Cartoons. A part of our culture since 1934, and still advancing as a medium to this day. Cartoons have a reputation for being sweet, innocent, and child friendly. But can you turn something fun and uplifting, into something creepy and disturbing? That's the question posed by 2017's indie horror game Bendy and the Ink Machine. Developed by Joey Drew Studios and published by Rooster Teeth Games, Bendy and the Ink Machine has a simple concept. 30's era cartoons, but freakier. This game was originally developed by exactly two people, and it was a breakout success, getting two spin-off games as well as a direct sequel titled Bendy and the Dark Revival (currently planned to release some time in 2021). Why was it so successful? It's a horror game made by a small dev team in a post- Five Nights at Freddy's world. Fans of that series will naturally see similar games and check them out while waiting for the next big FN@F game. But even if it owes much of its success to FN@F, it still does enough things differently to stand on its own.
Our story follows an elderly man named Henry Stein, who used to be an animator and cartoonist for a company called Joey Drew Studios (not to be confused with the real life dev team that made the game, they thought it would be funny to name their company after a fictional company within the game's lore and setting). But in this universe, Joey Drew Studios got shut down thanks to overambitious projects with no payoff and Joey Drew (the CEO of the company) repeatedly putting his employees in dangerous and unhealthy working conditions. One day, Henry receives a letter from Joey Drew himself, inviting him back to the old workshop because he "wanted to show him something." So Henry descends back to his old workplace, only to find it abandoned and falling into ruin. While exploring the facility, Henry activates a device called the Ink Machine, which seems to be able to create living creatures whose bodies are made entirely out of ink. Unfortunately, one of those creatures is Bendy, a demon obsessed with violently murdering anything too slow to get out of the way. Henry tries to escape Bendy's rampage, but falls deeper into the studio, and now has to fight tooth and nail to escape the eldritch terrors lurking within.
It's worth noting that when Bendy and the Ink Machine was first released, it had an episodic structure. The game's Chapters would be released one at a time throughout the year, meaning that if you played the game back when Chapter 1 was released, the game was by design incomplete. Additionally, every time a new Chapter was released, the previous Chapters would get updated and modified, partly to fit community feedback and partly to increase the overall quality of the game. Seriously, look at how much Chapter 1 has changed since its original release. It looked like a tech demo initially, but now has the same level of polish as the more recent Chapters. All five Chapters have been released, and the console ports (which I played) include all five Chapters in one package without the need to download each one separately. The console ports run surprisingly well, aside from a few overlong loading screens (they can take anywhere between 45 seconds to a whole minute, which doesn't sound like a lot but that's a whole minute of doing nothing but waiting). If you have a high-quality PC, the load times might be better, but I refuse to play PC if there is a decent console port readily available.
Bendy and the Ink Machine has a simple gameplay loop. You control Henry as he moves from room to room, solving puzzles and fending off the weaker ink monsters while hiding from Bendy himself. Bendy is invincible and cannot be killed at all, so it's better to avoid him. The puzzles Henry has to solve can be as simple as flipping a few levers, to as complicated as figuring out which order to play a set of musical instruments in order to produce the correct song. The combat is a little barebones but perfectly serviceable. Henry will sometimes have a melee weapon such as a hatchet or crowbar that he can use to clobber foes at close range. There's also a secret Tommy Gun, which is for obvious reasons the best weapon in the entire game. It's a pain to unlock, but depending on who you ask it might be worth it. My harshest criticism about the combat is that the melee weapons have a deceptively small hitbox, making it hard to tell how close you need to be to actually hit a monster. Aiming the Tommy Gun and throwing soup cans as a distraction is fine and works as intended, it's only melee weapons that have this problem. You get used to the weapons after a while, but it can be a little off putting at first. That said, I do prefer the sections where you have to use stealth to get past enemies over fighting them directly, since it's clear that the dev team put more effort into the stealth mechanics.
Each Chapter puts focus on a specific area and theme as you progress. Chapter 1 is by far the shortest, being able to be finished in 15-20 minutes. The Chapters get progressively longer, though the game's run time as a whole is about 9-10 hours. Chapter 1 is also the simplest. In it, Henry has just entered the building and, aside from the mutilated corpse of a cartoon wolf lying on a surgery table, the place seems to be relatively normal. We find some cassette tapes left by former employees, where they voice their concerns as Joey Drew's ambition and greed starts becoming self-destructive. We also get our first look at Bendy himself, both in the form of cutesy cardboard cutouts, and in person. And I adore the design of Bendy's monster form (pictured above). The Ink dripping down and obscuring most of the face save for a unnatural, toothy grin is unsettling, and the mismatched proportions and limping walk make Bendy look like he's in pain. But then again, almost every ink monster here have macabre designs and twisted, painful looking anatomy. And these designs are grotesque in the best way possible. The monsters here don't look like anything else in the genre, and it helps to give the game a unique identity.
Chapter 2 has Henry descend into the Music Department, and we get the introduction of Sammy Lawrence. Sammy used to be Joey Drew's music composer and songwriter, but was mutated by the Ink Machine into a faceless man with a Bendy mask. His new form didn't do much for his sanity, and he went from a grumpy, but talented songwriter to an insane cultist worshipping Bendy as a god. On the subject of Chapter 2, I positively love it. The puzzles were creative, we got interesting lore on Joey Drew's relationship with his employees, we got a cameo (in the form of a cassette tape) from a character named Susie Campbell, who will be important later. It's also our introduction to the combat system.
