The Making of Amnesia: The Bunker

There are some activities that should only be experienced in a bottomless pool of darkness (ideally after the witching hour unless prescribed by the author otherwise). Listening to Nick Cave; one night stands (if you're lucky and are not a suspender-snapping, fedora-wearing fan of Tom Waitts' music - he's okay as an actor, though); reading "House of Leaves", the pinnacle of creepypasta; drunkenly dancing in your kitchen, or watching every 'Disturbing Things from Around the Internet' video, to name just a few. Then, of course, there are horror games, the ultimate adrenaline rush simulator which leaves even the bravest of souls resting their finger on the "Esc" button as if it was some sort of virtual escape hatch.

Listen, I love horror. I might not be the bravest kid on the block nor am I young enough to be able to survive multiple jump scares without calling it a day (or an ambulance), but I watch Ari Aster's films religiously and have a tendency to scare off potential soulmates by telling them about Sad Satan (which was the basis for my dissertation, nonetheless). Like the nightmare-inducing stories by H.P. Lovecraft for the generation who kicked rocks for fun or "consulted" an Ouija board to pass the time, Amnesia games played a big role in fostering my love for screaming in a pitch dark room.

Those who are not familiar with the Amnesia series by now should, to begin with, know that it did as much to the survival horror genre as Dark Souls did for action RPGs or David Bowie for glam rock. That goes well beyond launching careers of numerous YouTubers who were first to realize how lucrative screaming at your monitor can be.

What the brilliant madcap minds at Frictional Games did with Amnesia: The Dark Descent back in 2010 was remove the only means of protection (i.e. weapons) from the standard equation, emphasizing "Capital-S" Survival Horror. This made horror gaming fans willingly and regularly change their pee-stained undies, and while that might not sound like a big deal today, back then it felt as revolutionary as putting Solid Snake in open-world Afghanistan or getting to fight a sadistic, overlord A.I. using only physics, science and Companion Cubes.

Fast forward 13 years, with a number of horror franchises spawned in the wake of the popularity of Amnesia: The Dark Descent - including my favourites, Outlast and Layers Of Fear - and nothing much changed. We still have our amnesiac protagonists, as dictated by the franchise's cursed title. We still hide under tables in the hope that the game's Lovecraftian monstrosities won't be able to smell our fear. You'll do all that while slowly losing your sanity - both in-game and IRL - a fantastic scare tactic that Frictional Games, like some Frankensteinian scientists, have been experimenting with ever since The Dark Descent.

However, Amnesia: The Bunker, the newest installment in the franchise, does something different. Scratch that: The Bunker does a lot of things differently compared to its forebears. That's especially astonishing considering that, just like Assassin’s Creed Mirage or Fallout: New Vegas, this project was born as a DLC, originally intended for Amnesia: Rebirth.

To understand how The Bunker became its own thing, and how on Earth developers managed to raise the bar for interactive horror by including a gun (a series-first), I reached out to Fredrik Olsson, the Creative Lead behind The Bunker and co-owner of the studio, who was happy to indulge me in my quest for answers.

To my surprise, I wasn't met with some hooded, shadowy mastermind in a room lit only by candles and a single, dangling lightbulb, as I imagined most horror creatives to be. Instead, Olsson turned out to be a jolly, immersive sim enthusiast who, besides getting his kicks out of coming up with new and terrifying ways to give us heart attacks, also happens to be an avid streamer, which makes The Bunker even cooler somehow. That doesn't mean I'm stepping back into those monster-infested, maze-like bunkers that make Battlefield seem like a vacation spot anytime soon, though.

SUPERJUMP

Can you tell me what was the first horror game that you ever played?

Fredrik Olsson

Oh, it has to be Resident Evil. The first one, I think. I haven't been that much into horror games myself. It's not like I've been a big horror game or movie buff at all. But I played a few of them and that was the first one that really stuck.

