SCARY GOOD

Try to keep the lights on in AMNESIA: THE BUNKER

- Ted Litchfield

I remember every encounter I had with Amnesia: The Bunker's antagonist, an ape-like thing that lives in the walls of the World War I hellhole protagonist Henri Clément finds himself trapped in. Whether I was peeking out at it through the slats of a confessional in the company of a mutilated chaplain or using the last of my precious bullets to drive it back into the walls knowing it'll just come back angrier, every escape from it felt harrowing and earned.

Amnesia: The Bunker is like a new beginning for this series, preserving a distinctive sense of powerlessness and foreboding while slotting that fragility into a full-on immersive sim. You don't just run and hide in The Bunker: you plan expeditions out of your Resident Evil-style safe room, exploring a labyrinthine, nonlinear world that stands shoulder to shoulder with the best horror games I've played.

The Bunker is genuinely one of the scariest and most stressful videogames I've ever played-it was so intimidating and oppressive, I found it hard to make myself stay seated for the first few sessions. Frictional's sound design is superb in how it builds a sense of dread and how it signals the monster's alert level. There's this ambient, cavernous hum to the bunker, punctuated by the squeals of rats, occasional cries from the Beast, and the earthshaking thumps of German artillery.