So despite Spooky Month just ending, I am going to talk about yet another horror game! Sorry for the overload of spookiness but I wanted to get a quick review out for one of the horror games I played at the tail end of the month. One that ended up surprising me quite a bit!

Last month I talked about Amnesia, more specifically Amnesia: The Dark Descent the first game in the series. I focused exclusively on it as I mainly wanted to talk about how the game did so much for defining the hide and seek horror genre. So I didn’t mention that the game is actually the first in a series of games! After The Dark Descent came A Machine for Pigs then Rebirth, a direct sequel to The Dark Descent, and finally the most recent game in the series, The Bunker. I had not played any of the games after The Dark Descent, mainly because A Machine for Pigs took a bit to come to consoles, which had shifted to my main way of playing games, and after that I lost touch with the series. It didn’t help that hide and seek horror got a little over saturated after the release of the original game either, making the urge to play the sequels not super high. Fast forward a few years later and the entire series goes on sale for super cheap on the PlayStation store, leading to me picking them all up. And after replaying The Dark Descent for Spooky Month, I decided I wanted to finally try another game in the series and, since I knew the games weren’t super tied together so I didn’t need to know the stories of each, picked up the most recent, The Bunker.

Despite the original Amnesia being extremely popular and influential, the sequels have never managed to hit as hard. I remember hearing pretty ‘meh’ opinions on A Machine for Pigs, with a lot of people pointing to the fact it wasn’t made by the original developers as the reason for this. However, Frictional Games did return for Rebirth and I never heard anything too glowing about that game either. Maybe I didn’t listen hard enough but still. That leads us to The Bunker, a game I honestly hadn’t heard all that much about, which was why I decided to pick it up in the first place. And I’m glad I did! This game ended up surprising me quite a bit, in both positive and negative ways, so much so that I felt the urge to write a review for it despite it not being Spooky Month or all that relevant now!

So let’s start with a bit of context and set up before jumping in. You play as Henri, a French soldier in World War I fighting the Germans currently locked in trench warfare. The game’s tutorial has Henri running around some trenches as the game teaches you the controls and the sort of thought process you should have. This is very important! I won’t lie, during a lot of tutorials for any game I shut my brain off for a bit, especially this time though as I had just played the original Amnesia so I figured I was set. I was already well versed in how to pick things up, open things, hide, manage the inventory, all that stuff! But I really should have payed attention to a few key things. First and foremost, you have a gun! A revolver to be specific. This is one of The Bunker‘s key marketing points, it’s even on the cover! Like I’ve mentioned before, hide and seek horror rarely gives you any means to fight back, so having a gun is pretty different! That being said, you’ll hardly be using it to kill things, but we’ll get to that later! For now, you learn how to shoot and reload, things that feel more clunky than they usually would and for a good reason. This is still a horror game after all so having the reloading be more slow and realistic is actually perfect. Not only that, limited ammo is very much going to be a thing. Interestingly enough though, you don’t practice shooting any people in particular. Instead, you practice by shooting a lock off a door! This is actually the more important thing to remember from this tutorial.

A big emphasis from the tutorial is the fact that there are multiple ways to tackle each situation. For instance, while I did shoot that lock, you can also break down wooden doors with bricks and what not. A key is not always required in order to progress. And this right here is actually what surprised me the most about The Bunker!

Before I get too ahead of myself though, lets jump back to Henri and his story real quick. After the tutorial, we’re shown Henri going out on what seems to be a patrol. While out, he finds a big crater and someone calling for help from it. It turns out to be his closed comrade, Augustin Lambert. He had been missing for a few days and it seems Henri was out looking for him specifically. After helping him to some water in the crater, he pulls Lambert out only to be knocked unconscious by some German artillery. After that, he wakes up back in the bunker of his troop, having no memories as the blast seemingly gave him amnesia! And from here the game starts proper.