I remember giving my friend the controller and having him walk down the corridor where the dogs jump through the window, and he just handed over the controller back to me... It's very terrifying! I remember playing it when I was little – it's just unnerving.

SUPERJUMP

Do you remember how old you were at the time?

Fredrik Olsson

I think it has to be when it was just released... I think I could have been 19 or 20 years old? I'm getting old... [laughs]

You know, I had Commodore 64, I even had a built-in TV console – that's really old stuff. So if you call Dungeon Master (1987) a horror game, that probably must have been my first one. I don't know if it counts as a horror game any more. But I remember us playing Dungeon Master a lot.

SUPERJUMP

You said that you didn't play horror games that much, nor did you watch a lot of horror films. Were there any other impactful horror experiences that you had like Stephen King or John Carpenter’s The Thing, then?

Fredrik Olsson

Yeah, I read a lot. I've read a lot over the past 10-15 years. I'm really bad at remembering names but there’s a lot of Stephen King books. I think one of the books that I really liked actually was "The Mist". I liked that a lot. It wasn't too long... When I started reading "It", it was such a long book that it kind of lost me halfway through. [laughs]

One of the books that really had an impact on me was "The Terror" [by Dan Simmons]. It's basically 1800s and [there's] a big ship that's supposed to try and get around the continent but then get stuck in the ice. There are tons of men on this boat and they start getting killed off by some kind of monster.

It had a bit of an impact on me because you never really see this monster. It’s more about the people living on this boat stuck in the most horrible situation. I like that type of horror where you have relationships but also have some kind of ominous being that always creates this kind of uncomfortable feeling throughout.

Actually, one of the recent movies with that guy from The Office - A Quiet Place – I really like that they based it around sound. There's one scene where they have zero audio which is very rare in movies...

It's kind of like the psychological aspect of what we did with The Bunker: when the generator is running, we have this kind of Shepard's tone that runs in the background. You can't really hear it, but if you listen knowing about it – you will hear it. It's an illusion basically of sound going downwards constantly. It creates this, 'Oh, the fuel is going out, the fuel is going out!' feeling. The second that the generator dies, the tone also disappears.

SUPERJUMP

So like some Christopher Nolan kind of mind-trickery?

Fredrik Olsson

Yes! And Christopher Nolan has that quite a lot in his movies. I think in Dunkirk there was a lot of focus on time. And so, that's where the idea came from.

SUPERJUMP

Is it true that The Bunker was supposed to be a DLC for Amnesia Rebirth? Also, how did you land on the idea to set it in a WWI setting?

Fredrik Olsson

Let's start with the second question. During the development of Rebirth, someone suggested it would be fun to have the WWI trenches. I think it might have been the writer on the previous game just mentioning [that] during a meeting. And we might have revisited it once or twice after that. The idea just stuck with us.

Then we came to a point where we came out from Amnesia Rebirth; I was supposed to start off the pre-production on a bigger project. But then I took over the creative lead role of Rebirth halfway through [the development], which meant that I came out of it having not been part of the initial design or story [development], feeling like I wasn't really done. I had more ideas. One thing I wanted to try was: 'Why don't we have a weapon?'

That kind of connected with the WWI setting, which was a setting that was not high-tech in any way. So I suggested that we make a DLC for Amnesia Rebirth. I pitched this idea because we had tried out stalking behaviour before; we tried it out on the ghouls in Rebirth, but it was such a linear story that stalking behaviour didn't make sense. (Actually, we had a version of this stalking behaviour where [ghouls] came out of holes. But we never used it in Rebirth.)

So that also tied into this idea of a bunker – now with a gun, one stalking enemy, and with WWI [setting], which was the previous idea. It all just came together that way. Everyone liked it, so we said, 'Let's try and do that!'

Very early we made a prototype and realized this is so different from Rebirth. Also, very fun. Honestly, not many weeks into the development of The Bunker as a DLC, we realized, 'No – this needs to be on its own thing.' Because we were having so much fun with it and seeing the potential, we kind of just allowed the scope to grow a bit.

