability to customize the difficulty level in horror games. However, the difficulty levels show concrete changes. The easiest mode offers more save points outside of the bunker, giving you plenty of items and materials. The harder mode limits this, sets more traps and makes the monster more dangerous. I’ve tried all the difficulty levels and my favorite from the start was Normal, which is a decent difficulty. If there’s one thing I take away from this game, it’s its fantastic atmosphere. It’s a nasty horror game inspired by competitors like Alien Isolation and low-budget horror films like 2002’s Deathwatch. I can’t help but praise it as Frictional Games’ best game yet. They draw relevant lessons from previous works such as Penumbra, Soma, and Amnesia: The Dark Descent. For me, who loves to watch or be a part of the media about WWI, my hair stands on end when I have such a good horror experience with this topic. It’s good for making you feel very lonely. The monster is ruthless and you have to think about what to do and when. Also, the freedom and lack of arrows in all directions require more thrust to complete the adventure. I miss a custom difficulty at the start. Unfortunately, it can hamper your progress if you’re not careful with fuel (currently in isolated situations), and the 2023 target of 60fps is a little dated. For the rest, it’s the best horror game of the year.