It doesn’t take long to get a handle on the situation. After running into a dying soldier who explains that they are trapped in the bunker and need to blow a way open after the exit was sealed shut, said dying soldier gives Henri his gun, asking him to go get some ammo and to kill him before the monster plaguing the bunker kills him instead! After securing the bullets, the monster pulls the soldier through a hole in the wall, teaching the player to mind those holes from now on!

So the goal and threat are now clear! Find the explosives and make a way out of the bunker while avoiding the monster lurking in the walls and darkness. After getting your gun and ammo Henri finds his way to a room with a lantern, map, storage box, and some stairs down to the bunker’s generator. This is easily the most important room in the game! This room basically services as your base of operations. It’s the only place where you can store items and the lantern will allow you to save. But perhaps the most important thing of all is the generator. After giving it some fuel, you can power up the generator which will provide light to the bunker. This is very important as light will help keep the monster at bay. It won’t stop the monster from appearing completely, but an area with the lights on will make sure the monster doesn’t randomly show up and start wandering around looking for Henri. As you probably can guess, this is extremely important!

The monster, or Stalker as it is official called, is the major threat of The Bunker. Beyond it the only things that can really do damage are traps set up by some of the other soldiers and some very large rats! Said rats will at least leave you alone for the most part if you don’t get too close to them. The biggest threat they pose is blocking off areas by being in the way while they chew on some dead bodies. That and they will follow you around trying to take a bite out of you if you’re already hurt! Thankfully you can scare them away with fire or a flare, and lighting bodies on fire will make it so the rats lose interest in the bodies completely. Beyond that, they aren’t much of an issue unlike the Stalker.

The Stalker is always a threat, there is even a chance for it to chase you or appear in the lantern room! It’s very sensitive to noise so you must keep in mind how much noise just about everything makes. From running to jumping to opening a door to even reloading! I’ve never been more aware of how loud I can be in a game than when hiding from the Stalker as it moves around nearby! Like I was saying before, the Stalker seems to be in the walls, popping out anywhere there happens to be a hole in the wall if there’s enough noise. Thankfully there’s a few signs to alert you to the fact the Stalker is nearby or has been alerted to where you are. Things like the walls and ground shaking and the lights beginning to flicker. Depending on if you are in a lit place or a dark place, the amount of sound required to bring the Stalker out will differ. In a well lit place with the lights on, it’ll take a lot more to alert it. You’ll still need to watch out for how much you run around but you won’t need to be crouched and moving slowly when the lights are on. However, if the lights are off, the Stalker will not only come out from much less noise, it might just pop out on its own! Patrolling around an area for as long as it wants, especially if it thinks you are around. Even shooting it won’t bring it down! Like I mentioned before, ammo isn’t used much for killing as you obviously can’t kill the primary threat of the game. That’s not to say shooting it is useless though! Shooting the Stalker will stun it for a time, giving you a chance to escape if it spots you! Getting caught by the monster is an instant kill, so making sure you have a least one bullet just in case is ideal. This is why keeping the generator running is so important as you only have so many resources to keep the Stalker at bay. Which brings us to a mechanic that I have a feeling some will love and others will hate.

There is one generator that powers the lights for the entire bunker and you need to keep filling it in order to keep the lights on. This is a really neat way to add stress to the game! Not only are you worrying about having enough fuel, but you need to be aware of how long the generator will be on so you aren’t suddenly left in the dark… Thankfully the game does give you a timer you can have equipped to keep track of how long you have, but that does take up inventory space. While this ever looming threat could already turn some people away, I feel like what really might upset people is the single generator thing. Because there is only one generator, you have to be constantly running back to it over and over again. This can of course feel very tedious when you are already deep in another part of the bunker, trying to figure out what to do next when you suddenly need to book it back to the generator. This also applies to saving too as you only have that lantern in there to save with, and the game doesn’t really do checkpoints. For me personally though, I actually like this feature! At first I didn’t but eventually I saw the tension it provides. I felt this way even more when I also realized that having the lights on didn’t completely hold the Stalker at bay. I was originally worried that having the lights on made the monster a non-threat but nope! With enough noise, it still shows up. Plus, I will admit I did grow to enjoy having a little home base with the map and storage. A storage that quickly filled up but thankfully you can drop items and they won’t disappear! I actually ended up stacking items on the nearby shelf. Keeping a clean inventory can be very important as you only have so much space to carry around important items.