SUPERJUMP

Should I ask about the gun(s) or about the randomization element first? Let's go with the randomization because that's a pretty unique feature that hasn’t been done in an Amnesia game before. Just to add, maybe you will agree, but Soma and previous Amnesia titles couldn't pull it off because they were more story-centric.

Fredrik Olsson

I think it's fair to say that if you replay Amnesia Rebirth or Soma, you replay it for the story. If you play The Bunker again – you play it for the challenge. That's why we have a Safe Mode for Soma. The narrative is that important.

So, yeah, randomization is there to make it more challenging. If you came in a second time and said, 'Okay, I need to get into that room because there’s a grenade in that drawer,' you wouldn't have to explore all of the environments anymore. Also, the codes are randomized [every time] – you can't look them up on internet and find out what's the code for that locker. You need to find a corpse with the right dog tag. Otherwise, you would have a very optimized path through the game and that would immediately kill replayability (for me, at least).

The core of The Bunker is to challenge the player. It's a fairly small environment, but we mix things up within that environment to make it fun. Especially with the dynamic monster as well. Which means that if the stalker had been scripted, that would also take away [from horror] because you’d know, 'Okay, when I step around this corner, he's gonna enter this room.' It's very rare that it pops up in the same place.

"Very early we made a prototype and realized this is so different from Rebirth. Also, very fun. Honestly, not many weeks into the development of The Bunker as a DLC, we realized, 'No – this needs to be on its own thing.' Because we were having so much fun with it and seeing the potential, we kind of just allowed the scope to grow a bit."

Fredrik Olsson
Executive Producer

SUPERJUMP

Now, I want to ask about the gun. In one of his early blogs, Thomas Grip, the creator of the Amnesia franchise, wrote that there’s a prototype version of Amnesia: The Dark Descent with guns, and apparently it was "too fun." Like it distracted the players from getting scared...Now you returned to this idea but managed to pull it off. Can you explain how you came up with this idea of 'It’s time to give players the gun again'?

Fredrik Olsson

I think the very first small prototype that we had, you were able to fire the gun at a padlock. It was very early that we said the bullets are not going to kill the monster – it's going to be a tool. Then, of course, it's going to be very few bullets, so they will be valuable. As soon as you put a value to that, you have a whole different scenario. Add that firing the gun at the Stalker once will [make him] come back and take two bullets next time... That's like you just sacrificed something just by firing the gun at him.

What it does is that it gives you a tool that is much more fun. I mean, it is fun to use the gun. But it's also very much anxiety-inducing. [laughs] There's one place in the maintenance, for example, where there's a hole in the back wall. You can shoot the padlock through it. '[But] should I use it here?’ Should I use this bullet here on this padlock??'

Look at horror movies: if you have few bullets left, it's not a fun situation. I'm kind of surprised it's not been used that way before, to be honest. This way, what we could do with the gun now is that it doesn't only become this game about hiding – especially with the generator, which is running on time.

I love the fact that during design, every single mechanic we came up with we started looking at the Stalker behaviour. 'Can you just hide under a table for a while? Is that still the solution?' No. Because when you sit there, you hear the Shephard tone running in the background and you go like, 'No, no, no, no! I can't sit there for too long. The monster is here walking around. Maybe I could just shoot him and run.' That gives you more opportunities, different ways to approach the problem.

I think early on it was like images in my head that became [the Central Bunker]. Some people were saying, 'The generator might become this kind of shore that you need to fill up over and over again.' And playing the first prototype, it was a very small environment. We couldn't backtrack. We couldn't be far away from the generator. But I had this moment in my head, like video playing in my head, of you walking there having done certain things, having this progress with the save room way back there. And [then] boom! It goes dark... You hear the monster coming out. And that moment was what we wanted to achieve.

