Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs

Box Art

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a survival horror game developed by The Chinese Room and published by Frictional Games. The game has the player take control of Oswald Mandus, a wealthy industrialist and butcher as he brings a machine to life that is being protected by deformed swine-like monstrosities. Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs released on September 10th, 2013 to mixed to average reviews, with reviewers praising the story and atmosphere while critics criticized the infrequent enemy encounters, overuse of sound design to scare players, and minimal and linear gameplay.

## Plot

The game features several interlocking storylines. Some take place in the past, some in the present, and some are overtly real while some may be imagined. Set in London on New Year's Eve, 1899, the game's protagonist is Oswald Mandus, a wealthy industrialist and butcher who is implied to be the great grand-nephew of Daniel, the protagonist of *Amnesia: The Dark Descent*. At the beginning of the game, he awakens from a fever that has lasted for several months, after returning from a disastrous expedition to explore Aztec ruins in Mexico. He hears the voices of his sons, Edwin and Enoch, calling for him as they lead him through the different areas.

Mandus receives a call from "the Engineer", who tells Mandus that Edwin and Enoch have been trapped far below them, in the "Machine" which Mandus created beneath his house. The Machine has been sabotaged, putting his sons in danger. The Engineer tasks Mandus with clearing the floodwaters and bringing the Machine back online, providing ongoing guidance through telephones throughout the facility. Mandus is opposed in his tasks by the Manpigs, deformed swine-like monstrosities that patrol the depths through which he descends.

After a series of puzzle-like tasks, Mandus eventually reactivates the Machine, but the Engineer betrays him, taking control of the Machine and unleashing Manpigs out into the streets of London to round up unsuspecting victims with which to feed itself. Mandus regains his memory, recalling the recent past: after returning from Mexico, Mandus was consumed with obsession over a vision of the future presented by a device discovered in an Aztec temple by him and his children, known as the "egg,” hinted to be an Orb. In this vision, Mandus witnesses the death of both of his sons at the Battle of the Somme. Driven mad by the vision, Mandus decided that he could not allow it to come to pass, and he built the Machine to create a godlike being via mass ritual human sacrifice to save humanity from its own carnage. He sacrificed Edwin and Enoch to the machine to spare them their fate at the Somme. From there, Mandus began a one-man vendetta against mankind, holding massive parties where he would capture and grind up rich socialites into sausage to sell, and killing hordes of child workers to feed the captive Manpigs. Mandus, however, soon came to realize the error of his ways and in a bid to stop the Machine, he attempted to sabotage it, before he was hindered by the onset of amnesia and sickness.

Now remembering everything, Mandus vows to finish what he started by destroying the Machine once and for all. Despite the pleas of the Engineer, who believes the world would be better off if the Machine is allowed to consume it, Mandus succeeds in recreating most of the sabotage. He reaches the inner chamber, where the Engineer himself dwells - a deranged fragment of Mandus's soul which has bonded with the machine and was given life by the sacrifices; it plans to wipe the world clean of life after witnessing even more future atrocities such as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, and the massacres perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. Mandus manages to reach the core of the machine, a massive pyramidal structure referred to as "The Temple" by the Engineer, and forces the Engineer back into his soul. Mandus sacrifices himself to the Machine, putting an end to both it and the Engineer, and ending the horrors above as year 1900 begins.

## See Also

* Amnesia: The Dark Descent
* Amnesia: Rebirth
* Amnesia Series