Still, I can understand how this back and forth could grow old or annoying for some, but thankfully I grew to enjoy it. It was yet another unique aspect of the game for me that set it apart not only from Amnesia but other horror games! However, that isn’t the aspect of the game that surprised me the most. It was the freedom that is allowed.

Remember how I said I should have payed more attention to the lessons the tutorial taught when it came to how problems usually had multiple solutions? By somewhat forgetting this fact, the first area I explored in the game became a bit of a slog as I felt I had no way but to brute force my way around things. Like running through rats and taking the damage so I didn’t use another flare or giving up on a door because it was stuck and I didn’t have a key. In reality, all I needed to do was think a little harder and I was able to find plenty of solutions around each problem! One of the biggest things I had to remember was the fact that a door being wooden meant it could be broken and this can happen multiple ways. My usual method was using a big brick and slamming it against the door a couple times, but you can also use grenades or bullets to break them down or even have the Stalker itself break it down for you! This right here is what surprised me the most about The Bunker and really got me hooked on playing more.

To go with the freedom of doing things your way, the game doesn’t exactly give you a direction on how to get out of the bunker. Like, it tells you that you’ll need explosives and a detonator and where those are but roadblocks to getting them will quickly appear. Unlike The Dark Descent, The Bunker doesn’t have just a single path you follow through the game. Instead, you can do things your own way in your own order. Granted, there is still technically a path the game wants you to follow, but by having the player figure out that path on their own, doing it out of order if they choose, that illusion of choice is very strong and something I really enjoyed! It made the journey through the game feel a lot more personal and less like I was doing what the game wanted and doing what I wanted instead. In fact, by the time I had finished the game, I was left wondering just how much of the game I really needed to do and how much of it was there just for some extra goodness.

This freedom is truly what makes The Bunker so great and an enjoyable experience! Sadly though, it’s not all good and there are a few negative points I do have to bring up.

First is the game’s length. In the past I have said that I like my horror games to be on the shorter side being around 6 or 10 hours long. I’d say The Bunker gets pretty close to this being around 5 hours or so. However, with the game’s mechanics for problem solving and all that, I couldn’t help but wanting more! The bunker itself is pretty small all things considered and sadly doesn’t offer enough chances for this level of freedom for me to feel fully satisfied. Granted, I understand that with the mechanic around the generator and needing to run back to fill it, you can’t have the game be too big without it feeling even more tedious to run back so much, but I still have to admit that I was left wanting a little more from the game.

Next is the game’s story. This is far more of a minor gripe but one I still want to bring up. The game doesn’t give much story beyond the beginning bits and some notes you’ll find around talking about how the Stalker seemingly came to be and how everything went down. It gives you a lot of context for the soldiers that experienced everything going crazy after they found some old Roman tunnels. The set up for a scary story with intrigue is there but that’s honestly it, it’s just the set up. While I know leaving things vague can be really good for horror stories, I still wish there was a bit more to flesh things out. A little more detail here and there. Again though, this problem isn’t nearly that bad, far more of a personal thing, but I still wanted to bring it up!

All that said, The Bunker is still very much worth anyone’s time! The game feels so fresh with how much freedom it gives you that while you may feel a little let down you can’t explore these mechanics more with the short length, you’ll still likely end up with a fun experience overall! I’m really hoping that with this game’s short length that perhaps the developers, Frictional Games, were just wanting to test these mechanics and are planning to release a much more fuller game like this sometime in the future! We’ll just have to wait and see though.

But those are just my thoughts! What are some of yours? Still in the mood for spooky games after Spooky Month? Thinking about giving The Bunker a try? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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