Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is Frictional Games’ first-person survival horror. Daniel wakes in Brennenburg Castle with no memory and a note in his own hand telling him to kill the baron, Alexander. This walkthrough covers the whole game, level by level, with every tinderbox and oil refill worth the detour, all three endings, and the author’s hard-won advice on staying alive and sane.

Useful advice

Light is life. You carry an oil lantern and tinderboxes, both limited, so save them and search every room for more. There is a health meter, restored with laudanum; do not waste it. Keep away from the red growth on the walls, it bites, and do not jump from heights. Never try to befriend the monsters: at the growl and the “exciting music” hide in the darkest corner. Too long without light and Daniel loses his mind, faints and stops behaving; staring at monsters does the same and gives you away. The sanity gauge is bottom left of the inventory. Lost? The Journal’s Mementos list your tasks. Nothing here is accidental: a door that opens by itself, rose petals, a fallen book, a broken window, all point the way. Read every document.

Controls

Keyboard to move, mouse to act: take, carry, open, throw, push. Defaults: Tab inventory, J journal, M mementos, N last entry, X show cursor, right button throw, left button use, hold R and move the mouse to rotate, scroll to zoom, F lantern, WASD, left Shift run, left Ctrl crouch, Space jump.

Prologue

The first task is to follow the trail of drops to its source. Start with the room behind you on the left: a tinderbox on the table. Follow the drops to the hall; Daniel’s first panic attack shows how the controls change. The big door is locked; take the entrance on the left. Two cupboards in the corridor hold tinderboxes; the room on the right, one on the table. The next door leads to stairs; up, follow the pink drops to a large hall. A door opens on the right: your first lesson in tinderboxes. When the light goes, find the candelabra; the tinderbox icon appears at a candle. Light the candles. Back in the hall, into the dark room nearest the entrance: run to the far end, grab the tinderbox, back to the light. Across the hall, down the stairs, through the door.

Old Archives

Follow the drops to a door that opens by itself; the light dies and Daniel panics. Light the wall torch, but not too many, fuel is scarce. Into the room the draught invited you to, down the stairs, two tinderboxes in the cupboard opposite. Back and on, into the room on the left: the lantern on the floor by the table. The dark corridor on the right is where the trail leads. In the next room, scatter the crates under the left window for a tinderbox, another in the cupboard. Through the door at the end: oil and a note on the table; the lever on the wall left of the table opens a secret entrance.

Entrance Hall

Up the stairs; at the rose petals, another hallucination; down to the door to the Refinery. A sticky growth blocks it: find something to dissolve it. Back up, through the opening opposite the stairs: oil and a tinderbox in the chest, a tinderbox on the second cupboard’s shelf, oil behind the third. The far door is locked. From the hall, the opening on the left, downstairs, two doors: the Wine Cellar on the left is locked; right.

Laboratory

Down the stairs: oil on the floor right of the lit torch, oil on top of the cupboard on the left. Down again: a tinderbox on the floor right, one in the chest, a note on the table on the right, oil in the cupboard opposite, a tinderbox one cupboard further. Left of the entrance, a table with a note and a jar; a tinderbox in its drawer, an artefact in the cabinet; a tinderbox in the stove opposite. The notes explain solvents and chemical storage: you need the chemicals.

Entrance Hall to the Archives

Up the stairs and right: a tinderbox in the rubble-filled opening on the left. To the end, the Archives doors; the stairs beside them hold a tinderbox on the steps.

Archives

Easy to get lost; go room by room. Right: only a note. Opposite: a note in the cupboard, a tinderbox in the desk’s top drawer, out through the door right of the desk, opposite again: a note on the desk, a tinderbox in the second drawer, out right of the desk. Old Books opposite: oil and a tinderbox in the chest, one in the stove; back out the way you came. Right to Local History, locked; right into a great hall, once for balls. Left to the end, right, oil on the table; left into Floor Plans, a tinderbox on the first shelf and a memory; opposite, Maps: a collapse somewhere; a tinderbox in the drawer, and the note knocks Daniel out.

Flashback

Walk to the light and touch the orb.

Back in the Archives, the exit is buried. A small gap in the wall will not clear by hand: throw a stone, a chair, a helmet. Through, listen to Alexander. Light behind the cupboard on the right: a secret door. At the corridor’s end a note under glass; break it with something thrown. The door is locked; oil on the shelf. Alexander’s words: three books differ from the rest, one in the first row of shelves, two in the next; pull them quickly, each while the mechanism sound still plays. The study opens: a note in the top drawer, the Wine Cellar key on the desk. The locked door is now open. Leave and use the key on the cellar.

