Videos by ComicBook.com
Crunch remains an industry-wide issue, so seeing a developer plainly explain that they’re making a move like this to avoid a last-minute push to meet a deadline is a breath of fresh air. As Olsson says in the two-minute video, asking the team to work long hours is “not something we do here at Frictional.” Even if you’re bummed about the announcement, you have to respect a leader willing to make tough choices that benefit their team.
Plus, it’s not all bad news. Olsson goes on to say that players can expect a demo will be coming to Steam on May 22. This will give players a first look at the terrifying story they’ll be diving into in early June.
Amnesia: The Bunker casts players as Henri Clément, a French soldier who finds himself trapped in a World War 1 bunker with almost nothing to protect him from the monsters lurking in the shadows. This is the fourth game in the Amnesia series, though only the third developed by Frictional Games, and it introduces a semi-open world for the first time in franchise history. That means you’ll need to use your own ingenuity to solve the game’s many puzzles and get away from the various horrors chasing you.
This move from more scripted encounters to what Frictional calls a “dynamic and ever-present” threat should inject more frenetic gameplay into the mix, upping the horror factor quite a bit. Considering how terrifying the previous games have been, you can expect this to be one of the scarier games of the year.
