Amnesia: The Bunker has been released, and by way of celebration, GOG (previously known as Good Old Games) is giving away the second entry in the Amnesia series, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, for free. This offer only lasts up to June 9 though, so make sure to snap it up into your GOG if you’re at all interested in horror games.
While often overshadowed by its better known sibling, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is one of the better horror games you can buy. It sits at a respectable 72 on Metacritic, but those scores tend to vary quite strongly across the range, with a large number sitting in the 90s and 80s, as well as further down into the review range.
Part of those mixed reviews lies in the differences between A Machine for Pigs and The Dark Descent. While The Dark Descent was more of a standard horror game experience, with hooting and hollering gribbly creatures waiting in the wings to snatch you up, 2013’s A Machine for Pigs changes tone into something more creepy, insidious, and spooky in tone. It’s quite the screeching handbrake turn for an Amnesia game, and may be why it left so many reviewers in the cold originally.
Not sure if you’ll like it? Well, it’s completely free, so you can just go ahead and try it out for yourself and find out. A Machine for Pigs is the only Amnesia game that wasn’t created by Frictional Games, and the change in atmosphere likely has a lot to do with who did create it: The Chinese Room, also known as the people behind the quintessential walking simulator, Dear Esther.
Horror series Amnesia has become a gold standard where terrifying games are concerned, with the original Amnesia: The Dark Descent becoming a massive hit, helped largely by the impact it had on a number of fledgling YouTubers. A lot of huge YouTube stars have Amnesia to thank for their later following, and highlight reels of the scares and jumps racked in the views by the millions in the early years of YouTube fame. A Machine for Pigs may not be that exact experience, but it’s still worth playing, especially when it’s on offer for absolutely nothing.