Remember TheChineseRoom, better known for creating games like Dear Esther, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture? It’s recently been acquired by Sumo Digital, which is currently developing Crackdown 3 for the Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. The announcement is shocking, considering TheChineseRoom “went dark” with all staff laid off in September 2017.

A blog post from TheChineseRoom co-founder Dan Pinchbeck revealed the news today. “Following the studio’s closure in summer 2017, we were faced with a decision,” the post read. “We knew we didn’t want to just start over, trying to recapture a time in our history where we could push out arthouse titles and survive the process. It was an amazing few years, but it came at a cost, one that I knew I wasn’t about to take on again. And it was time for a change—to make different games, explore new ideas and, if TCR was going to reboot, to evolve into something that opened up new opportunities.”

Pinchbeck revealed that some concepts which were never developed by the studio are still “very much on the table”. These include titles like The 13th Interior, which Pinchbeck and Andrew Crawshaw (designer of Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture) created a prototype for.

“The game still needs a little bit of work to nail down some core mechanics, but then it’s finding the right opportunity to roll out the rest of development. It’s very much still in the plan to finish it up at some point. There were also two other concepts we were playing around with—very different types of games for us—and they will remain gently percolating in the background,” said Pinchbeck.

Another project, So Let Us Melt, which was in development for VR platform Google Daydream, may also be revisited. “Injecting more mechanics, building on the gorgeous art and audio the old team created and getting it out to a wider audience,” are the current plans, so there’s a chance that it could arrive on other platforms.

Of course, Sumo Digital is also working on a new game with Pinchbeck, which will be bigger than the previously mentioned titles. “It’s exciting times. A fresh start. If this was a game script, a gravelly-voiced man would probably say something about a ‘new dawn’.”

What are your thoughts on TheChineseRoom being brought back and acquired by Sumo Digital? How will this affect the latter’s future, especially after Crackdown 3 has wrapped? What could the “bigger” title be? For now, all we can do is speculate, so let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Thechineseroom’s next big adventure title, which is exclusive to the PlayStation 4, has us curious. Unfortunately, the latest trailer for Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture doesn’t do much to alleviate that curiosity. What it does do is provide some scant new details while showing off the game’s visual beauty. Check it out above.

The numbers on the radio are especially interesting – what could they mean and why do they remind us of that one movie we all watched but can’t remember? Regardless, something is up in Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and we don’t think it’s a game purely based on biblical events.

Developed on CryEngine and in conjunction with SCE Santa Monica, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is slated to release in 2015 for the PS4. What are your thoughts on the game thus far and do you think it will be worth the wait? Let us know in the comments below.

According to developers TheChineseRoom, also responsible for such games as Dear Esther and Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, the initial PS4 build of their upcoming game, Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture is now up and running. The announcement came from a series of tweets tweeted from the official twitter account for TheChineseRoom. The tweets read:

“Fixed the DevKit bugging out yesterday which means today is the day – installing the first PS4 build of Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture!”

“PS4 build is up and running! … Quite a major threshold to have passed…”

Also, when asked via Twitter whether previous titles from TheChineseRoom, specifically Dear Esther and Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, would be updated for release across PlayStation 4, TheChineseRoom responded that, while it would be great to have those games on PS4 but it is not something they are actively working.

Stay tuned to Gamingbolt to see if that changes.

Though introduced as a novel concept, Thechineseroom lead designer Dan Pinchbeck has told Eurogamer that the studio will be removing the one-hour time limit feature from their upcoming PS4 indie title, Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. It means exactly what you think – you would play and explore for an hour before the game was reset, back to the beginning.

“It’s an artificial conceit that doesn’t necessarily produce a good player experience. [The idea is] probably more suited to an arcade-style game, but not really good for a non-linear story-driven drama.”

Pinchbeck does mention that it still plays an important role in the game, and that it was more exploring other means of story-telling in video games. “How far can you get? How much can you explore? Imagine reading a novel and you’re really into it, and 30 pages before the end someone comes up and takes it out of your hand and goes, ‘I’m afraid that’s it. Your time’s up,’” he said of his original design.