Wine Cellar

Dark; mind your light. Down; five doors, anticlockwise. Right, the far door: tinderbox in the chest, note and aqua regia on the table. Next door: a big oil barrel in the corner, tinderboxes on shelf and table, calamine on the floor; taking chemicals seems to trip traps, and a barrel knocks you out; the door is buried; trying to clear it brings instructions. Next door, opposite the stairs: cuprite on the table. The next is locked; the last: left, far end, bottom shelf, laudanum; a monster, hide behind the cupboard; when it goes, the fallen stones point at crates that reach the top shelf for a tinderbox; another in the cupboard opposite. The next door, formerly locked, is open, the monster’s doing: a tinderbox at the far end and the last chemical, orpiment. To the laboratory.

Use the jars on the flasks in any order, the empty jar under the tap, open every valve clockwise, take the acid. Another collapse: the stairs are down; use the nailed boards opposite on the support where the bridge railing breaks, climb. To the Refinery.

Refinery

Acid on the growth. Very dark. Nothing in the first room; a monster prowls. Right to the room at the end: tinderbox on the right cupboard shelf, a diary page on the table. Next door, tinderbox in the left cupboard, next door: with the light off, a thin line of light behind the crates, remember it. Tinderbox on the floor left. Straight ahead, another diary page and laudanum in the cupboard; next door oil and a tinderbox, another behind the barrels right. Back to the crated passage, clear it: a big oil barrel, tinderboxes on the shelf and two in the chest. A floor hatch will not open by hand; its rope runs to a jammed winch: pull the peg out of the mechanism and open the hatch.

Cellar Archives

Flooded, and something lives in the water. Cross the crates to the room on the right, to the lever; throw the books lying there into the water to distract it, pull the lever, and run, do not jump, to the sound of the rising door before it drops. The next room’s beast gets body parts; wait until it reaches the limb, then run for the doors; oil on the crates on the way. Open the door with the valve while distracting it. Next room, a needle on the shelf; the doors are locked; use the needle.

Archive Tunnels

Nothing to find. Run, do not close doors, do not look back.

Back Hall

Up into a huge hall. The door on the left blows open: the lift, broken. The Machine Room on the right is locked. Across the fountain hall.

Storage

Down: a tinderbox on the centre table; the room on the left, three tinderboxes and a drill part. The middle corridor, Parts: locked and buried; tinderbox by the rubble. Equipment: many barrels; two big ones in the corners matter. Left door: drill part on the left shelf, two tinderboxes in the cupboard. Opposite the entrance: two tinderboxes and a drill part. Next: two tinderboxes left, one right, and a chest with laudanum, oil and a tinderbox. Last: a note on explosives on the table, a tinderbox under it. Assemble the hand drill. Drill the barrel marked primary fluid and catch it in the jar, the same at secondary fluid: Agrippa’s explosive. Jar on the rubble, then set it off with a thrown stone from up the stairs, or from closer and run, and probably get hurt. Through: a tinderbox in the cupboard, Parts on the left, the Food Store ahead: tinderbox and oil on the left, one on the middle stand, one in the right cupboard; first door right, oil in the left corner barrels and a tinderbox on the shelf; next door, a monster and three tinderboxes, two in the cupboard, one behind a crate. On to the room with the strange torch; right, two rods and a note; monster, hide behind the crate and find a tinderbox. Run to the fountain hall. The note says the last lift rod is in the study: upstairs, the far door.

Study

Right: tinderbox on the shelf and in the chest; a note in the left room; a gust cracks a window, useful; oil; the taxidermy room on the right, a note on the big table; next room, tinderbox in the desk, a fright in the cupboard, a note by the sofa. The study is buried: break the cracked window with something heavy and walk the sills; a tinderbox on the first. An artefact on the first room’s table; a note and the last rod in the second; two tinderboxes in the third’s chest. The Machine Room key is in the Guest Room.

Guest Room

A diary page on the table, laudanum in the second drawer, oil in the cupboard. Bedroom left: tinderbox on the mantel, diary page on the table, crowbar on the table, tinderbox in its cabinet. The door opposite is locked: the crowbar. Inside, a diary page; take down the painting on the left, break the jar for the key. A monster growls as you near the far cupboard: hide in it. Then to the Machine Room.

Machine Room

The fountain hall has changed horribly. Unlock the door, straight in, the room on the right: diary page, two tinderboxes in the far right corner, a lever panel; light it. The lift instructions: set the pressure with the levers, 8 up, 8 down, as drawn. Down a floor, the door on the left: two tinderboxes in the chest, a diary page, a panel with three holes and a note. Steam cycle, circle; trinity, triangle; four-phase oscillation, square. Down again, straight in, light everything: a diary page on the right table. The big machine: the furnace lever wants fuel; in the room left of the furnace, an oil barrel, a tinderbox, coal on the floor: carry coal until the furnace is full. Still nothing: the lever by the big gears says something is missing, gears on the right wall. One gear is in this room left of the entrance; one upstairs left near the stairs; the last in the rod room on a stool. Start it and run to the lift, avoiding the red growth. In, close the doors, pull.

