Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

Not only did this game crash for me 3 times in the 30 minutes that I played, when I first launched the game, there was already a profile called "Hi", which absolutely was not me. When I clicked continue it spawned me 10 minutes into the first area. This game is cursed and I'm never installing it again.

One of the few horror games to stand the test of time, no remaster needed. If you tire of constant cheap jumpscares in video games, you'll enjoy the atmosphere of the game.

It’s funny to think back that approx. 10 years back, the younger version of me couldn’t even pass the first level in 4 hours of time in Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs before he uninstalled it and left it to “play later” categorization in his Steam Library.

Back to present, finished the whole game under the two and half hours. Well, it is product of the time; Encountered piggies are mostly just grotesque to look at and gameplay rolls around playing tag with them throughout multiple levels with little puzzle elements. Comes also with extra boosted SFX and screen shaking effects.

Final score from current self: 6/10

Final score from past self: 9/10

Simpler gameplay than the others but still really scary

The story is amazing. The gameplay is a walking sim.
It's not bad... it's just not as good as the first game.

⭐ Rating: 6.5/10 ⭐

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs takes a different approach from The Dark Descent, shifting away from complex gameplay mechanics in favor of a more narrative-driven experience. Developed by The Chinese Room, the game leans heavily on storytelling, atmosphere, and psychological horror rather than resource management and survival elements.

Pros:
✅ Strong atmosphere – The game excels in environmental storytelling, with eerie sound design and disturbing visuals that create an unsettling mood.
✅ Compelling narrative – If you enjoy deep, philosophical horror with themes of industrialization and human corruption, the story will likely intrigue you.
✅ No resource management – No sanity meter or inventory means a more streamlined experience, which some players may appreciate.

Cons:
❌ Less interactivity – Unlike The Dark Descent, there’s no real inventory system, and puzzles are minimal, making gameplay feel simplified.
❌ Short playtime – Can be completed in around 4-5 hours, making it feel more like a long interactive horror story rather than a full-fledged survival horror game.
❌ Less scary – While still disturbing, it lacks the same level of terror and tension that The Dark Descent had, due to the removal of sanity effects and fewer monster encounters.

Final Verdict:
If you go in expecting another Amnesia: The Dark Descent, you might be disappointed. However, if you’re a fan of atmospheric horror and enjoy games like Dear Esther or SOMA, you’ll likely appreciate its narrative and unsettling world. Worth playing for the story and atmosphere, but don’t expect the same level of fear and challenge as its predecessor.

💀 Recommended? Yes, but only if you enjoy story-driven horror.

Honestly this was a really enjoyable horror game, I'm not sure why it got absolutely ripped to shreds at the time other than it being a sequel to Amnesia.

A beautiful story doesn't save A Machine for Pigs from it's lackluster gameplay and regular crashes.

That said, I would be interested to see what a third party developer could do with the new systems developed by frictional since The Dark Descent's release.

Really eerie environment and story

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs Review

Summary:

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This game was definitely a step back in the horror feel that The Dark Descent brought, and was more focused on story. There were definitely still some scary moments in this game, but it was story driven for sure. The game is very very short, and felt more like a DLC then a full game. The game took me around 6 hours to 100%, so causally playing will be even shorter. That being said, I still really enjoyed this game and the environment you play in. The choices are pretty straight forward and lead you to the exact result. I thought that the story was very interesting and was very tragic. Not as scary, but still worth the play.
A firm 6/10 overall

Storyline:

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This game follows Oswald Mandus, a wealthy industrialist who awakens with a fractured memory after a mysterious illness. He finds himself in his mansion, where strange and terrifying things are unfolding. As he explores the mansion and its underground factory, he uncovers disturbing truths about his involvement in a horrific experiment. He is talked to by someone named "The Engineer" telling him that his sons are trapped below in the machine.

Mandus had been experimenting with a machine that could make huge amounts of pork to help combat the hungry. However, the machine became corrupted and also so did the people involved, turning them into things called Manpigs.


The Engineerbetrays Mandus when having him turn the machine back on, and lets Manpigs loose onto the street taking and killing victims. As Mandus unravels his past, he realizes his own role in the monstrosities, including the fact that the machine is still running, powered by human suffering. He created the machine for human sacrifice to self mankind from itself. His evil and twisted soul is merged with the machine and creates "The Engineer". Like in the first game, an orb seems to have a tie in to the story.

Mandus learn's everything of his past and decides that the machine must be stopped and destroy it for good. The Engineer tries to stop him to his best abilities, but fails, and Mandus succeeds in destroying the machine and them.

