From big-name franchise revivals to small-scale indie productions, horror gaming on PlayStation was in good health in 2023. PlayStation LifeStyle selects 14 of the year’s best horror games on PlayStation consoles.

Resident Evil 4 Remake (Capcom)

Few remakes would come with such expectations as Resident Evil 4, and yet Capcom managed to exceed them.

Resident Evil 4 Remake takes everything players loved about the 2005 classic and integrates a flurry of modern touches to make it feel like a natural evolution of the original.

Dead Space (EA Motive)

While Resident Evil 4’s remake reimagined the original, EA Motive’s Dead Space largely stuck to the script with a smattering of improvements where they were needed.

The spirit of the original is kept intact, but a PS5 sheen made every Necromorph encounter and gore-splattered outcome a grisly treat. But the real star of the new show is the Ishimura, which no longer feels like a series of interconnected rooms masquerading as a spaceship but more like an actual place.

No One Lives Under the Lighthouse (Marevo Collective)

Finally getting a console release, Marevo Collective’s atmospheric PSX-style horror is a delightful slow-burner that makes the most of its minimalist structure.

The ambiguity of the story keeps players on edge, and when chase scenes kick in, the perspective shift adds another layer to the unsettling atmosphere.

Amnesia The Bunker (Frictional Games)

Frictional Games’ ability to rewrite the rulesets of its story-led horror games is admirable and with Amnesia: The Bunker, it does its biggest edit yet.

Amnesia: The Bunker is a self-contained sandbox set in a wartime bunker where the player has to find the means to escape whilst evading a deadly monstrosity. Think of it as small-scale Alien Isolation meets Immersive Sim.

The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners 2 (Skydance Interactive)

PSVR2 had plenty of horror goodies in 2023. The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners 2 was my personal pick from the brand-new bunch.

Why? Well, its immersive, intense gameplay translates so much better to the PSVR2 than the original game did with PSVR. The dread of getting cornered by the undead is offset by improvised weapons. Throw in a seemingly unstoppable behemoth out for blood and Saints and Sinners 2 will have you working up a sweat.

Killer Frequency (Team 17)

Killer Frequency stands out for me because it’s clearly doing something quite different in the horror space. Playing the part of a washed-up DJ who finds themselves having to help save locals from a returning legendary serial killer. Killer Frequency limits you to the radio station as to the extent of your help, but within that station is plenty of exploration and opportunity.

Not only can you find things to guide potential victims away from their fate, but you get the chance to play as a DJ, putting on records, ads, and, of course, taking calls. Killer Frequency does everything possible to immerse you in the role.

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals (Night School Studios)

Oxenfree’s dialogue system remains one of the most refreshing and ingenious of its kind, so a return to that with Oxenfree II would always be welcome. That system is more refined now, but it’s Oxenfree II’s story is where it excels.

After the teen-centric tale of the original, Oxenfree II shifts things to an adult perspective and, in doing so, gives us a wonderfully melancholy flipside to the first game.

Homebody (Game Grumps)

Homebody puts a modern spin on classic survival horror, with plenty of homages to Clock Tower, especially on show.

A young woman and her friends are stuck in a time loop that keeps them inside a strange old house. She must solve the many puzzles of the house in order to break the loop, but every time the loop begins, the threat of a masked killer arrives with it.

Trepang2 (Trepang Studios)

If you miss the frenetic supernatural shooter action of F.E.A.R. then Trepang2 has your early 2000s needs covered. A labor of love that transformed into a full game, Trepang2 is a lovely reminder that shooters can simply be big, loud, bloody slabs of nonsense.

The slo-mo ability turns large-scale chaos into a ballet of bullets and blood, but truly the art of Trepang2 comes in chaining together kills at full speed, utilizing the various other superpowers at your disposal.

Alan Wake 2 (Remedy Entertainment)

Thirteen years after Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake, a sequel finally arrived, and it’s the quintessential distillation of everything the developer has done up until this point.

It’s a weird, meta tale that blends mediums in an impressively seamless way. The shift between Alan’s and Saga’s sides of the story gives us two distinct flavors of horror that intertwine at key moments.