There were multiple of those moments actually with how you can shoot it. For example, loading the gun: you're sitting behind the shelf, you hear the Stalker coming closer and you go, 'Did I load that bullet I found??' Then you have to take [the gun] out and check if you have a bullet in the gun, then back and then up. It creates these kinds of [moments] you've seen in horror movies. All of those moments, they are dynamic. They're created in that sense.

SUPERJUMP

Have you seen a movie called No Country for Old Men by any chance?

Fredrik Olsson

Yeah, I've seen it.

SUPERJUMP

Do you remember the scene where the guy's sitting on his hotel bed and he's slowly turning the light off and reloading his shotgun before the psycho guy comes to the door? He's doing it all silently. So this kind of brings to mind The Bunker because you are forced to take notice of how much sound the reloading [of your gun] does.

Fredrik Olsson

Yeah, that’s cool. But I don't remember that. I've actually thought I need to rewatch that movie because I don't remember too much about it... [laughs]

SUPERJUMP

Well, it's great! Great use of tension there. Anyway, you might have heard this critique that Amnesia: Rebirth feels more story-centric compared to The Bunker, which is more gameplay-oriented. How do you balance both of these qualities without losing the best aspects of one or another?

Fredrik Olsson

I think it's very difficult. To make a story like Soma, that’s very difficult to do with systems and mechanics – it has to come from one or the other as a core. Hopefully you can find ways where the narrative can blend in.

The Bunker is gameplay-centric – it comes from that seed. We've kind of added the narrative on top of that. The setting was already there to begin with and that helped the gameplay. The narrative – the friend, the Stalker, all those things – came afterward,. Whereas in Soma, the story came first.

And I agree with you. Unless you are super lucky that they just come together, I think it's super difficult to create something that has both. When you have gameplay that is an immersive sim, the player’s mindset is like, 'I need to save this resource for later. Maybe I need this to open a door later on.' If you want them to be concerned and think about a deeper theme, for example, a philosophical theme, like you do in Soma, then you don't want them to start thinking about, 'How can I use this grenade to blow up a door later on?' You want them to focus on the narrative.

I think it's super difficult to get that strong theme and an immersive approach to gameplay. I can't really see myself like even trying that out, to be honest... [laughs]

"I mean, it is fun to use the gun. But it's also very much anxiety-inducing. [laughs] There's one place in the maintenance, for example, where there's a hole in the back wall. You can shoot the padlock through it. '[But] should I use it here?’ Should I use this bullet here on this padlock??' "

Fredrik Olsson
Executive Producer

SUPERJUMP

In one recent interview, Thomas [Grip] said that for Frictional Games' next project, you are going to "cut back a bit" on horror games "in order to give greater focus on other emotional qualities." How do you personally feel about that? Aren't you afraid that you might alienate the player base that was so in love with The Bunker?

Fredrik Olsson

No. I mean, we have two projects in the pipeline. We always have that. The way we work as a studio is me and Thomas – we are co-owners. And also now we've become the creative leads on each project. So Thomas is working on his project now and that's going to be the next one that comes out.

We don't want to look at ourselves as genre-focused. I believe Thomas also mentioned in some [of his] blogs that there could have been fewer monster encounters in SOMA so that the narrative could've felt better. It would still be a horror game, of course, because of the setting and everything.

But for me, for the next project, I can't see going anywhere but more like The Bunker; More player freedom, player reward, and challenge. That's definitely what's going to happen. But that's further down the line. Even though it might not be a horror game, it's still going to have tension and all that.

SUPERJUMP

That's very interesting. And I do personally love SOMA. It’s one of those horror games that sticks with you.

Fredrik Olsson

And it's really popular, still! And it’s not an immersive sim – in fact, it's very far from that. So I guess you need to look at our games not as a studio releasing games, but as its own identity. Especially now that The Bunker took a step outside of what we regularly do.

You could have asked me the same question after Amnesia Rebirth and said, 'So are you making immersive sims now? How are people going to feel about that?' [laughs] We like to take things wherever we find the inspiration and where we want to do things because that's usually where the good stuff comes out.