It was a very interesting story, but also quite sad in the way that it is played out. I think the story obviously carries this game and is the best part. 8/10

Combat & Gameplay:

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The gameplay mechanics are very basic but in my opinion hold up very well and do not feel clunky at all. You carry a lantern and pick up items that can be important to the story that will be used from your inventory. This is exactly like the first game, and this feels even more refined then the first. 8/10

Collectibles:

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One of the achievements in the game is to get all of the notes, so you need to make sure as you progress you are grabbing them all. That is really the only collectible achievement in this game, so not too bad. Could have maybe used a little bit more, but that is okay. 6/10

I recommend following Division's guide, as he makes it very simple to find everything:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2981456003

The Manpigs always looked a little funny walking around, made it easier to be less SCARED!!!!!! ;)

Honestly, I wanted to love this game! Anyone who knew me back when this came out knew I was so SO pumped for this game! Then it came out and just fell flat.
I'll admit, the story is GREAT! The atmosphere is GREAT! The music is PERFECT!!!
But the gameplay itself? It's pretty mid. You can only interact with things the game wants you to for story progression so no more throwing things at the monsters. You automatically heal instead of needing to find healing items and most importantly, you can take like 5 hits from the monsters, In The Dark Descent you had 2 max, so you can sprint past these monsters, take a few hits in the process and heal up afterwards. There's no real risk meaning there's no real scare.

If you're after a story, then the story here is great, just be ready to go through some boring game play to get it

To a lot of people, especially fans of original The Dark Descent, A Machine for Pigs has cemented itself as one big disappointment to the point that I'm pretty sure it's never mentioned later in Rebirth. Mainly because it seems like The Chinese Room has cut off a lot of horror elements since their first trailer for the game in favour of story and atmosphere. In the original every time a Grunt showed up on the level you risked getting caught if you weren't careful because it was an actual physical presence and therefore a threat, and it could show up anywhere. Here, however, unless you are in a specific arena-like section or a scripted chase sequence Wretches act as nothing more than a cheap scare simply to SHOW you that they are everywhere around you except they don't react to you at all. In some places around the levels there are oddly convenient hiding spots as if the Wretches were meant to be there for you to hide from but sadly they never come into play. Not to mention somewhat wasted potential of Wretch variants.

The Dark Descent's story was relatively straight-forward, coherent and somewhat grounded in possible reality. Every piece of the narrative fit together with just enough ambiguity to keep you guessing the whole way through. And in the end the whole journey can have a satisfying payoff. A Machine for Pigs cranks up that ambiguity to ridiculous levels. The general idea of events is there for you to piece together but the narrative is very on and off about the clarity of details it's trying to sell you with a bitter-sweet ending to top it all off. It's a chilling psycological horror story and it makes just enough sense to work but once you start thinking about its details it's actually pretty bizarre and over-the-top and it starts getting hard to believe.

BUT! All that aside, if you simply try to immerse yourself in this world, if you just take everything at face value this game is quite an experience. The atmosphere of the world you're thrown into is haunting, suffocating and still manages to keep you on edge. Sound design really makes you feel like a lonely insect trapped in a gigantic yet tight, cold yet living, merciless machine ready to crush you the moment you take the wrong step. Level design and overall style work at helping you believe the Victorian Industrial Revolution era you're in. The soundtrack is incredible and wraps the atmosphere of the game together wonderfully. And though the story is ridiculous, at the end of the day it works though probably not to the extend it was hoping for.

All in all, in my opinion A Machine for Pigs is very underrated and deserves a playthrough or two. Compared to the original it's one big missed opportunity and an undercooked dish but on its own it gets the job done at immersing you and keeping you on edge even after you finish it once. It's my personal favourite Amnesia and one of my favourite horror games. Thanks to its industrial setting I fell in love with steampunk and everything related to it. It's such a shame that it's also the only Amnesia game that doesn't have a Workshop support on Steam, I would absolutely love to see what certain enthusiasts would create using its assets since, like I said, the game is brimming with unused potential that in skillful hands could be turned into a worthy successor of The Dark Descent.

