Frictional Games, the developer of numerous horror games over the last few years, hit it big with their 2010 release Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The game sold in an impressive fashion and many have called that game one of the scariest ever made.
Flash forward a couple years and you’d think it’s about time for the sequel. Well, the sequel is coming, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs is due out later this year, but it’s not being developed by Frictional Games. Instead, the team has handed over the project to thechineseroom, a British independent video game development studio, best known for making experimental first-person adventure games, such as the Half-Life 2 mod Dear Esther.
Speaking to Gamasutra, Frictional’s Thomas Grip said that while the team initially wanted to create their own Amnesia follow-up, the studio simply didn’t have the resources to make a sequel on its own.
“We had the money to do so, but not enough man-power,” Grip said. “Expanding the company with that much personnel didn’t feel comfortable for us though and thus the idea of collaborating with somebody was born.”
In Frictional’s eyes, thechineseroom had already proven its knack for horror with atmospheric Source mods like Korsakovia and Dear Esther. Frictional thought the studio seemed a perfect fit for the Amnesia franchise, and soon the studio gave thechineseroom the funding, publishing support, and creative control to make an Amnesia sequel of its own.