Stay Out of the House (Puppet Combo)

It was pretty remarkable that Amnesia: The Bunker condensed a horror immersive sim into such a small space, but Puppet Combo’s Stay Out of the House manages to pack that into an even smaller space.

You have to escape the house of The Butcher by utilizing whatever you can find. Get caught, and it’s back in your cage. Each run gives you the opportunity to discover more about how the house works and the backstory behind The Butcher.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Gun Media)

After an unfortunate licensing drama with Friday the 13th, Gun Media clearly wasn’t deterred from bringing beloved horror franchises to life in video game form, and we should be glad because it gave us The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Taking the asymmetrical multiplayer model of games like its Friday the 13th game and Dead by Daylight, Gun, and Sumo change things up by pitting a team of three family members against four unlucky potential victims. The change makes for an intense cat-and-mouse dynamic distinct to this game.

Dead Island 2 (Dambuster Studios)

Given the rocky history of Dead Island 2’s path to release and the emergence of rival franchise Dying Light by original Dead Island developers Techland in the years since it would have been understandable if Dead Island 2 turned out to be a bit of a stinker.

Yet, thanks to Dambuster Studios, it turned out to be not only good, gory fun but the best Dead Island game by far. Its tongue-in-cheek humor, detailed zombie degradation system, and general blood-splattered combat combine to make for a fine multiplayer hoot.

Dredge (Black Salt Games)

Fishing has been a staple of game activities for some time now, but few outside actual sims make that the basis for an entire game. Black Salt Games thought it was worth a go, and Dredge was the unholy result.

This open-world fishing sim has an increasingly dark undertone that taps into the core of Lovecraftian horror. The murmured warnings not to stray too far at night, the messed up fish you occasionally haul in, and the strange, ambiguous way locals talk about things. When the horrors of the deep do finally show themselves, your little fishing boat never felt more vulnerable.

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One of the year’s best horror games, Amnesia: The Bunker, has received a Halloween update that will test the mettle of even the most seasoned survivors.

Amnesia: The Bunker Halloween update

Shell Shock Mode and Custom Mode. Truly test your mettle as a horror fan with new terrors and heaps of replay value as the creature adopts even more unpredictable and dangerous strategies.

In the critically acclaimed nominee for 2023’s Horror Game of the Year, players enter a French bunker during the First World War. Surrounded by the corpses of their comrades, they must evade the jaws of an inhuman creature that stalks their search for an escape. In innovative and immersive new gameplay design for the genre, explore the branching environment of the bunker in successive runs from the centrally-located safe room. Keep the generator fueled lest the lights go out; the creature hunts freely in the dark.

With the update, after the first play of The Bunker, players will be able to curate their own horror experience in Custom Mode with more than 30 settings and parameters, and face the most hardcore Amnesia experience yet with Shell Shock Mode.

Among the highlights of the hardcore Shell Shock Mode we have,

• New creature behaviors that increase unpredictability.
• Sublevel Fuse System – Restore electricity to turn on the lights in each of the Bunker’s zones.
• Hardcore Health System – Lose health while bleeding, bandages stop bleeding but don’t restore health, and medkits stop bleeding and restore health.
• More Randomization – Lockers and their combinations are in random locations.
• Saving Progress Costs Fuel.
• Locked Fuel Storage Room – the unlimited supply of fuel, and already difficult-to-access resource, is now locked and has its own combination located somewhere in the Bunker.
• Revolver is locked in the storage locker and unavailable from the start.
• The Safe Room is no longer safe. Wooden breakable doors replace the sturdy ones.
• New Training Grounds level for you to practice your skills.

The Halloween update is free for all Amnesia: The Bunker players. You can buy the game on the PlayStation Store now.

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It roams the claustrophobic halls around you. Relentless. Bloodthirsty. Eager to eviscerate any living being it hasn’t already disemboweled or decapitated. Fueled by malice and warped by eldritch sorcery, the fanged monstrosity took more of your men than the enemy combatants. The German soldiers were predictable, mortal. But this thing isn’t human. It’s something more — something worse. And it’s after you.

