A Look at the Amnesia Franchise as a Part of the Internet History

In the late 2010, the first videos of screaming youtubers began to emerge from seemingly out of nowhere. Horrified faces blabbered incoherent curses as ominous instrumentals accompanied dark cellar walls on their way to bring terror to a wider audience. These wall would later come to house one of the most infamous and terrifying monsters to ever come out of any videogame ever and leave a lasting impression on the audience and industry alike.

Today, we will be looking at the story behind the infamous videogame Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a game that shaped Youtube for years and that turned the tables of its content for even longer.

Studio Conception and Penumbra Projects

Back in January 2007, a freelance artist Thomas Grip and a musician Jens Nilsson decided to band together and found a game studio, naming it Frictional Games. Despite having zero experience in the videogame industry and having only few small software projects behind them, they set off to create their own game engine and subsequently use it to develop their very own videogame.

The engine eventually bore the name HPL Engine in honour of the famous horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft. They stayed true to the genre even with their next creation and so, only three months after founding the studio, a first demo designed to test the engine's capabilities saw the light of the day. Titled Penumbra, it was so well received that only two months later its expanded version titled Penumbra:Overture was introduced as the studio's first proper input into the industry.

Promised to be but a first part of a trilogy, Penumbra: Overture was met with positive reactions from its audience. However, critics cited its clunky combat and weak exposure through lengthy diary notes scattered throughout the game as detrimental factors to the game's quality. Despite this, it has received mostly positive reviews, with 6/10 being the lowest score, as given by videogamer.com  and GamesTM.

Immersive controls paired wit the dark atmopshere of an abandoned mine made for a truly scary experience that most players who sought out such things appreciated. The combat also helped in creating the overall image of terror, as the monster encounters could be trivialized by soaking the enemies in tons of bullets. Despite this, with Penumbra: Overture, both the studio and the franchise steeped out in the right direction. 

source: mobygames.com

New Inspirations and Engine

Taking further inspiration from the Silent Hill series, Frictional Games eventually developed a sequel, which was also published by Paradox Interactive and was titled Penumbra: Black Plague. This time, the studio put more focus on the combat, attempting to fix everything that was wrong with the first game by removing the combat altogether. The attempts have been met with success and the removal was met with a positive response from critics and players alike.

To finish the promised trilogy, Penumbra:Requiem was released as a downloadable content for the second game a year after its initial release. This was the last piece of content for the Penumbra universe and was meant to close off the story and complete the world of the two previous installments. During its development the studio also began to work on a completely new project, that would later become their most successful one ever.

This project took inspiration from the previous games as well as the Resident Evil series and was later cited to have "aimed for what penumbra set out to be." Despite the working titles Unknown and Lux Tenebras, the game's name was announced as Amnesia on November 13th 2009. Frictional Games even developed a new engine, titles HPL Engine 2 for this and their future projects.

Not even a year later, on September 8th 2010, the game was published under the name Amnesia: The Dark Descent for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.

Initial Reception and the Rise of Youtube 

Fans of the Penumbra were already prepared for the next big thing and thus, amnesia exploded almost immediately upon its release. By the time the next year came, Amnesia had already sold nearly 200 000 copies, which was a huge achievement for an independent studio at the dawn of the indie gaming craze. However, it was not only previous positive experience that has drawn crowds to scare themselves over and over. A certain phenomenon was also at its beginning and Amnesia just happened to be at the right place at the right time.

Back when the internet culture was still in its diapers, huge groups began to form around certain Youtube channels, such as TomSka, Smosh or JennaMarbles. Most of these channels would eventually become an important part of the internet culture in terms of their presence or relatability. For example, TomSka's ASDFMovie has been quoted repeatedly on the internet forums by people who appreciated random humor that was so popular at the time.

However, it was not entirely original content that has spawned the most prominent and ubiquitous Youtube channels. This place has been taken by the "let's play" community, i.e. people, who filmed themselves while commentating a walkthrough of a videogame. But surely, you have spent your fair share of time on the internet and you are more than familiar with this concept. Eight years ago, however, the gaming community on Youtube was a small underground affair and the concept of reaching six-digit subscription numbers on a "let's play" channel was nearly unthinkable.

