What is the Monster in Amnesia: The Bunker?
In the middle of World War I, you play as Henri Clement, a soldier who is haunted by an action of his past. Amnesia: The Bunkers drops players in head first into the action. Unlike previous Amnesia games, this time things are very different. Where players would typically be found in a place of complete confusion where the story is slowly pieced together, The Bunker focusses on the story of a single soldier and his troubling past. Although the game is set to release June 6th, 2023, Content Creators have been given early access and are able to show a total of 2 hours of gameplay to their audience. This however is enough to provide us with questions and possible interpretations on both the story and its Monster. Therefore, this is Vincent’s guide on the Monster in Amnesia: The Bunker.
What is the Monster in The Bunker? – Gamer Journalist’s Theories
Frictional Games love messing with your head as you play their Horror Games. Everything that you think is real is later revealed as a lie, but at least from the protagonist’s POV, the threat is very much alive and real in their eyes. These horrors that are experienced by the protagonist haunt their minds, being a representation of their hopelessness, confusion, guilt and wrath. Whilst the ending is not revealed for The Bunker, we are pointed towards a psychological threat within this game, much like the first of the franchise. Our protagonist, Henri is tormented by a past act he committed, claiming that he is so repulsed by himself that he cannot even force himself to eat. The game begins with you and your comrade, Lambert, who each takes turns saving each others life.
Everything from this point on are Spoilers based on the first 15 minutes of Amnesia: The Bunker
But it is when Lambert is taken from you and everything turns to darkness that the true horror begins. Whilst begin trapped inside the Trenches is something few of us can truly imagine, being one of the most frightening experiences you could ever go through in real life, it is inside the Bunker itself that Henri faces the truth behind war. Being tormented by his past actions as a soldier, perhaps killing other humans by no choice of his own or perhaps being the whole reason that Lambert has died. The opening shows that Lambert saved Henri time and time again through the battle within the Trenches, but what about after? The scene turns to black and what looks like a nightmare plays out to be a reality, of Lambert trapped within a cavern where Henri rappels down with a rope and brings Lambert out of the hole. But the question is – how did Lambert get there?
Related: All Games by Frictional Games, Ranked.
Theory #1 – The Monster is Guilt Personified
My guess is that Henri in an act of rage or confusion may have pushed him, breaking Lamberts legs but perhaps repressing the thought of it, to try and save Lambert’s life in a final act of kindness as the German soldiers approach from behind. There is an explosion close to them which gives us a final shot of Lambert who appears dead. You awake within the Medical Bay of the Bunker where the main part of the game begins as you enter the title’s setting. This is where the Monster begins showing its presence. But you find out through documentation that Henri does not appear to remember himself and it is through reading these documents that we and Henri learn more about himself through his own words and observation of others.
Similar to Amnesia: The Dark Descent, you do not see the Monster until later into the game. But its appearance once discovered is too distorted, blurry and hard to make out for any distinctive marks that could tell us more about its origin. The Monster we know of is highly sensitive to sound and light, through the little we can see of it, its limbs and neck appear much longer than the standard human. However, with all Amnesia games, the Monsters have humanoid appearances, but are twisted and mangled like an experiment gone wrong. The Monster runs on all fours, with fast mobility and a bulbous shaped head and long fingers and nails to match. When preparing to attack, it stands upright on its back legs, similar to a gorilla.
Theory #2 – The Monster is a Weapon Created for War
Although the Monster is unknown at this point, with limited sightings of it and really only a shadowy silhouette to go off of, the fact that it is appearing within The Bunker upon Henri getting amnesia is telling. Perhaps it is his past chasing after him or worse, a mutilated, deformed Lambert. Or maybe this time around the Monster is real as you start within the Medical Bay with no other patients around, a man bleeding to death in a room nearby and walls covered in crawl-space sized holes. Does this mean that the Monster is a creation by the French side to use as a weapon against the Germans but the procedure backfired? Did they use an French soldier to create the Monster? There is evidence showing people with their bodies ripped apart and their face cut up but the question is are these acts of torture or experimentation? It is a strange place for photographs being found inside a Medical Bay of a Bunker.
Not only this but there are talks of a man called M. Fournier whose fear caused great rage that was used to torture German soldiers. Could fear, paranoia and rage against the other side during a war cause some kind of mass hysteria in which everyone saw this Monster?
Theory #3 – The Monster was Discovered
Multiple documents can be found stating that engineers had digged through the base and into the Roman Tunnels. Whilst the Tunnels linked directly to enemy lines, I wonder if the Monster previously residing in the Tunnel as its home, where human’s curiosity, greed and tactics lead to the disturbing of the Monster’s place of rest or hunting ground. Now providing a path directly to the army, did the engineers release something that they would quickly regret?
Documents provide information of Latin texts and urns that reside in the Roman Tunnels. Was the Monster something that was previously human transformed through years of living in the dark? Or is it more likely a creature that was brought into the Tunnels to protect the land from invaders and trespassers?
Theory #4 – The Monsters are German Soldiers
More evidence points towards the Monster being real as other Soldiers are aware of its existence and also refer to it as a Monster. But could it be a similar take as seen in Black Mirror Episode ‘Men Against Fire’ when (SPOILER), the Monsters were in fact the ‘enemies’ that were human but appeared as strange creatures so that soldiers did not feel remorse or hesitation when killing other humans. Could it be that those who were taken to the Medical Bay were experimented on and had their visual perception altered so that all hostile threats looked like Monsters?
That was Vincent’s current theories on the Monster in Amnesia: The Bunker. We hope you enjoyed this read and are excited to play this Horror Game as much as I am. This guide will be updated with the full release of The Bunker. For other horror content, we have a lot available at Gamer Journalist.
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