Tense unpredictability defines Amnesia: The Bunker. Paranoia lurks in each pocket of shadow, as the unspeakable terror stalks and torments players into submission. This atmosphere of distrust and fear elevates the sequel to must-play survival horror.

Much of The Bunker’s tension is derived from its spontaneity, which keeps players in a constant state of unease. The creature embodies this design ethic, as a malevolent and unkillable antagonist that relentlessly pursues the player. This is a common trope seen in many of the best games in the genre. But unlike famous examples, such as Resident Evil 2‘s Mr. X or the regenerator in Dead Space, The Bunker’s beast is ever-present and not relegated to scripted “stalking sections.”

It lurks around the tunnel system, ever-present and stomping about the barracks. If the player is wounded, it materializes and tries to snuff you out. Barbaric snarls and thunderous footsteps are tangible reminders of the threat that double as eerie ways to keep loose tabs on it.

There are times where the creature is occupied in a remote area, but those precious respites are all too brief. Players spend most of their time ducking, hiding, and carefully tiptoeing around, which is chilling because of how it gets players to lean forward and stay engaged. It’s not even any less scary because of the added defensive options since they take skill, luck, and a sizeable amount of time to use effectively.

By being mostly unscripted, The Bunker asks players to frantically avoid a grisly death at a moment’s notice. This is unlike past Amnesia games, where the monsters only patrol certain sections. It’s a brilliant approach that unshackles scares from scripting. There’s more focus on mechanics and immersion versus comfort in rote memorization, which is where some horror games lose their luster.

Future runs will always differ, too; locker combinations, traps, and some item locations are procedurally generated. Even the final encounter has multiple layouts. Shifting items around displaces the player, and ensures not even a guide or prior knowledge can save them. Key items are still kept in the same places, however, which undercuts the otherwise thoughtful randomization.

Despite being a labyrinth of claustrophobic corridors, however, The Bunker is more open than its peers. Often, the game borders on immersive sim with the sheer variety in terms of exploration. Unlike previous entries, this Amnesia gives players tools that interact with each other and the world in different ways. When combined with Frictional Games’ signature physics engine, The Bunker gives players a handful of ways to solve problems. Wooden doors can be unlocked or blown open. Rats can be distracted, burned, or shooed away with a makeshift torch. Not every door or objective can be cracked in numerous ways and that keeps it from being truly open, but there’s still enough variation.

These choices also force players to always weigh risks and rewards. This is best embodied, perhaps, in the loud flashlight players crank to turn on. Blowing up a door or killing rats with a grenade cuts out on crawling around, but the racket will attract the beast. Leaving traps untouched is dangerous, but can also be used against the monster.

Special, resource-heavy rooms players have to loudly open are the epitome of this astute design. They’re alluring mouse traps for players, with a sweet chunk of cheese smack-dab in the middle of the catch. The Bunker is a challenging experience with very few automatic checkpoints, so packing the game with these types of decisions makes it as engaging as it is tense. Every choice carries weight — the mark of great survival horror.

Frictional makes it clear that common sense solutions will work in most situations, and that freeform foundation is liberating. Combining a bottle with a rag, some fuel, and a lighter to make a Molotov cocktail doesn’t need to be spelled out. A rickety wooden door should crumble after a shotgun blast (and it does).

Objectives are also organically implemented and don’t require annoying beacons, obtrusive HUD elements, or lunar logic. Players aren’t led by the nose and have to think and analyze the game world in order to progress. It’s a refreshing philosophy that reinforces how The Bunker is built around submerging the player in its world.

The all-encompassing immersion makes a few technical shortcomings more glaring. The Bunker has jarring load screens that kick in when transitioning to a new section. It locks the whole game up for a few seconds, and often turns off the player’s flashlight as it boots in the next area. It’s unclear why these segues are so turbulent, as the game is neither large nor a graphical showpiece. Occasional crashes are also surprising and elicit a cheap kind of fear this game doesn’t need. The Bunker is far from a glitchy mess, but these hiccups are even more obvious when everything else around them has been meticulously crafted to suck the player in.

