31 Days of Horror Games: The Suffering

In celebration of Halloween, we’re counting down the days with some of the greatest horror games ever made -- 31 of our favorites! Every day, we’ll take a look back at a horror game that gave us goosebumps, made our controllers tremble, and chased us out of our living rooms. Long live the horror game! And make sure to check out our full list of 31 Great Horror Games To Play In October!

You begin The Suffering as a convicted man named Torque, who has already been given the death sentence for murdering his ex-wife and two children. As Torque awaits his demise in the notorious Abbot State Penitentiary on Carnate Island, a hoard of monsters is unleashed upon the institution and quickly sends Torque’s world into chaos. And that is just the beginning of this twisted journey through a convicted criminal’s damaged psychosis, although the game makes it clear very early on that not everything is always what it seems.

The dark and nightmarish environments are one of the clear highlights in The Suffering, from the bloodstained prison walls to the dense forestry that surrounds the prison gates. The game constantly weaves you back and forth between these frightening vistas, as Torque interacts with the famous faces of Carnate Island’s infamous past, like other inmates on death row and psychotic executioners. The monsters themselves in The Suffering are also wonderfully grotesque, like a man with hypothermic needles where his eyes should be, but what else would you expect from designs by the late, great Stan Winston?

Now Torque is a pretty messed up guy, and his fragmented conscious becomes a strong thematic element thanks to The Suffering’s morality system. Throughout Torque’s escape, the prisoner will be torn between visions of his dead ex-wife begging him to be forgiving towards others, while demonic voices are simultaneously urging him to kill. The player will ultimately get to choose the path that Torque travels down through their actions at several key instances, which determines the overall ending that you get.

In addition to the unsettling morality system and hallucinations, Torque also has the power to transform himself into a devastating monster via filling an insanity meter. Torque’s monster form certainly pushes the game closer to the action side of the spectrum, but the grisly bloodshed that comes as a result of these moments is still nothing short of horrific. What’s great about The Sufferingis that you’re never quite sure if Torque did in fact murder his family, as the state would have you believe, and so it adds another layer of mystery to the already vengeful plot. Torque’s adventure even continued a year later with a sequel entitled The Suffering: Ties That Bind.

But for its startling premise, its visceral gameplay, and its twisted morality system, the original The Suffering put an adrenaline-fueled spin on the horror genre at large, with murder and psychological deformities basking under the flickering spotlight.

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