Amnesia A Machine for Pigs

🎮 Steam ⏳ 5 hours ⭐⭐ (2/5)

Narrative-Driven Horror Shift #

This second Amnesia entry is a first-person psychological horror game, it game shifts away from the mechanics-heavy survival horror of its predecessor and ventures into a more narrative-driven, atmospheric experience. Set in Victorian-era London at the dawn of the 20th century, the MC is called Oswald Mandus, who awakens in his mansion with fragmented memories, haunted by feverish visions and the cries of his missing children. Drawn into the bowels of his estate and beyond, Mandus discovers a massive, nightmarish machine beneath the city, one that reflects the monstrous consequences of human ambition and industrial greed.

Atmosphere Over Mechanics #

From the moment it begins, it envelops you in a suffocating sense of dread, with moody writing, audio logs, and gradual revelations. The game abandons traditional survival mechanics, there’s no inventory, no sanity meter, and no oil or tinderboxes to worry about. Instead, it emphasizes immersion through environmental storytelling and sound design. And this is what separate the community the most, since this sequel felt more like a walking-simulator than a survival horror game, since it removed the beloved elements of the more traditional first entry to the series. The lighting and level design reinforce this atmosphere, blending gothic architecture with the grim aesthetics of factories, slaughterhouses, and catacombs to create a world that feels both human and inhuman at once.

Psychological Focused Terror #

While this change in design philosophy alienated some fans of the original Amnesia, it also gave the game a unique identity. The horror here is more psychological than mechanical, it’s rooted in Mandus’s guilt and the philosophical implications of his actions rather than constant jump scares or direct threats. The story builds slowly, and while enemy encounters are sparse, their rarity amplifies the tension when they finally occur. Despite its strengths, the game’s simplification of gameplay systems was divisive. The puzzles are simple, the exploration limited, and the sense of danger less constant than in The Dark Descent.

Bold but Flawed Experiment #

In the end, this game stands as a bold, if controversial, reinterpretation of what horror can be. It replaces the frantic terror of its predecessor with slow-burning dread and philosophical unease. Though it may not deliver the same level of mechanical depth or intensity, it offers something more cerebral, a tragic, gothic meditation on invention, morality, and the human cost of progress. As much as I’m a big fan of Amnesia, and survival horror in general, I simply cannot recommend this title, it is no a very good experience and not worth the time, even though it is quite a short game.