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2017/06

E3 2017: Agony Gameplay Preview Shows How True Horror-Survival Should Be

The upcoming game Agony from developers MadMind Studios managed to make an appearance during this year’s E3. Both Agony and Scorn have received a lot of fanfare moving through the development phase thanks to their truly original visual atmospheres and their equally disturbing adult subject matter. In the case of Agony, the game takes place through the various stages of hell, and the E3 2017 demonstration specifically highlights the Floating Forest level.

You can check out the 16 minute gameplay demonstration below courtesy of YouTuber MKIceandFire.

The Unreal Engine 4-powered game really does have a crazy looking art-style.

The demo starts with a damned soul crawling out of the lack of misery onto the beach of the floating forest. He coughs up blood while a seductive demon eats the flesh off another soul. Players take on the role of the damned soul who crawled up on the beach.

While moving slowly through the forest, the objective is to basically stay out of sight and avoid becoming just another victim until you can get your hands on some kind weapon.

Fire seems to work well enough. You can actually grab torches and use them to light the environment on fire, creating blockades and fire walls to keep the other demons at bay. What’s cool here is that fire can also hurt the player character so you must be careful how you use it.

Nearly every aspect of the forest has some sort of danger lurking about. Players have a mix of stealth and some brief combat they can use in an attempt to defend themselves or fight back. It’s obviously not going to be a cake-walk of a time.

In a way, this feels like how horror-survival should be… that your offensive measures are mostly to help you survive as opposed to having nothing at your disposal or having too much firepower at your disposal.

Art-wise, Agony is one of the most visually creative games out there. It truly looks like hell and what I imagine most people would imagine it to be like, with torture, and suffering, and all sorts of horrible things lining the walls and grasping at your heels, and flying in the sky.

In one segment a bunch of damned souls reach out from the ground and begin to grab and claw at the player.

The only thing I think would make the game more horrifying is if the dialogue was actually voiced in Latin. But otherwise, Agony looks like a very disturbing trip into the unknown.

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