After 13 years, Amnesia: The Dark Descent got Steam Workshop support out of nowhere
In a surprise move, Frictional Games has introduced Steam Workshop support for its foundational horror game, Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The change came four days before the launch of the latest game in the series, The Bunker, and brings The Dark Descent more in line with later games from Frictional like Soma and Amnesia: Rebirth.
"We are well aware (and in awe) of the countless mods and custom stories made throughout the years," Frictional wrote in its announcement. "And now we've finally ensured you can publish and install them smoothly via Steam."
Frictional has historically been friendly to modding already, making level building tools for its in-house HPL engine freely available and including a "custom story" option right in the main menu of compatible games, making accessing user-made campaigns a cinch. Previously, mods for The Dark Descent could primarily be found on ModDB and NexusMods.
The Steam Workshop compatibility offers more convenience for players who want to access custom campaigns for Amnesia, as well as greater discoverability for mod makers—it's a nice show of support from Frictional to the community. I'm particularly intrigued by this HPL engine Dark Souls 3 homage, "Profaned Capital," that was first released in 2020 and now seems to be attracting renewed attention on Steam.
The latest entry in the Amnesia series, The Bunker, launches in just a few days, and it's shaping up to be something special. PCG staff writer Morgan Park praised The Bunker's open-ended gameplay in an earlier preview, finding it to be "inching toward the player agency and emergent gameplay of a full-blown immersive sim."