BORING AF

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs takes the psychological horror of the original Amnesia and introduces a new, chilling atmosphere. Set in a dark, twisted industrial world, you play as a man suffering from amnesia, slowly uncovering the horrors of his past while navigating a nightmarish labyrinth of machines and disturbing creatures. The game emphasizes atmosphere and storytelling over combat, using sound and visuals to build a constant sense of dread. While it’s a bit more narrative-driven than its predecessor, the unsettling tone and eerie environments keep you on edge throughout. If you’re a fan of slow-burn horror that digs deep into the mind and unsettling lore, A Machine for Pigs is a hauntingly memorable experience.

i honestly like this one more then dark descent. great story good game. played it 3 times just to get 100% achievements

It's not hard to see why fans of the original Amnesia disliked this one. Most of the gameplay elements were essentially just removed to streamline the storytelling and keep the game moving at a brisk pace. A Machine for Pigs can't be a considered a successor to The Dark Descent (which was a survival horror masterpiece) in any way, but rather an experimental spin-off that does its own thing in the Amnesia universe.

If you're familiar with games made by The Chinese Room, you should know what to expect - minimal gameplay that's only there to advance the story as opposed to gameplay for gameplay's sake. While they're excellent writers, their games often don't really work. Korsakovia had a brilliant and surreal atmosphere though was filled with annoyingly challenging first person platforming that hurt the pacing; Dear Esther had so little interactivity or anything of interest happening on screen that you get bored playing within 10 minutes and the whole thing would've just worked better as an audiobook.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs however is when everything just clicked. The story, atmosphere and light gameplay all came together to deliver an excellent 4 hour thriller that keeps you hooked from start to finish. It's linear to the point of being on-rails and the puzzles have been dumbed down to a mobile phone casual gamer level of difficulty, yet all this can be forgiven as the star of the show is the story, and these design choices were made with the pacing of the storytelling in mind. Nevertheless, the gameplay is still engaging and fun even though it's been heavily simplified.

If you've played the first Amnesia, go into this one with an open mind and enjoy what it has to offer. It's a very different game that's good in its own way.

I'm a huge fan of Gothic horror- and boy does this game deliver. If you've played the Dark Descent, be prepared this one is not similar. The world around you is rich, intense, and expertly orchestrated by Jessica Curry- the only drawback being the lack of interaction with objects. I like to form emotional connections to inanimate in-game entities when I'm afraid, and that is not possible here. Otherwise, it's perfect.
The story is so deep, troubling and anxiety inducing. There are very few moments of reprieve in this world, the in game lore is disturbing and twisted. I've played it about a dozen times between Steam and my consoles.

Misunderstood masterpiece. Incredible story, sound, atmosphere...sadness, dark... bad gameplay tho. as in, they took away a lot of cool mechanics from the previous game. it may not be a good game, but i find it a fine piece of horror media

The story and lore are incredible, and the monologs from this game is some of the most memorable I've ever heard.

People may not like this game from the gameplay and monsters, but the history is top tier movie shit, i loved it!

The ending alone makes this a masterpiece in my opinion.

Crashed right at the peak of the game, restart and forced to do an entire area again, crash at the end of the same level again. This crap is just not built well compared to any of the others. Felt like a walking simulator the majority of the time.

I wish i could give neither a good or bad on this one, more like a meh. A Encapsulating narrative as usual from frictional games, stuck inside a very mediocre "game". Story would have been much more effective as a book or even a movie.

Played the game, was fine, everything was pretty cool and was enjoyable.
Tried the next day to complete all achievements: New Game > Crashes > Tries again > Crashes again > Tries other solutions > Crashes again.
Ok then, uninstall. Clearly they didn't bother fixing this game.

Interesting story being told and overall premise, but sadly suffers from its dumbed-down gameplay elements and puzzles compared to The Dark Decent, lacking a lot of the intensity that made the original special.

I decided to play this game first amongst the Amnesia series, and boy I wasn't disappointed. Scary, thrilling, dark and twisted -- I absolutely loved it! Also the puzzles and figuring out what to do next wasn't too hard either, and I look forward to playing more of these games!

I did play this entire game, although my playtime didn't sync correctly. It has barely any scares and feels nothing like Amnesia The Dark Descent and Dark Descent mods. Lack of punishment for looking at the monsters makes you see what's coming, unlike the main gameplay in the original, and the monster designs weren't much iconic or scary. I couldn't get into the story. I hope the later Amnesia based games are better.

This game is incredibly short. The lack of inventory means most puzzles come down to interacting with something or slightly moving it, plus no sanity mechanic feels very wrong after coming from the first game. I have tons of performance issues, too. Crashes, frame drops, long load times, etc. If you like story, and I very much do, it has plenty of that. I wish steam had a button between yes and no. This game is very okay, and if it's on sale like it was for me, get it.

so many performance issues, so many crashes for such a short game.

Definitely worth it for the story but the gameplay is quite lackluster.