Back then most of the gaming content was watched and shared through sites like Newgrounds, which would also allow for hosting various independent Flash games. Big part of this community, including content creators, would eventually migrate to Youtube, since the videogame community thereslowly became more and more prominent and it was much easier to share content there due to its social-media-like interface and large userbase. This was also due to the rise of letsplayers, most of which have started their channels by either playing Minecraft or various horror games.

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4_3TBCUZXo

Place in Youtube History

As far as horror games in popular culture went, it was mostly about the aforementioned Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Unfortunately for the videomakers, these games could not provide enough entertainment value to the viewers, save for the occasional walk-through or video of a difficult puzzle. To make for and entertaining video, one would need to play something more immersive and personal, such as the Penumbra series, which has gained its small cult following by this time.

Since this survival-horror community was already bent on their favourite genre, fresh games were more than welcome. And who would be more fit to provide the biggest hit of the genre other than a studio that has made three successful entries to it already. Amnesia: The Dark Descent was heavily anticipated among the fans of the Penumbra series and so, videos of the latest game began to emerge as soon as the game hit the shelves of virtual stores. Among the first-day videos we can find ones like SanCo654's playthrough, which was without commentary at the time.

It took only a month or two until the first commentary appeared on Youtube, most notably the ones made by the youtuber Pewdiepie. From these humble beginnings, Felix Kjellberg, the man behind the channel, has eventually come to be the most subscribed channel on Youtube and has been the most subscribed non-corporate channel for almost five years straight. In a video titled "Let's Talk About Money", Kjellberg has given his commentary on the situation in the early 2010's:

“I knew people were big at other types of videos, but there was no one big in gaming, and I didn’t know you could make money out of it. It was never like a career that I could just quit college to pursue. it was just something I loved to do. And here we are five years later and it’s exploded.” - Felix Kjellberg

Quality and Impact 

The first thing long-time fans could notice was the return of the immersive controls from the Penumbra franchise. Doors and drawers still opened on the command of your mouse movements rather than through simple clicks. This made the games feel much more alive and created additional tension when the player in a hurry had to figure out whether they should push or pull open a door to escape some of the many threats the game would throw at them.

Huge plus also was, that despite the inspiration by the original Resident Evil games, the camera in Amnesia was fully under the player's control. This has tremendously increased the tension throughout the playthrough, as any mistake or unexpected scare was fully up to player to be responsible for. Side leaning was also introduced as  mechanic, meaning players could peak around the corners or opened doors. The presence of this mechanic alone was enough to scare many, as they came to a realization, that they would have to eventually use it. The game didn't need the claustrophobic atmosphere from its inspiration, since the dark setting and oppressive atmosphere served the same purpose but much better.

But containers were not the only thing that has made a welcome return form the previous games. Frictional games has decided to reiterate on the combat from the later installments and Penumbra: The Black Plague has contributed with its own system. At this point, Amnesia was a combination of everything the previous games did right wrapped in a fresh coat of horrifying visuals and running on a brand new engine.

In the part of the industry dominated by point-n-click, puzzle and slasher games, a well-executed survival horror like Amnesia was received with a warm welcome by the critics and players alike. The ratings fluctuated between 8/10 all the way to 9,5/10 by some reviewers and it was well-deserved. It has successfully managed to subvert all expectations most people had of the independent gaming industry. No longer was it all about pretty colours and projects that dared to be different. Amnesia dared to scare its players like no game before and still holds up to this standard even today.

It was not long after that the genre had become a desirable base for most amateur and independent gaming projects, whether it was game-making or game-playing. Truly, for the following two years, the internet was flooded with survival horror let's plays and various projects that strived to bring to the table what Amnesia did. Few of those have become big, most notably Slender: The Eight Pages by Mark J. Hadley, which has inspired a craze on its own, but about that maybe later.

Big part of the community was also made up of modders and people, who wanted to create their own custom stories. As the engine easily allowed to do so, the Steam workshop was filled with customised adventures ranging from silly to blood-curdingly scary. It is safe to say that people have spent more time playing the custom stories than the original game.

