Wrap Up: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs tells a great horror story within a fairly simple gameĪmnesia: A Machine for Pigs doesn't provide the pure scares of its predecessor. The plot is less immediately frightening than The Dark Descent, but I'll be digesting it a lot longer. But I found myself more creeped out at the suggestion of an insanity beyond a single character or location. It risks some of its scares by suffusing wider issues throughout. Mandus' plight is engaging and disturbing in its own right, but A Machine for Pigs also questions how far one should be willing to go in order to right perceived wrongs with the world, and whether the world is rightable at all. Set on New Year's Eve of 1899, the scalding steam, massive steel factories and rusty pipework that make up Amnesia's levels point to the dehumanization of the industrial revolution and the impending dawn of the 20th century. Letters, journal entries, sound recordings, flashbacks and parts of the environment form a tragic story of insanity and attempted redemption. Moving past the Poe and Lovecraftian inspiration of the first Amnesia, A Machine for Pigs has a reason to exist beyond spooking players. I found it difficult to play for longer than an hour at a stretch, not because of anything specifically terrifying happening but because everything in the game was so suggestive of terror.Ī Machine for Pigs forms a tragic story of insanity and redemption From the shuddering beams of Mandus' home to the foggy side streets of London, each heavily detailed area has a weight that left my spirit crushed and my nerves frayed. But the fear comes almost wholly from its shocking story and foreboding atmosphere.
I only died once in my whole playthrough, a shocking change of pace compared to my clumsy struggles through the first Amnesia.ĭespite the lack of traditional sources of tension, A Machine for Pigs is still a horror game. The deformed monsters hobble after Mandus slowly, providing plenty of time to escape, and he can take a good number of hits and recovers his health quickly. But these enemies are rare and almost never appear more than one at a time. As in The Dark Descent, enemies are an unstoppable force your only choice is to turn off your lamp, run into the shadows and hide until they wander off. Neither is Machine for Pigs' intent challenging you to stay alive.
As he goes deeper into the house's secret passages and the strange tunnels beneath it, he finds himself avoiding horrific creatures and attempting to catch up with a saboteur wrecking the very machinery that may save the twins.
His memory blank, Mandus wanders through an empty mansion, following phantom yells from his missing twin children. In its place lies a deeper and better-told story that picks at the darkest corners of our subconscious and society as a whole.Ī Machine for Pigs begins as main character Oswald Mandus wakes from a fevered sleep. It still features puzzle-solving, exploring creepy locales and running from enemies who cannot be injured - it just has a whole lot less of those things than The Dark Descent. A Machine for Pigs simplifies Amnesia's gameplay even beyond its initial purity of purpose. The Chinese Room builds as much on its own legacy as Frictional's. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs may not be the game that you expect.Īfter the surprise success of 2010's Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Swedish developer Frictional Games did something unexpected: It put a follow-up into the hands of The Chinese Room, a small team mostly known for Dear Esther, an hour-long experimental game with very little actual interaction.
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