“One of the things we really, really wanted to explore with Rapture was the uniqueness of storytelling in games. So there are things you can do in terms of how the narrative is structured and how the player relates to the structure of that narrative and how time relates to all of that, that you can’t do in another medium. That’s something that’s pure games. We really wanted to explore: what is it we can do with this that no other medium would be able to touch? How do we make this a real ‘game drama’ rather than a drama that just happens to be a on a game machine?”

Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture is currently slated to arrive in 2014. It will be exclusive to the PS4.

Speaking to Gamasutra, Yoshida stated, “When we fund 100 percent, we publish. That doesn’t mean that we’re going to dictate the creative development of thechineseroom team.” Yoshida refers Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, the developer’s next title, which will be out exclusively for the PS4.

“We don’t think that’s good for the project. We just support the team and probably help them. We have lots of resources, in terms of tech, or services, or testing – whatever it fits with the needs of the team, a small team like thechineseroom, we want to provide support so they can realize their ambitions or vision. They might become even more ambitious with our support.”

What’s the reason for posting such titles from comparatively smaller studios? Yoshida revealed that it’s “just for fun. Because we love working with these teams. We get lots of inspiration from these guys. It’s just healthy for us to work with some of those who are very aggressive creative, who try to do something not conventional.

“We have to provide big titles to support the platform, but if we are just doing that, maybe we lose some touch with the bleeding edge of thinking. It’s not like we have to fund these games. Without us, these teams would create some great indie games on their own. Luckily, these teams who have chosen to work with us have seen some value that we can bring to their project.”

So far, Sony’s indie showcase for the next year is looking pretty impressive with games such as The Witness, Volume and many more scheduled to be timed exclusives for the PS4. Stay tuned for more details.

Game Overview:

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a survival horror video game developed by The Chinese Room and published by Frictional Games. It is not a direct sequel to Amnesia: The Dark Descent and features a new setting along with new cast of characters.

The game is available for the Windows, MAC and Linux.

Check out the video walkthrough of Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below.

For video game guides, tips and wikis, check out our gaming portal here.

How nefarious? Check out the above 26 minute gameplay video for the game, and you’ll agree that no other horror title quite captures that horror of things that go bump in the night like Amnesia.

Despite following up The Dark Descent, A Machine for Pigs will be significantly different in level design and improved AI, although it will stay true to the roots of the series. The game surprisingly started as a mod and was thus expanded after both Frictional and thechineseroom saw the potential inherent (both in the gameplay and for frightening us even more senseless than before).

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs releases on PC, Linux and Mac on September 10th.

Out comes Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a game developed by Frictional Games, who already garnered accolades for their work on the Penumbra series. Amnesia: The Dark Descent presented players with a spooky atmosphere, chilling moments and simple yet effective gameplay mechanics.

After recieving critical and commercial acclaim, Frictional Games have now passed on the responsibility of developing the next chapter in the franchise, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs , to thechineseroom.

We got in touch with Dan Pinchbeck, Creative Director on Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs and asked him about development progress, gameplay details, his thoughts on the next generation consoles and much more.

Check out the full interview below.

Ravi Sinha: Originally, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs was supposed to be an experimental title but set in the Amnesia universe. What did you see in the game that took it from that stage to being the next game?

Dan Pinchbeck: It’s still set in the same universe as Dark Descent, it was more about the length and complexity of the game that shifted. Originally, we were looking at a really short development cycle, reusing a lot of TDD props and things, more like Justine. But we started off, and wrote the story and kind of looked at what we were doing and it was obvious it needed more time and it would naturally be this bigger, more complicated thing. Which of course meant we could through much more at it in terms of art, audio, etc.

Ravi Sinha: The Dark Descent features tons of psychological horror, relying less on jump scares and more on the atmosphere of dread. Will A Machine for Pigs follow that formula, or put in a few twists of its own?

Dan Pinchbeck: Absolutely, you don’t change a winning formula, and it’s that focus on atmosphere that made us big fans of Dark Descent in the first place. The challenge has been looking to extend that, do some new things for existing fans, keep it fresh and new. But yeah, making sure it still is very much an Amnesia game is really important to us.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent Trailer.

Ravi Sinha: Tell us a bit about the influences behind A Machine for Pigs. Were there any particular horror properties – be it books, paintings, movies and such – when developing the game?

