‘Agony Unrated’ is Officially Cancelled
Madmind Studio‘s boundary-breaking satanic survival horror Agony had promised extremely graphic content from the jump when advertising itself on Kickstarter. The controversial graphic content was since snipped out for the game’s release, much to the chagrin of backers and fans of gore alike.
For a while, hope was not lost, as an unrated version, with all its gory content intact, was set to release on Steam within the next few months. Sadly, yesterday Madmind broke the news that Agony Unrated has been completely abandoned.
As part of a larger post on the game’s Steam page about Agony‘s future, Madmind announced:
“We regret to inform you that our company is currently struggling with financial problems. Due to technical and legal reasons, Madmind must cancel the development of Agony Unrated. Part of the team will continue to support Agony on Steam and consoles by publishing new patches.”
This is the latest news in the back-and-forth over Agony‘s content and its rating. Given how many times the game has backed away from its formerly unabashed adherence to violence, gore and sexual content, this final decision isn’t surprising.
At first, the game was to receive an “Adults Only” rating but later censored itself to receive a PEGI rating of “Mature”, in order to launch on consoles. An “Adults Only” patch was promised for the PC launch in late May, that would effectively un-censor the explicit content, but by June 6th, this had turned into releasing an unrated version under a separate title and without involvement from publishers.
Many fans are annoyed at these constant changes, which have been dubbed as goalpost-moving by some, as the explicit violence was largely how the game marketed itself for crowdfunding. Some are accusing the developers of betraying their backers to appeal to a mass audience, while others favour Madmind’s own argument that that they’re limited by short funds.
Regardless, this marks a disappointing end to the saga of a much-hyped game, especially as the game itself hasn’t been terribly well received in terms of gameplay. Even if Madmind find their way out of their financial problems, it seems unlikely that Agony Unrated will ever be revived.