Agony, based on what we've seen of it so far, isn't so much a horror game as we've come to know them—dark corridors and jump scares—as it is straight-up horrific. Everything seems wet and sticky (and not in a good way), there are naked naughty bits all over the place (also not in a good way), and in case you missed it earlier this month, babies get eaten. Lovely stuff.
It's the sort of in-your-face visual content that sets a regulatory agent's teeth on edge, and sure enough, developer Madmind Studio said today that it has had to tone things down in order to get a rating from PEGI (Pan European Game Information) and other agencies—but only very slightly, as it turns out.
"The censorship now affects only several seconds from two endings (out of seven) and some scenes that may be unlocked only after the end of the game," Madmind wrote. "None of the scenes you have seen in the trailers and other promotional materials have been censored at all, and the game will feature those on all platforms."
The studio even posted a helpful list of features you can look forward to in the game:
Those are definitely not the kinds of back-of-the-box bullet points you see every day.
Because of unspecified "legal issues," however, Madmind has dropped its plan to release a patch that would remove the censorship from the PC version of the game. Instead, it will publish a "comparison video" on May 30, "so you will not miss out [on] anything," a statement that, intentional or not, really highlights where much of the interest in Agony really lies.
"Please bear in mind that leaving this content uncensored would result in the game being banned and us, Madmind Studio, being sued," the message says. "That would simply lead to the studio being closed. Obviously, we don’t want this to happen and we hope that you understand it."
Agony is set to come out on May 29.
Agony looks like a charming video game. It's horror and it's not shy about it. Instead of gloomy dark hallways containing jump scare monstrosities, the actual hallways themselves are monstrosities (they pulsate and bleed and generally look unpleasant). And in keeping with Outlast 2's infamous charred baby pit, this new Agony story trailer (embedded below) shows a baby being fed to a big gaping mouth. Scary stuff.
The trailer purports to outline the game's story. Don't get me wrong, I will play this wretched video game and hopefully enjoy it, but the voiceover comes across a bit Black Metal Cats. From what I can gather, the player character has fallen into somewhere bad, presumably hell itself, and there's a goddess they must contend with in order to... survive? Get out? Not sure. It barely matters, because exploring this world is what appeals most to me.
Check out the trailer below. The game releases on May 29, and will feature a story mode as well as an "open challenge system" which generates levels at random. I'm very eager to play it but... am also kinda happy to wait, to be honest.