Amnesia Sequel A Machine For Pigs Announced, First Details Available

Frictional Games’ Amnesia series debuted on the PC in 2010 in fantastic fashion with The Dark Descent, which was widely acclaimed as one of the most intense horror experiences available in gaming thanks to its focus on telling a compelling narrative married to completely combat-free first person adventure experience. This came with a harrowing environment and mythology that all combined to draw players in and keep them playing in spite of the knowledge that the next corner could hide a monster from which you would have to escape. In this respect it was almost singular, disempowering the player. It was followed up by an add-on Justine, which told a story completely separate from the original, while retaining the same tone, mechanics, narrative style and concepts. It too was well-received, but now a full sequel has been announced.

Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs will take place in 1899, sixty years after The Dark Descent and will feature entirely new story elements and characters, but will be set in the same alternate history and universe. However, lead development duties will not take place at Frictional Games. Instead, the game is being outsourced to thechineseroom, the team behind the sprucing up of Dear Esther which we are currently offering playthrough videos of. It’s a teaming that could provide a truly wonderful experience when the game releases at a currently unannounced point later this year.

As for the game itself, it will follow an industrialist, Oswald Mandus, who, following a “disastrous” trip to Mexico has returned home and succumbed to a fever for months during which he has been disturbed by dreams of a “dark machine”. Upon his awakening, the engine of a mysterious machine begins to roar. It doesn’t tell us much, or give us a whole lot of clues about the story, but it is interesting nonetheless. The only clues regarding the name come from an interview with Frictional Designer Thomas Grip and thechineseroom’s writer Dan Pinchbeck, in an interview with Joystiq:

“This world is a machine fit only for pigs. Fit for the slaughtering of pigs.”

The interview also mentions that it will make sense in terms of the narrative, and that the game, and everything about it, is designed around the core concept of “getting people out of their comfort zone”. I’m really liking the sound of it, but players of the original Amnesia shouldn’t assume that it’ll be a rehashing. Instead, the developers are toying about with the ideas, adding and altering as necessary to make it feel fresh, but the first-person perspective horror experience remains intact:

“We tried looking at protecting the sense of it being an Amnesia game and really belonging to the design template that was set up [by the original]. But it’s doing quite a few things that mean players won’t be able to play it like Amnesia [The Dark Descent]“.

Like its predecessor, it’ll be available exclusively for the PC platform and we’ll be sure to keep you updated as more information and details leak out about this project.