Dan Pinchbeck: I’m a big Steampunk fan, and that was probably the biggest influence. So novels like G W Dahlquist’s Glass Books trilogy, Stephen Hunt, Mark Hodder, Lavie Tidhar alongside the usual Lovecraft fix. And Victorian London is just the most amazing, rich period to work in anyway, it supplies plenty of inspiration. Particularly, it dovetails nicely with the central preoccupation of Dark Descent, this exploration of morality and fear. We really wanted to continue to play with those themes in Machine for Pigs.

Ravi Sinha: What can you tell us about the protagonist Oswald? What is his connection to the events occurring? Will he be another victim of terror like Daniel or is there some deeper role he has to play?

Oh, I don’t want to give too much away. Oswald is very much at the centre of events, although exactly how will become clear as the game progresses. The game opens with him emerging from a terrible fever dream, with the terrifying sense that his children are in mortal danger. The rest you will have to wait and see.

Ravi Sinha: How will A Machine for Pigs tie into the original game exactly? Surely there must be some over-arching evil that links the two (*cough*The Shadow*cough*).

Dan Pinchbeck: I couldn’t possibly say. Discovering those things will be part of the fun for Dark Descent fans.

Ravi Sinha: Speaking of similarities, The Dark Descent was pretty groovy with it’s click and drag style of opening doors. Will we see similar mechanics in A Machine for Pigs? If so, what can you tell us about them?

Dan Pinchbeck: Yeah, it’s still pretty physics based, but that’s hard wired into HPL2 so it’s kind of a given. There’s no inventory this time around though, so the challenge for us has been finding cool and neat ways of keeping everything within the world, and moving objects around, etc. Thats been a lot of fun, and again, havingf a game set in this period of massive invention and crazy engineering makes that great to play with. Light will also still be really important, but we are changing things around a bit there as well to keep it fresh for existing fans.

Ravi Sinha: Can you outline the process of creating a horror title for the PC? How does it differ from, say, a horror story or film?

Dan Pinchbeck: Wow, that’s a good question. I’ve never made any other media, so I’m not entirely sure. I think games have the advantage of player agency, because you are really in the world, doing things, changing things, you are much closer to that action, so it affects you more directly. The big challenge, the thing books can do is to suggest and infer things, which is normally much scarier than actually seeing them – its why most things based around Lovecraft just fail, because it’s the ambiguity in his writing that just let’s your imagination go wild and that’s what is scary.

That’s the biggest trade off I think. You are representing stuff visually, so you have new opportunities but it’s also something you have to be careful with. And I just think games are intrinsically scarier than film. But taking into account all the possible player actions is tricky. When we first play tested, we had a player spend twenty minutes collecting all the moveable items from the far corners of a level, then stacking them up into this elaborate tower, climbing it, jumping out of the world and then saying “the game’s broken”.

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs Trailer.

Ravi Sinha: Just how far will A Machine for Pigs go to disturb/horrify gamers? Because the basic premise of the game indicates nothing but dark days ahead.

Dan Pinchbeck: Oh, it’s pretty bleak. You have the fear that surrounds you, terrifies you while you are playing. But I hope we’ve also created something that will stick with you afterwards and still be upsetting and frightening you days later.

Ravi Sinha: What are your thoughts on the next generation of consoles such as the PlayStation 4? You guys had released The Dark Descent on the PC. Does the 8GB GDDR5 RAM and the easy to develop games for type architecture appeal to you?

Dan Pinchbeck: Well, Dark Descent was Frictional, not us, but we released Dear Esther on PC. The word on the street is that PS4 is terrific to work with, especially compared to PS3. That’s always attractive.

Ravi Sinha: The Next Xbox is rumored to blocked used games and will follow an always on policy. What are your thoughts on the same?

Dan Pinchbeck: I’m ambivalent about used games – a used game makes the developers no money, which means you are hurting developers buying them. Especially given you can pick up older games really quickly and easily on sales, where the developers actually get a cut, I think if you love games as a medium, you should be doing that wherever you can. I think blocking is not so good though, I think it’s better to work on the basis that most people are basically honest and do the right thing than to over-police it.

