Agony gameplay trailer showcases a first-person crawl through the bowels of Hell

Agony is a first-person horror game being developed by Polish studio Madmind. It was announced in May, and will see players take a tour of the depths of hell, as experienced by a tormented soul with no memory of the crimes that led to him landing in the burny basement. But you can look for clues in the debut gameplay trailer which was released today: It's eight unpleasant minutes spent in a chittering, nightmarish underworld, utterly without context or plot. Enjoy!

Or course, the trailer's opaqueness doesn't mean the game won't have a proper story. Rather, it seems intended to be an environmental demo. And on that level it works. Nothing in the video is straight-up scary, but it's grotesque and uncomfortable, like the best bits of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Any game can throw a monster out of a closet, but it takes real effort to make a person think, “Man, I wish I was not playing this right now,” while simultaneously ensuring that they don't stop.

I don't know if Agony will be able to pull that conjuring trick off, but I like what I've seen so far. It's listed on Steam now, if you want to poke at it a bit more closely, and there's also a website at agonygame.com with a few more details. The game is slated for launch sometime in 2017.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.