If you haven’t played The Suffering, I would urge you to do so immediately. Frightening, vicious, original, and uncompromising, alongside Rockstar’s Manhunt, it’s the closest mainstream games – at least during the ‘00s – came to a real, sleazy, lowdown horror where bloodshed is measured in gallons. A third-person monster shooter, it’s a natural progenitor to Resident Evil 4, but the pacing is closer to Dead Space. It’s also set in a prison, and as such feels like a distant ancestor to The Callisto Protocol. Nevertheless, both The Suffering and its sequel, The Ties That Bind, are about to be delisted, and vanish from the PC.
Originally released in 2004, in The Suffering, you play as Torque, a convicted murderer recently transferred to the deliciously named Carnate Island Penitentiary. Whether you actually killed your wife and son is ambiguous. What’s certain is that Carnate prison has been overrun by an army of monstrosities which, in an excellent artistic flourish, are all based on different methods of execution – some will jump on your back and try to stab you with their fingers, which are made from syringes, while others are made almost entirely out of rifles, and will stoop over to ‘execute’ you by firing squad.
Alongside his revolver, Tommy gun, and pump-action 12 gauge, Torque also has the ability to transform into a frenzied, ravenous beast, but if you use this power too often, it will impact his mentality and alter the story and the ending. The stage is set for a vivid, exploitation-style horror game with some truly nasty set pieces.
But soon, you won’t be able to play The Suffering or The Suffering: The Ties That Bind on PC at all. Neither game is available on Steam, and GOG has just confirmed that as of Sunday September 1, they will both be delisted from sale.
“Hey everyone. As much as I hate posting such information, we have an upcoming delisting,” GOG community manager ‘King Kunat’ writes on the store’s forums. “Per the publisher’s request both The Suffering and The Suffering: Ties That Bind will leave our store on September 1st. No exact hour yet.”
So, first of all, if you haven’t played The Suffering yet, or want to give it another go, you can still get it here. But there’s maybe a silver lining to all of this. Maybe, just maybe, the original versions of The Suffering are being pulled in anticipation of a remaster or a new combined collection. We’ll have to see.
In the meantime, get some of the other best survival games, or maybe enjoy some more nostalgia with the best old games you can still run on PC.
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