SUPERJUMP

Can we talk about the blind shotgunner sequence? Because that's one of the more memorable sequences in the entire Amnesia franchise, at least for me. One aspect I really like about it – which was pointed out by the YouTuber called Purposeless Rabbitholes – is that if you put the gas mask on, you are going to have a completely different experience fighting the guy. Can you explain how you came up with that idea? Also, what inspired this sequence altogether?

Fredrik Olsson

We wanted to have something that did break up the gameplay with the Stalker, basically. Then we started thinking, 'Okay, if we can have a gunfight with a soldier, that would be absolutely fantastic. But we don't want to do it the regular way.'

That's where the narrative came in a way. By that point, we'd gone fairly far on in the narrative. We had written a lot of notes about people going crazy down there [in the Bunker]. So let's make a super crazy guy! I even suggested he cut out his eyes. I would say, 'We need more blood on the table. We need to see that he cut out his eyes.' So yeah, that created an interesting encounter with a blind enemy. Whereas the Stalker is not blind and can spot you.

Now, about the noise. If you go into that area, you can see there's tons of things you can throw. The idea of how that encounter could best be played is that you actually throw something at the other end of a room. He fires the gun, you see the flash and you know, 'Okay, that's the dude I need to take out.' But it became too easy...

We thought, 'We had already written about the fumes [in the Bunker]. We knew that the fumes were affecting the water that your friend drank and turned him into the Stalker. So let's do that type of gas.' We needed it seeping in through the walls to make it more interesting. It should affect the player as well. 'We can have silhouettes, too!' For easy purposes, I suggested that we add the Ghouls from Rebirth. And then we used just regular people as well. So you see those silhouettes because that makes it more difficult.

We took some creative freedom on the gas mask. In WWI, the gas mask wasn't actually covering the ears, but I said, 'We need to take that creative freedom because that changes the whole thing.' If you put that on, you get limited visibility and you get muffled hearing which made it more difficult to notice him. But you didn't see the silhouettes anymore. I mean, I don't think it ever starts as one finished idea. It's always a small idea that leads to something like this.

Also, one of the things I really wanted to do – since everything else is close combat – was an enemy that could actually fire at the distance. That also was an early part of the idea. That's where the soldier came in. Then we realized he should have a shotgun.

You can actually avoid him and not kill him. If you feel sorry for him and feel that he's better off just walking around, singing his song, or chanting his poem – then you can do that, too. But if you kill him, you get another tool. So yeah, everything fell into place nicely.

SUPERJUMP

Love that! How much research do you do before giving a green light to a setting for the game? Do you research a couple of different settings and see which one has more potential gameplay-wise?

Fredrik Olsson

I think for this one, no. We didn't do that with The Bunker because we kind of felt that it's going to be a smaller thing. As the scope grew, we already knew enough about the early-tech setting.

Then all of a sudden we realized that fuel could be poured on the floor. Someone on the team mentioned that if you can pour it [in the generator], you should be able to pour it on the floor. If you fire at the fuel puddle, it'll set the fire and if there’s an explosive barrel close by, it will turn into fire. So we worked within that framework. We just said World War I. It was very simple.

During the project, there were times when I thought going with early tech was both a blessing and a curse. It was difficult to find more gameplay mechanics. Fire, burning fuel, for example, opened up a whole new thing. At the same time, WWI was very refreshing because you didn't have to think about crazy ideas. It was very limited.

Early on we found this this idea for the flashlight. When we found out about the dynamo flashlight, we were like, 'That’s it! It’s World War I. We'll sort out the rest later.' [laughs] That was pretty much how it was. We fell in love with the idea and went with it.

SUPERJUMP

Will you continue on this path, taking an idea and going with it, then? Or you will research multiple possible settings for your next project?

Fredrik Olsson

It's probably the first [route]. Like, the idea is already set. I can't say much more. I hope it's going to be clear when you see it.