This Little Capitalist Went to Mexico

TL;DR: A variation on the previous game in the series, Pigs is less focused on monsters and jump-scares, allowing players to unearth a compelling story about greed, the curse of foreknowledge, and the shattering of a mind. Play it if you enjoyed Soma.[hr][/hr]
I have less to say here than I normally would, mostly because I recently watched RagnarRox’s excellent video essay on this entry, and I’m afraid I may unintentionally pass his thoughts off as my own.

Only loosely tied to the mythos of the original Amnesia, Frictional Games opted to let The Chinese Room take over development duties on this first sequel. Known for cult hit and progenitor of the walking sim genre, Dear Esther, their take on Amnesia features notably different moment-to-moment gameplay from its predecessor, while exploring many themes related to the original’s story. While there are still creatures to evade, there’s much less focus on deadly hide-and-seek encounters. The sanity and light management systems have been scrapped entirely, and the result is a faster game that is more focused on atmosphere and story.

The setting and general atmosphere are intertwined with industrialization and the dehumanization that comes with factory labor, and the plot focuses on this setting through the lens of cosmic horror as we learn more of the forces driving the antagonist’s machinations. Details are obliquely filled in through phone calls, notes, and phonograph recordings that encourage you to scour the slaughterhouse and attached environs. It’s not as opaque an approach to storytelling as Dark Souls, but it is certainly possible to work your way through the game without fully understanding exactly what is happening and why. Even should that happen, the game’s phenomenal environmental and sound design would still deliver a tense and upsetting experience.

This game, to this day, sports a surprisingly and undeservedly low user review score on Steam. Understandably, as a sequel to a popular scarefest Machine for Pigs is burdened with preconceived expectations. Without those, though, this is a fantastic game. Personally, the experience it felt most similar to is probably Frictional’s masterpiece Soma. That should be enough to tell you if you’ll enjoy this entry; it’s not going to have you peeking out of armoires to see if the sanity-draining otherworldly horror has left the room, but you will be consistently unsettled by the environs, story, and yes, the pigs.

This is my favourite game in the series. The story is... *amazing.* Amazing, amazing, *amazing.* It has a lighter emphasis on survival than the first game (no sanity mechanic, healing items, light management) so complicated inventory management enjoyers should be aware that this is a different animal. Where Machine for Pigs shines is in its cohesive, complex narrative, with superb writing, stellar voice acting, and an honest to god *gut punch* of an ending. The final monologue brings tears to my eyes every time. For a horror fan or a history buff, I can't possibly recommend this game enough.

It might seem it's not as good as the other Amnesia games, but then all of a sudden it hits you with the best speech in gaming.

Got stuck 30 minutes in because I couldn't see a door. Never recovered :(

my game keeps crashing when trying to load the final room. i really don't care, i am not missing very much. mid game, not fun but a little spooky.

There were like 6 pigs

game isn't too scary but is good at storytelling
very straightforward
some things are confusing, why the main character changed his mind in the first place from the start, but still enjoyable
almost like our character has some kind of amnesia

Why on earth would you remove everything good from the first game and amplify every bad part, if i'm playing a game id actually like to play the game for more then 5 seconds with no interruption

Solid short horror game, with good spooks, excellent atmosphere, and writing authentic to H.P. Lovecraft.

in gameplay terms a massive step down from the dark descent, but the writing here fucking COOKS anything that game was doing. absolutely worth playing for a fantastic story, once you get past the stripped down nature of the game itself.

My personal favorite of all the amnesia games. The story was really good and the game was not super scary.

This game being so mediocre 95% of it, and then suddenly throwing peak fiction at you in the last 5 minutes, is something that will never truly cease to impress me.

HEAVY SPOILERS BELOW!!!!!!

"Your sons will drown, lungs full of mud and sharpnel, on the banks of the Somme. You wanted to save them from the horror to come."

"I have stood knee deep in mud and bone and filled my lungs with mustard gas. I have seen two brothers fall. I have lain with holy wars and copulated with the autumnal fallout. I have dug trenches for the refugees; I have murdered dissidents where the ground never thaws and starved the masses into faith. A child's shadow burnt into the brickwork. A house of skulls in the jungle. The innocent, the innocent, Mandus, trod and bled and gassed and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved. This is your coming century!"

"I lay there, and watched the god I had created die. At the end when we were cold as the stone we had hewn his body from. When the lights were nearly all extinguished, we heard in the silent distance, the Manpigs singing to one another. Then, as the last lights were gone, and we lay together in the deep, they drifted away, and all was silent. Such a silence, I have never known. And as the dust settled on my open eyes and we lay together embraced forever, I heard miles above us, the sounds of the city turning over in its sleep. A church bell ringing out. And in that moment, the new century was born."

