We thought it was over. It isn’t as Agony continues.
Despite reviewing poorly on top of the studio’s financial struggle, an unrated version of Madmind Studio’s delve into Hell, Agony, is finding its way to Steam on October 31st, according to a Steam listing.
Interestingly, the listing doesn’t mention Madmind Studios as the publisher or developer. Instead, the studio’s director, Tomasz Dutkiewicz, takes both positions. Otherwise, the Steam page is identical to the original one aside from an altered “Mature Content Description” and the trailer including an "UNRATED" moniker.
The team hasn’t made an official announcement as of this writing, but this news is surprising considering Agony UNRATED was canceled back in June. Madmind’s website is down aside from one image, stating that the team has “had a lot of problems - both financial and law-related but now it’s time to break this hell silence:”
However, on the 21st, the Kickstarer page published an image with all sorts of phrases and a date reading “20.X.2018:”
To this day, users on the Steam community forums and Agony social media pages have been trying to decode the messages. On one Steam post from October 2nd, user ice2kewl posted:
“This is what i notice so far:20 - x (10?) - 2018... 18 days left.
The background letters spell something:
ALL SAINTS DAY HAS NEVER BEEN SO REPVLSIVE PARANOIA CHILDREN OPENS HELL TO [20.x.2018]
[EDIT] All Saints day is on Nov 1st. [EDIT2] Trying to figure out what's up with the devil/demon in the middle.”
A developer, Madm4n, has been responding to comments with various images, including one with a “7 days” teaser:
That first image almost guarantees an unrated version. It’s a blurred out version of what may be the video containing all of the cut content from back at the game’s release. However, the bottom right includes a mouse click with the option “Undo Mosaic” highlighted, which would clear up the blur.
Agony is also receiving a Switch port, being done by Forever Entertainment. It’s likely the portable version is censored, however, as this news went live back in September during the team's legal woes that appear to continue, but will not impact the Switch release according to comments made by the studio. We only know the Switch edition is coming in 2018, so this could be the launch date.
It’s unlikely, but this date could also refer to the VR version we never received. VR was the CA $150,000 Kickstarter stretch goal, and the project hit CA $182,642:
Initially, Agony was to launch without any cut content. But, the team was forced to remove multiple endings and scenes including content such as “children heads exploding, heart plucking, and eye gouging.” Madmind released the material as a YouTube video, though it was quickly taken down due to its grotesque nature.
However, since the release of Agony, Valve has switched to no longer curating content posted on the platform. Assuming Madmind is clear of their legal issues, there should be no problems publishing the game on Steam.
We’ve reached out to Madmind to find out more on the situation and will update the story if we hear back. Otherwise, we have to wait until this Saturday (or beyond) for any more information.
Quick Take
The story surrounding this game is more interesting than the actual thing! It's amazing how resilient the studio is here, especially with how much hell they've gone through in getting this game live. I respect the determination, especially in a team so bent on delivering to their fans.
What do you think is coming this Saturday? Will you be picking up the Agony UNRATED edition? Let us know in the comments below!