In a way, it's based on inspiration from literature and things like that. So you could say that there's been research done. But it's more like things that you picked up in your spare time – that becomes the research or the thing that indicates the kind of setting we will go for.

It's rather like, 'Oh, I like these types of aspects.' Then it starts to mould in your brain. You come to a conclusion where you can see the gameplay emerging and things like that.

SUPERJUMP

Do you think it's more difficult to scare players now than back in 2010 when the original Amnesia game came out?

Fredrik Olsson

This is going to be my very personal opinion, but I think it probably is. If you look back when games were newer, people didn't understand scripted events the same way. The fidelity is also higher, which means that if something looks off, it can ruin the experience.

With the Stalker, for example, very early on we came up with the idea to have the flickering light around him. First of all, that's a benefit for the player because if they have the generator on and running, it helps them to know that the Stalker is getting close – kind of like the scanner in Alien Isolation. The flickering light also disguises the Stalker. So you don't get a clear view [of him]. There's probably certain aspects of his animations that could make the Stalker look a bit silly. But you don't see those. It's also a camouflage to put him inside the holes. That was big and actually came about halfway through [development].

Previously we had the Stalker out in lit areas. Let's say you had the lamp turned on in the barracks, and while you were roaming around in the other barracks, you could hear the Stalker going around there. That just didn't work because players were saying, 'The generator's on [but] it doesn't have an effect on the Stalker.' They didn't know where he was [because] he was just contained in those dark areas. The moment we said, 'Let's try and put him in the holes more,' and not care so much about the lit areas – that just ramped up the horror.

I actually went to Thomas and said, 'Hey, I think we might have made this game too scary.' [laughs] And he was like, 'That’s good!' But I actually felt this might be too much for many players.

Now, if you really want to scare people – and I hope we managed to do that with The Bunker – then you need to tie it into the players' actions more instead of adding trigger points on the floor. For example, when you go there and something moves at the end of the corridor. Even moving a crate in the bunker could have a potentially disastrous effect on you. And that's playing with your head. I hope more games will do that instead of being almost like a movie.

"We took some creative freedom on the gas mask. In WWI, the gas mask wasn't actually covering the ears, but I said, 'We need to take that creative freedom because that changes the whole thing.' If you put that on, you get limited visibility and you get muffled hearing which made it more difficult to notice him. But you didn't see the silhouettes anymore. I mean, I don't think it ever starts as one finished idea. It's always a small idea that leads to something like this."

Fredrik Olsson
Executive Producer

SUPERJUMP

To be honest, I haven't played such a scary game since the original Outlast... It’s so scary that I couldn't play it without my lights off. And that never happens!

Fredrik Olsson

That's nice. We like to scare people. [laughs] It's a strange line of work but someone has to do it.

SUPERJUMP

Okay, the final question: is there a feature/idea of yours you are most proud of?

Fredrik Olsson

The first thing I have to say is that every unique sequence that was created uniquely for the player – that's what I'm proud of the most. We managed to create a dynamic environment that creates war stories for the players. That was a big challenge for this project. I'm super happy with how it turned out.

If I had to pick a narrative point, I think it has to be the Pillbox. So many players go up there and say, 'Hey, I can climb out of this!' It's a very strong moment where people, looking down at the hole again, go, 'Oh, I need to get back there... This is not the way out. The sniper is ready to kill me.' It makes people think it's a safe area because the Stalker can't get there.

That shot is actually fun as well because the idea came from the audio guy who just put it in and said, 'I’d put an audio stinger here.' And everyone was like, 'Ooh, that's great!' Then we added on top [of it]: you can actually hold the helmet up, and if you do – it gets shot out of your hands. It's a very nice narrative moment where you get reminded of the setting.

I really like The Chapel in the maintenance area. I just love how people run back to the Safe Room, close the door, and then take a deep breath. You can hear it on so many playthroughs. [Laughs] That's the first time they take a breath.

We'd like to thank Fredrik for making time to sit down with us. If you'd like to read more in-depth developer interviews, check out our full interviews archive.