Prison

A hard landing. Clear the rubble by the rose petals; right, left, right, a tinderbox at the end and one in the cell on the right. Back to the first fork, right then left, to cells: a hammer right, oil left, the middle locked. Back and up the stairs, straight, oil off the chair, the cell needs its lock broken: a chisel in the left cell. Combine, use on the door: a hallucination and a big oil barrel. Out, left, the first cell on the left, tinderbox and oil behind the bed; left again, the next cell, memories say the crawlspace is under the bed: move it, widen the hole with hammer and chisel, down.

Prison, northern block

Frightening and confusing; follow the wall signs. Tunnel to the fork, right to the rubble: throw the small stones far down the tunnel and drag the big boulder so you can pass, a useful refuge. Out into the corridor, right, follow Kitchen, up the stairs to the one door. Kitchen: note on the right table; two tinderboxes and laudanum in the right cupboards, oil by the fire on the left. The barrel of green liquid dissolves everything but glass; the jar died in the blast, find another. A monster outside; hide unseen. Follow Storage; at a fork, two cells with tinderboxes, oil and a diary entry. Another monster. Down the stairs to Storage: a jar and two tinderboxes. Fill it with acid in the kitchen. Route: straight, up the Storage stairs, right, left, left, right, left, to three cells: oil and tinderbox right, tinderbox and a memory left, diary page ahead. Back, left, right, left, a metal grille door marked Cisterns; tinderbox by it. Acid on the rusty lock, then hammer and chisel.

Cistern Entrance

To the rose petals: a hallucination about poisonous fungi and Alexander’s antidote. The central column has a jammed lever; oil pours from a wall pipe ahead: catch it in the jar, grease the lever, and a ladder lowers but a pipe blocks it; pull until the ladder breaks the pipe. The water tunnel is too deep, so up the ladder to the one door with a stone bridge; its levers show one bridge is broken.

Control Room

Right: valves locked; memorise the hanging weights. Opposite: tinderbox left; set the valves to match, listening for the click as each weight reaches height. The centre door opens by valve and closes at once: wedge it with crates. New hall, right: same picture, mechanism running, levers locked; oil under the stairs, tinderbox on the table, a note; memorise the levers. Opposite: a wooden handle on the table right of the stairs; set the levers down, two up, down. Centre door: holes on the left wall for pipes. Fetch the pipe from each room of the weight hall (faster with the door wedged) and the third from the running lever room; fit them as drawn. Back to the bridge hall; if the door was not wedged the valve breaks, and the wooden handle fixes it.

Cistern

Left lever lowers a bridge; the right one jams halfway: knock it down, for instance by throwing a medium stone onto the stone bridge, then from above onto the jammed one. Take the bridge that worked from the start.

Cistern 2

Water but no monsters; collect freely. To pump the water out: over the bridge, down, follow the petals up the left stairs, over the debris to a valve; turn it, read the note; the midway bridge’s chest has oil and a tinderbox. Into the water, out from the debris, right to the stairs under the steam jets: run through with Shift, pausing before each pipe, then close the steam valve. On over the bridge to the next valve; a diary page on the crate. Down into the water, straight to the first stairs on the right, the only ones to the light. The bridge is raised: throw a stone at the rusty chain. Through the ruins, over the plank, the last valve, a diary page. Now the antidote: one bridge and one door left.

Morgue

Follow the winding corridor to the cell of skeletons: copper tube and laudanum on the left shelves, tinderbox on the floor. Back towards the exit, left into a room: tinderbox and plague notes on the right shelves, a vaccine note on the table, tinderbox and laudanum in the drawers, an artefact in the cabinet. The corpse on the table holds the vaccine: combine needle and tube, drill the corpse, insert the tube, touch the needle. A monster on the way out: hide in a morgue room. Back to the cistern hall and down to the sewer.

Sewer

Crouch throughout; less noise, fewer monsters. Down, straight, left, through the broken grille on the right, straight, left before the end grille, up the stairs: slow the central wheel’s blades by ear, setting the levers for the quietest machinery. A monster waits; hide. The blades are slower but not enough: the corridor opposite, a tinderbox in a pipe, straight to a cracked thin pipe; pull until it breaks and pick it up; jam the blades. Next hall, to the grille, right, up the stairs, laudanum by the doorway on the left, a dead end. A monster breaks the grille below: hide in the far room, then down to the grille, straight and left. It blocks the way from every side: crouch round the far side, laudanum in the stones, throw a stone into the hollow on the left, then crouch in from the other side to the stairs, and run, no pausing at doors. Up the ladder.