Justine and Machine for Pigs

Despite the original game nearing perfection and no one being able to ask for more, on April 12th 2011 Frictional Games has released an additional content for the game titled Amnesia: Justine. The expansion follows a story of Justine Florbelle as she has to free herself from a system of intricate traps set by her past self before drinking an amnesia-inducing potion.

The campaign is rather short, but includes an easter egg alluding to a then upcoming game Portal 2 by Valve Corporation. Collecting all achievements for the story unlocks a hidden message from a  certain Aperture Science Corporation. People have also pointed out the parallels between the game and this DLC, mostly citing both of the stories following a female protagonist lead by a disembodied female voice through a series of trials. Added to this, Amnesia: Justine also included two collectible potatoes, a theme we can also see in Portal 2.

The reception, sadly, has been near non-existent, since the hype of the original game was still very much alive and has easily overshadowed a small release of a DLC that did not really add to the original story people have loved so much. Even today people are having trouble finding it, since one has  to go through a Steam settings page in order to access it and even there, the button is somewhat hard to find. Whether it was intended to keep the additional content hidden and obscure is a mystery. However, what is not a mystery is the next and final installment to the franchise. That's right, just like Penumbra, Amnesia can also boast three entries into the market to bear its name.

On September 10th 2013, Frictional Games has published a game developed by developer Chinese Room titled Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. The game was meant to freshen up the gameplay and spark new interest in the franchise from the veterans and novices alike. It boasted new and better graphics, original themes and many new levels to explore. Despite it being a spiritual successor to The Dark Descent, many of the mechanics from the original game did not make it to the Machine, such as tinderboxes and sanity. This is what eventually lead to the game falling into obscurity, as fans complained of watered-down gameplay and overdone music scores that served as the main medium to deliver scares.

Critics, on the other hand have been fond of the game, with some even awarding it scores above 8/10, while still criticizing the developers for starving the horror-hungry audience of many interesting mechanics. 

The story revolves around a man named Oswald Mandus, who is a wealthy butcher and supposedly an ancestor of Daniel, the protagonist from the original Amnesia. Upon learning that his two sons are trapped in a mysterious machine below his house, an unknown voice commands him to do multiple task in order to save them. All of this is happening while strange monsters named "Manpigs" try to halt his progress.

Overall, the game was seen as overdone with its themes and lacking the oppressive atmosphere that made the original so iconic. Furthermore, some of the visuals seem downright silly, with electrically-charged man-pig hybrids chasing you through a cogwork facility and thus lowering the scare factor by large margins. This could be because it was developed by a different studio, which sadly underdelivered on their take of making the next great survival-horror game. 

source: game-smack.net

Amnesia Today

Despite the long time that has passed between the initial release and today, Amnesia: The Dark Descent has managed to mantain its horrifying atmosphere and status as one of the scariest games up to date. Whether it's people who have just found out about this gem or die-hard fans who have been playing for years, it would feel almost as a lie if any of them said that the game does not still terrify them.

Luckily, it still receives attention not only from its playerbase, but from the developers too. On September 28th 2018, more than eight years after the initial release, the game has received an update which has added a feature of "Hard Mode" to the original story. In this mode, the ammount of tinderboxes scattered throughout levels has been reduced from the original 151 to mere 20. Saving the game manually while in hard mode also costs four of these rare items.

However, the biggest draw for veterans seeking a true challenge is the change to the sanity mechanic and monster AI. Upon reaching the lowest level of sanity in hard mode, the main character instantly dies and respawns at the last checkpoint. The darkness has also been changed to drain your sanity even faster and the monsters can now spot you in dark places more easily.

It doesn't matter whether you have never heard of this game until now, or if you are a seasoned veteran who knows every nook and cranny, Amnesia: The Dark Descent has aged well enough to be just as entertaining as it was years ago. If you disagree, you can still download tons of additional content from the Steam workshop or try the hard mode and I can guarantee that you will see that the game's quality still holds up.

However, if you are sill hungry for some fresh survival-horror experience and are not afraid of a bit of philosophical content, Frictional Games have eventually developed a third game engine, dubbed HPL Engine 3 and developed the game Soma, which tries to bring back some of the feel of the original Amnesia game but in a new an unexplored setting.