Absolute cinema and peak writing.

Nothing like waking up from a fat nap to find your entire family missing and a strange man yelling at you to fix a machine you forgot you made... More linear that the other Amnesia installments, but an interesting story like the others. Not my favorite of the series, but if you're looking for a spook that's primarily atmospheric/story rich this is a great pick.

It's a great experience, maybe just not such a great game.

The story, voice acting, ambience, and music are all fantastic, and the Bataille-esque ideas and concepts that the narrative explores are fascinatingly grim.

The gameplay is stripped down and basic. It's more of a horror-themed walking sim than an actual horror game. It's not scary; it's linear, simple, and borderline unengaging to play, but as a method of delivering story, it works just fine.

It deserves more praise than it gets. I can understand disappointment if you look at this game as a sequel to Dark Descent, but as it's own entity, it scores well above what most people give it imo.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a slow moving, kind of scary, heavy on the graphics game that could use better lighting. I set the gamma down to 0.9, but there is still a kind of washed out fog over it all that probably looks better on a different video card. The graphics are good, but dark so it is hard to really take it all in which is just as well as the illusion of greatness is a shadow itself.
These Amnesia games remind me of our scientific roots in alchemy and insanity. They are some of the most twisted themes I have ever encountered. The story alone is a good enough reason to play this snail paced thriller.
There is a slight and infrequent screen stutter that using alt-tab to switch to some other app and then back again fixes. It seems to happen after every time the monster shows up or an animation is played. It is infrequent, but tedious.

I'm rather fond of the first game. but this one is a let down.

It's too short (it took me about 3 hours on a second playthrough, while collecting all notes), and I say that as someone who generally prefers games on the shorter side. The gameplay loop is way too barren; you weren't really doing a whole lot in the first one to be honest, but this one has less puzzles, less monster encounters, and less going on in general with its lack of inventory system and sanity mechanic. The puzzles usually boil down to interacting with an object or bringing something a few steps over. The monster encounters are nothing compared for the first one. There are very few where you're actually in danger and when you are, enemies are easily evaded and it requires several hits for you to die from them, so even if they find you it is pretty easy to run away from them. I didn't die once in my Steam playthrough and I'm pretty sure I did't die in my first playthrough on console a few years ago either. The game is also just way less frightening than the first one.

It still has good atmosphere though, and the soundtrack isn't bad. If you really loved the first one, you may want to play this one just for the experience (if you get it on sale or in a bundle) since its so quick and easy. But I would't recommend it in general.

Thank you, RagnarRox, for your Amnesia video inspiring me to re-play this. Truly over-hated and under-rated. A fine game that does things differently than the first Amnesia, somewhat to its detriment. But dropping from a 10/10 to an 8/10 still isn't garbage. And with a story that doesn't quite hit the masterpiece level of SOMA, but still is a solid experience, I can recommend horror fans to give this another honest try.

love the amnesia series. great game for what it is, id say easier than the first one, due to the lamp (amnesia darkness is driving me crazy). cool puzzles and i like pigs:)

While I'd like more, grander atmospheric environments to explore, and while the climactic action sequences fell rather flat (at least when Amnesia: Rebirth does this, it's comparable to the likes of Outlast), I did find that the dramatic story was actually very enjoyable this time around! That I am partial to the style of the prose is no doubt a factor.

The gameplay is, rather infamously, neutered from Frictional's other works, but I enjoy walking simulators quite well, so no points lost from me!

Overall, despite the visual presentation, poor both in graphical fidelity (for the time) and in performance (even on a modern machine!), this is a solid recommendation!

I think it was okay. The game doesn't spell out every detail about the story, but if you pay attention to your surroundings and care to read notes, you might enjoy it. Otherwise, it might not be worth your time as it is a walking sim with some interactions. Kinda like a visual short story. The real monsters aren't the pigs

It seems like a lot of this game's negative reviews are a result of people's expectations for the Amnesia series. If you really want a horror game with deep gameplay, go play Amnesia: The Bunker. If you're less demanding about what you want the game to be, A Machine For Pigs gets a strong recommendation from me. It accomplishes everything it sets out to do and it does it spectacularly.

Its highlights are the story, the music and the voice acting, paired with solid and evocative environment design. This game has unquestionably the best story in the series and one of the best horror game narratives of all time. If you value narrative in games, this one is a must-play in my opinion. If you don't, then it probably won't be for you.

Fans of The Chinese Room's other games (namely Dear Esther) will not be disappointed, as long as you have the stomach for a little bit of horror.