Always on.. Well, unless its a multi-player game there’s no reason for it, it seems like a pure marketing and DRM exercise, and I think it’s really intrusive. If I buy a game, I want to own it, so I can transfer it to any of my devices, play when I want, where I want, on or offline. It’s part of this horrible conceptual shift like iTunes where although it looks like you are buying media, actually you only really are renting access to it, and I have a pretty big problem with that.

Ravi Sinha: Will we see A Machine for Pigs on any console at all in the days to come?

Dan Pinchbeck: That’s going to be down to Frictional. It’d be nice, sure.

Ravi Sinha: The Dark Descent started this internet culture where users shared their horrifying experiences on YouTube. Do you think A Machine for Pigs will have such an impact?

Dan Pinchbeck: I really hope so! I love that side of things with Dear Esther, where there’s this big amazing community of people sharing their experiences. I think it’s an amazing part of gaming culture, so I’d certainly hope we inspire people like that.

Ravi Sinha: What are your thoughts on the Oculus Rift VR device? Surely something like this seems like the next evolution in the horror games cycle.

Dan Pinchbeck: Maybe, but I’m really shortsighted and those kind of devices, like 3D, screw with my eyesight and give me headaches, so I’m not instinctively drawn to them. I think my basic take on it is that I don’t think there’s been a case yet where 3D has made a bad film good, or a good film great. I think it’ll be the same with games.

System Shock 2 is still one of the best, most scary games ever made and it’s pretty old, the graphics are pretty dated. But the crucial thing is you just don’t care or notice. If a game, or book, or film, or whatever is well designed, and gets under your skin, that kind of stuff is really just window dressing. At least for the time being. I’m sure eventually well figure out how to make things that are super optimised for new tech, but it shouldn’t be the driving force for design.

Ravi Sinha: If you could choose one major horror sequel to develop, what would it be, and what would you do with it?

Dan Pinchbeck: STALKER. Every time. I’d love to get let loose on The Zone. I’d crank it back towards the SoC model, more emptiness, loneliness, dead spaces, dark corners, dread and anxiety. The descent into the X18 labs is still a high watermark in terror in gaming.

Special thanks to Jens from Frictional Games for making this interview possible.

“Maybe, but I’m really shortsighted and those kind of devices, like 3D, screw with my eyesight and give me headaches, so I’m not instinctively drawn to them. I think my basic take on it is that I don’t think there’s been a case yet where 3D has made a bad film good, or a good film great.

“I think it’ll be the same with games. System Shock 2 is still one of the best, most scary games ever made and it’s pretty old, the graphics are pretty dated. But the crucial thing is you just don’t care or notice. If a game, or book, or film, or whatever is well designed, and gets under your skin, that kind of stuff is really just window dressing.

“At least for the time being. I’m sure eventually we’ll figure out how to make things that are super optimized for new tech, but it shouldn’t be the driving force for design.”

So while the technology may add to the experience, it shouldn’t be reduced to a gimmick in order to get over with audiences.

We asked Dan Pinchbeck, Creative Director of the studio about what he thought about the rumors surrounding Microsoft’s next Xbox like no used games and always online internet connection requirement.

“I’m ambivalent about used games – a used game makes the developers no money, which means you are hurting developers buying them,” he told us.

“Especially given you can pick up older games really quickly and easily on sales, where the developers actually get a cut, I think if you love games as a medium, you should be doing that wherever you can. I think blocking is not so good though, I think it’s better to work on the basis that most people are basically honest and do the right thing than to over-police it.

He also finds the always online requirement really intrusive and says it’s a DRM exercise.

“Always on.. Well, unless its a multi-player game there’s no reason for it, it seems like a pure marketing and DRM exercise, and I think it’s really intrusive. If I buy a game, I want to own it, so I can transfer it to any of my devices, play when I want, where I want, on or offline. It’s part of this horrible conceptual shift like iTunes where although it looks like you are buying media, actually you only really are renting access to it, and I have a pretty big problem with that.”

Ian Livingstone, life president of Eidos, said something similar in our interview with him which you can read over here.

What are your thoughts on this? Let us know in the comments section below.

Stay tuned for the full interview and more information about Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs.