Amnesia: The Dark Descent Reviews

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is a masterclass in psychological horror, plunging players into a nightmarish world of darkness and madness. You awaken with no memory in a creepy, abandoned castle, and the only goal is to survive while unraveling the twisted secrets of your past. The game’s eerie atmosphere is enhanced by its brilliant use of sound and lighting, making every creak and shadow feel like an impending threat. The emphasis on stealth and puzzle-solving over combat adds to the tension, as you're forced to hide from horrifying monsters rather than fight them. If you're looking for a deeply immersive and spine-chilling experience, The Dark Descent will leave you questioning what's real and what's just in your mind.

I'm a fan of Frictional's work, but this game has the same problem that a lot of PC games from the late 90s to the early 2010s have in that they are no longer supported. Similar to a game like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, this game simply was not made for hardware that exists today. In trying to play The Dark Descent, my aspect ratio cannot be set properly; the game either stretches past my screen or is shrunk too small (even when set to my screens resolution). I recommend watching a longplay video on YouTube for The Dark Descent and buying Amnesia: The Bunker :)

I found out about Atrophysics literally a few days ago coming across theirs (I'm not sure how authors identify themself) music on Spotify by accident, and I was already falling in love with it. Those frosty synths and shy, emotional vocals run through pitch and distortion resonate with my soul - literally like this game. It's the first game I ever spent money on, to be honest it's way too cheap. I didn't know anything about this game, I just knew I wouldn't regret it, but I didn't expect it to be such a moving experience. It's not just the sheer aesthetics of an amazingly drawn post-Soviet world bathed in VHS glitches and pervasive emptiness. Nor is it about the poignant soundtrack with which my body goes numb and my soul dissociates. The story, though short, captured my feelings. I felt that perhaps the author was closer to me than I thought, some indescribable thread of shared heritage of loneliness, identity breakdown, philosophical angst and a monstrous lack of strength to swallow the sweetest syrnik.... At a crucial point in the game, I decided to stay as I did when watching “We're all going to the world's fair” sung by Alex G, though I hesitated more than I would have thought. After all, it's just a game - right?.... I just want to say - thank you. For this moving journey. For the works of art. For the hope. Maybe in another incarnation I'll be the one to give you the scarf...

I spend too much time on this game. Playing custom stories and replaying the story. :/

While I didn't find the game scary, I loved the atmospheric horror it provided. Story was great and memorable! I recommend buying on sale!

Old but gold. The original Amnesia is fantastic compared to its sequels in my opinion. "The Bunker" was pretty good too.

I consider Amnesia Dark Descent strongest feature to be its strong atmosphere, with clever use of lighting and shadow, which are also tied to the gameplay. Inside a deprecated, decaying castle which was partially renovated turn it into a mansion for it's owner, a claustrophobic and sometimes maze-like environment that combined with the soundtrack, and high quality sound effects provides a strong sense of tension, the game puts in the work to provide a specific emotional reaction from the player, keeping pace in mind as it balances moments of tension with the moments where things can ease, then it builds up it's tension again. Regardless if they achieve "horror" for a particular player or not, the effort to execute it and maintaining engagement is clearly there and can be appreciated The story, starts at a blank slate with only your name as a baseline, the story progresses using notes, flashbacks and environmental storytelling to tell it's narrative, slowly revealing why the game begins the way it does, in what concludes as a very solid story, with deep understandable characters. It's a bleak tale that takes advantage of it's method of storytelling to establish and explore its mystery as you piece together the events on your own The actual gameplay mechanics are built toward maximizing the game's atmosphere. At a base you can run, crouch, interact with objects by holding them in the air and throwing it, and you have an inventory to carry certain predetermined objects, with these you will solve puzzles, do some light platforming, manage your health with healing items and keeping your sanity in check, your sanity starts at it's maximum but staying in the dark and experiencing scary things will lower it, meanwhile progressing through the game with things like solving puzzles will replenish it, and staying in the light will replenish it slowly, the lower your sanity weird you may see insects crawling, weird noises and your character can get harder to control, and when it reaches zero you will fall on the ground and alert the enemies in the area; to keep in check, the map has strategically placed light sources, some are already lit while the other need to be lit with a resource you can find in the level, there's also oil which can also be found is used on your lantern, a mobile source of light but limited in duration, the game gives you the tools and lets you figure out and make decisions of when you should use these resources. Looking at the enemies of the game can also lower or sanity and can actually get you caught if you look at them for too long, which means your primary force to counter it is to hide and avoiding looking at it or running away if you get caught, which engages you to a particular playstyle that has similarities to how movies hides their monsters, to keep the horror in your imagination to some extent rather than just showing it, but using the interactivity of video games by adding player choice on top of it, so you end up only catching glimpses of how they look like which adds to the atmosphere and danger of those creatures. The game can be a bit buggy, by far the worst one i had on this playthrough was getting stuck inside a room because an enemy was keeping it shut and not losing aggro and i had to re do the entire section, also had a couple of UI problems, like the mission progression filter appearing when opening the inventory I personally believe that SOMA is Frictional's best game, but Amnesia is really good, it sets out to provide a specific type of experience and executes it in a very engaging manner, arguably a must-play for any horror game fans

Fun to replay this game again. It's a classic and still scary after all this time. It's a timeless horror masterpiece.

I played this game on Hard Mode, I have never been more scared or stressed out playing a game in my life, even though I was stressed all of the time, it was very fun. The story is fantastic and the gatherers are traumatically terrifying but I had a great time playing this.

This game still stands great at 2025. Graphics and atmosphere greatly complements each other. Sound and music are near perfect. Overall. Highly recommended even for modern gamers.