Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs writer on the question Hitler and Stalin would ask

Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a frightening experience filled with horrific imagery and scary pig people. But writer Dan Pinchbeck says that the scariest creature of all just might be man.

Ozzie Mejia

September 30, 2013 4:40 PM

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Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is a psychologically terrifying experience. Writer Dan Pinchbeck explained how historical figures like Hitler and Stalin may relate to his work.

"You've got to just push and push, every time you think you can't go any farther, until you end up in some really dark places," he said.

"The baseline horror, cannibalism, child murder, that just rolls out. But the darkest thing in A Machine for Pigs is the question of whether it's okay to kill hundreds of thousands of people to save millions," Pinchbeck told Kill Screen. "It's a really dark place, because it's a real one. It's the same question that Hitler asked; that Stalin asked. It's what was going on in the Balkans, Rwanda."

Pinchbeck goes on to discuss some of the images that didn't make the cut of the final game, because they breached a number of comfort zones. For example, he removed the scene of a pig having its way with a human, because it ultimately didn't add enough to the story the game was trying to tell. But Pinchbeck adds that scrapped ideas ultimately lead to a better final product. "You've got to push it too far to find out where that line is," he adds. "If you tiptoe cautiously up, you'll always fall short. That's how you find something with a real edge."

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?