Amnesia returns in 2023 with new WWI sandbox horror
Amnesia: The Bunker is dropping the scripted sequences and heading back in time
The Amnesia series is returning in 2023 with another instalment in the long-running indie horror series, plonking us down in the already horrendous environments of World War I. With Amnesia: The Bunker, devs Frictional Games are also dialling down the scripted sequences in favour of a semi-open world survival sandbox. Steady your grip on your revolver and step into the dark to watch the trailer below.
This is Amnesia’s first sortie into open-world exploration, and Frictional say you’ll have to keep a close watch for an “ever-present threat” lurking around the bunker’s corners. You’ll play as a French soldier with amnesia – natch – who has only a noisy dynamo torch, and a revolver loaded with a single bullet, to rely on. I’m a bit cautious about this one, because the appalling reality of daily life for soldiers in the trenches of the war could easily impinge on the supernatural horror that The Bunker’s aiming for. Still, I’ve always loved a fob watch in any game.
Alice Bee felt the previous game in the series could have used dropping the Amnesia prefix in her Amnesia: Rebirth review. “I trust Frictional implicitly to do very interesting things, but though Rebirth takes a run at a bunch of cool and alarming concepts, it feels like it's juggling too many to do any one of them full justice,” she said. “Rebirth hasn't haunted me since closing it in a way that Soma did, for example.”
Amnesia: The Bunker is headed for Steam and the Epic Games Store in 2023. It’ll also be popping onto PlayStation and Xbox consoles.