Amnesia: The Bunker Review: The final verdict

Not even an intermittent crash or clunky load screen can minimize what Amnesia: The Bunker does so well. The intimate world, wonderfully interwoven mechanics, and semi-random nature make The Bunker a nerve-racking experience that’s a natural evolution of its landmark first entry. On a surface level, it’s still about creeping through a dimly lit hellhole and evading unspeakable horrors, but Frictional has spent the last decade advancing that formula to create the best version of it so far.

Disclaimer: This Amnesia: The Bunker review is based on a PS4 copy provided by the publisher. Reviewed on version 1.41.

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Amnesia: The Bunker is Frictional Games’ next entry in the acclaimed horror series and was initially scheduled for March 2023. It slipped a few times after that reveal, and now the team has announced yet another Amnesia: The Bunker delay. The new Amnesia: The Bunker release date is on June 6 on PlayStation 4 (no native PlayStation 5 version has been announced).

Why Amnesia: The Bunker is being delayed

Frictional put out a short statement explaining the reason behind the delay. The game hit certification issues, and the studio needs two extra weeks to rectify the problems. A free demo is dropping on May 22, but it was only announced for PC.

Creative lead Fredrik Olsson took to Twitter to go into more detail. He extrapolated on what was said in the tweet by stating that multiple rare, hard-to-replicate crashes were discovered during the certification process. He also explained that the studio could fix the problems faster by working weekends and long hours, but he quickly added that that’s not how Frictional works.

Olsson stated that the crew is “super excited” to share the game with players, as it has been “working really, really hard trying to make The Bunker the best game it can possibly be.” He even said everything was coming together nicely.

There have already been a couple Amnesia: The Bunker delays since its announcement in December 2022. It slipped from March to May 16 and then to May 23 before finding its June 6 release date. The delay to May 16 was because of a “slew of illnesses” that ripped through the company. The push to May 23 was seemingly made (in addition to wanting to add more polish) partially because of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, as the studio cited that it wanted to “strategically avoid releasing during a busy week when multiple other games are hitting the market.”

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Developer Frictional Games has confirmed that Amnesia: The Bunker will be delayed by a week on all platforms, including PS4. It was originally scheduled for a release date of May 16 and is now slated to arrive on May 23. Amnesia: The Bunker is a first-person horror game set in a desolate World War 1 bunker and will feature a “semi-open world.”

This delay will help Frictional Games polish the game

In a statement on its official Twitter account, Frictional Games says that the delay of the game will give them “a little more time to polish the game and make sure everything is perfect before launch.”

This follows a much longer delay of eight weeks that the developer announced at the start of February. At the time, it pushed the release date from the vague window of March 2023 to May 16, saying that members of the team had suffered through “a slew of illnesses” through the winter.

Amnesia: The Bunker will feature a French soldier named Henri Clément who finds himself trapped inside a bunker with only one bullet left in his revolver. Worse yet, survival supplies are low and the flashlight he holds makes a lot of noise. Yep, that sounds like an Amnesia game alright.

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Developer Frictional Games has revealed that the Amnesia: The Bunker release date will fall some time in March 2023. The next installment in the Amnesia series will release on PC and consoles. It’s not clear whether it will be available on both PS4 and PS5, but a PS5 release is expected at the very least. This will also mark the first time an Amnesia game will feature what the developer calls a “semi-open world.”

Amnesia: The Bunker teaser trailer, story, and gameplay details

As detailed on the game’s Steam page, where you can place Amnesia: The Bunker on your wishlist, it will feature a French soldier named Henri Clément who finds himself in a desolate WW1 bunker with only a single bullet left in his revolver. Survival supplies are scarce, and the dynamo flashlight he holds is unfortunately noisy. It’s unclear what threat is stalking Henri, but from the trailer, you’ll hear it squishing towards you.

The semi-open world will have Henri explore the nooks and crannies of the bunker, as he attempts to solve the mystery of what happened to the other soldiers. From the list of the game’s features, it looks like some objectives will be time-sensitive, so while it may be worth scavenging for resources and crafting tools, the clock is ticking.

We reviewed Amnesia: Rebirth back in October 2020, giving it a fair 7/10. If you’re looking for another horror game to play in the meantime, we’ve got several recommendations too.

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