A midnight countdown ends with the a teaser and first look at Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs, by thechineseroom and Frictional Games.

Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs is the thematic sequel to 2010’s terrifying game of esoteric mysticism, torture and gibbering quietly in a corner while abominations of science roam the dusty halls of a Prussian castle. It is being developed by thechineseroom – they of Dear Esther – with the Amnesia’s creators Frictional Games playing the role of producers. A Machine For Pigs – which is incidentally the single best title ever held by a video game – is the story of Oswald Mandus, a Victorian industrialist in the year 1899. Having lost his wife and children on an expedition to Mexico, he wakes in an enormous abattoir of his own design with no memory of the past several months.

Three days ago, a small and understated countdown appeared on the Amnesia: A Machine For Pigs website. At midnight on Thursday, the website was updated with a new logo and a hidden link to a teaser trailer. Turn the sound up for this one. You can find HD screenshots from the teaser at the bottom of this post.

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Frictional  had originally intended to release the video in celebration of reaching a given number of sales on the Humble Indie Bundle 5, but any figure they might have chosen was smashed before they could arrange anything. Coinciding with the end of the Bundle’s sale period seems as good a time as anyway, however.

thechineseroom are looking to continue the series’ reputation for horror. In an interview with Lewie Proctor for RockPaperShotgun in March, Dan Pinchbeck (lecturer in games design at Portsmouth and co-founder/creative director at TCR) said “It has to be absolutely, bone-shatteringly, terrifying. That was the key thing, Thomas [Grip, designer/programmer on Amnesia] said ‘If we don’t get as many Youtube videos of people spazzing out, then we haven’t done our job.'”

TCR also intend to make A Machine For Pigs something new while sticking to those familiar themes: “The underlying mythos of Amnesia is present, but making itself felt in another story, another time, another part of the world.”

A Machine For Pigs is for PC, and is expected to be released in time for Halloween.