Nave

Four doors. The ajar one: a tinderbox; another by the well. Clockwise, the next is locked; the next, a corridor and a room of dead levers; oil from the barrel and a tinderbox left, a diary page right. The last: down the stairs, a tinderbox by the rope, two more; the boarded laboratory door on the right. Left and down: Agrippa, who talks; pull the lever on his device on the right. Alexander’s own teacher; he explains how to fight him and where the orb pieces are. Oil on the left table; a hatch above it: stool on table to reach the gears. Out into the hall of cells, gather tinderboxes; up the left stairs, meat on the table; the Altar door ahead.

Chancel and Altar

Right at the fork: a note in the study, a tinderbox in the left cupboard; through the left door, down to the altar for oil. Back, straight on to the doors opposite: a diary page on the table, a bucket of tar on the shelf; a locked door beyond, a tinderbox. Left at the fork: the portal hall, for when the orb is whole. Back to the lever room in the Nave: raise both levers; the gates by Agrippa open. Left gate; right, a room with a well and a beast below, later; on to the Transept.

Transept

Cages under the ceiling, alchemical signs on the floor. Three cells hold orb pieces. Left cell, clockwise: tinderbox left, orb piece in the right cupboard; the valve on the right wall shows the rest. Second: tinderbox on the chair, orb piece behind the sacks. Third: tinderbox in the bucket by the torture picture, orb piece further on; open the grating: blood below, needs a vessel. Up the central stairs to the study: oil in the right cupboard, tinderbox on the left table, a rope on the desk, a note in the drawer, an artefact in the cabinet. Back to Agrippa, the gate opposite.

Choir

Left room: Weyer’s note on the elixir of life; tinderbox left, laudanum right, an artefact in the cabinet, a tinderbox in the second drawer. The Choir entrance: a lit corridor, two doors. Right: tinderboxes on the left table and under the board on the right. Left: a note on the torture table triggers a flashback: take the dagger from the right table and do as Alexander orders; leave by the door that creaks. The corridor now has bodies hanging; on and down.

Choir, main hall

Fog and monsters; crouch, no lantern, it is light enough. Along the right wall to the bridge, across, to the stones by the far wall for oil and a tinderbox; on, right wall, to a wall, tinderbox; right at the turn, hiding behind columns; right at the first turn, a door: a torture cell; orb piece left of the wheel. Out, left at the first turn, right in the main hall along the right side, right at the turn to a lit door with mushrooms: hammer and chisel on the biggest for the poison gland. Inside, the brazen bull: tinderbox behind the left column, orb piece right. Back to the start, this time left along the left side to the last cell: the iron maiden; laudanum in the right niche, tinderbox left; down to the right for the last orb piece.

Nave: the elixir

Agrippa needs Weyer’s elixir before the orb is assembled. At the well room by the Transept gate, tie the meat to the rope, lower it, take the bone. In the Transept’s right cell, combine jar and rope and scoop the blood. To the Altar, up the stairs, open the door: a trap, as intended.

Prison

Caged; act before the red growth spreads. Oil in the right corner. One bar is cracked: work it loose, take the steel bar. Two ways out: drag the bed on its side to the gap and climb; or lever the weak brickwork left of the door with the bar, then a thrown stone at the cracked beam, and out through the next cell. Gather oil, tinderboxes, laudanum and a wooden bucket; a prisoner’s note mentions the guard’s lost key. The exit is locked; a sewer pipe on its right holds the key. Push it out with the bar through the crack, or pour a bucket of well water down the pipe. Unlock and run; whichever way you turn collapses behind you.

Nave and the laboratory

A well in the centre; tinderbox and a note on the table left, a flashback to the farm. Out, the one door opposite, down; the laboratory is unboarded. Blood on the right burner, valve, take it after the reaction; bone in the centre device, jar under the tap, lever; gland in the left device with the jar beneath. Tinderbox on the shelf. The wall by Agrippa has fallen: a tinderbox on the way, a saw on the shelf. Give him the elixir and saw off his head, off screen; pick it up. To the Altar: wait for the lone monster to leave. Left at the fork, through the room, down; the once-locked door is open: break the mechanism’s gears with a big stone from the room above. Force field off; left at the fork to the pedestal. The first piece tells you they need glue: tar on it, then the rest.

Inner Sanctum

Down; lever on the left column, the door on the right: bleed yourself at the altar, stand on the pictogram opposite. The room opposite: a diary page, then the same. The Orb Chamber is open.

Orb Chamber

Alexander floats over the columns. Three endings. One: listen until the portal opens and throw Agrippa’s head in. Two: topple the columns, holding the left button and pressing A and D, and break the portal. Three: do nothing and let Alexander go.