Chapter 3 is rather contentious among Bendy fans. Some people love it, some people hate it. In this Chapter, Henry teams up with Boris the Wolf, the only ink creature so far that's actually benevolent. There's not much to say about Boris. His design is clearly inspired by Disney's Goofy the Dog. We saw his mutilated corpse back in Chapter 1, though we later learn that there are multiple Boris the Wolves running around. Granted, most of them are dead, and the one travelling with Henry seems to be the only one left alive. But how did they all die? Because of Susie Campbell, who in-universe was a voice actress for Alice Angel, one of Joey Drew's cartoon characters meant to be a female counterpart to Bendy. Susie, much like Sammy, has been mutated by the Ink Machine, and is now a disgusting perversion of the role she once played. She views herself as being literally Alice Angel, and not just an actress. Naturally, the knowledge that Joey Drew hired a replacement actress damaged her mind even further. On top of this, she's been vivisecting other ink creatures, taking their vital organs and using them to preserve and repair her own unstable body. In case it wasn't obvious, Susie is the most insane creature in the entire studio, and might be more dangerous than Bendy himself.
The main reason why Chapter 3 is so polarizing is because early on in the Chapter, Susie strikes a deal with Henry. He must do a variety of tasks for Susie, and she will let him use the elevator in the central complex to escape the studio. The bulk of the Chapter is spent doing Fetch Quests for Susie (where she tells you to go somewhere, grab an item, and come back), some of which seem arbitrary. Seriously, you have to do six different Fetch Quests, with the only thing breaking them up is a single combat segment against some ink monsters called the Butcher Gang. Most of the Fetch Quests aren't that exciting either, with the only real challenge being periodic visits from Bendy requiring you to hide in outhouse-like booths scattered throughout the complex. I did however really like when you went down to the flooded basement and had to navigate through a maze while a super strong boss called the Projectionist hunted you (unlike Bendy, the Projectionist can be killed, but doing so is a long and arduous process). I also loved this early segment where Henry and Boris had to work together as a team to progress, and I honestly wish we got more of that. But overall, I feel like they should have shortened the Fetch Quests, or at least throw in some unique sequences to break it up more. In a perfect world, the whole chapter would be Henry and Boris working together while being pursued by both Susie and Bendy. This isn't a bad Chapter, but it does feel like it overstayed its welcome, and the whole idea of teaming up with Boris is woefully underutilized.
Chapter 4 might be my favorite. In this Chapter, Susie betrays Henry and kidnaps Boris, and Henry has to move through an unfinished amusement park to save him. There isn't a Fetch Quest in sight here, and the puzzles and boss battles get really creative and fun in this Chapter. You also get a rematch against the Projectionist, only this time, you don't have any weapons to defend yourself, making stealth mandatory for survival. We also get the introduction of a crafting mechanic in this Chapter, where you can take ink blobs and put them into these special slot machines. The slot machines can make anything from extra weapons (though Henry can only carry one weapon at a time) to pipes and gears to fix machinery. I like the idea behind it, and my favorite boss battle in the whole game (which I won't spoil) uses the crafting machines in some clever ways. We also learn in this Chapter (through more cassette tapes) Joey Drew's famous speeches throughout the game about dreaming big and pursuing your goals were fake, and that he's been lying to his own employees about everything. Also, one of the cassette tapes reveals that Bendy was originally docile, and only became violent after being locked in Joey's basement for over 30 years. At this point, it's obvious that Joey Drew was a total scumbag.
Chapter 5 is the grand finale, and for the most part, I liked it a lot. Not as much as Chapters 2 or 4, but definitely a step up from Chapter 3. Anyway, in this Chapter, Henry must team up with a pair of friendly ink creatures named Allison and Tom for one last showdown against Bendy (and Sammy's cult). Allison was actually the replacement actress that put Susie out of a job, and though she was altered by the Ink Machine, she wasn't as heavily mutated as the rest of the staff. Tom is literally just one of the many Boris the Wolf clones, but with a gruff, no-nonsense attitude. Anyway, in this Chapter we get to use the Seeing Tool, a device that reveals hidden messages. Without spoiling things too much, once you beat the game, you can keep the Seeing Tool, bring it back with you to Chapters 1-4 and use it find all sorts of Easter Eggs and secrets.
We get one last showdown against Bendy, and we are treated to a delightfully confusing Twilight Zone style ending, which I won't spoil here. The only part of Chapter 5 that I didn't like was this one section where you have to sneak past the Butcher Gang (again) in the Administration area. For context, you have no means of defending yourself. No hatchets, crowbars, or Tommy Guns. Not even any soup cans to use as a distraction. You have to navigate a claustrophobic maze as you work towards Joey Drew's office, then steal a blob from an ink fountain nearby, and sneak your way back. You have to do this three times to get enough ink to craft the pipes needed to drain out the flooded hallway and progress further. Honestly I feel like they should have shortened this puzzle to needing only one trip, because just getting to the office and back to the beginning of the maze once is a long, time consuming process. And that's before considering you spend a good chunk of your time in the maze hiding in closets and side rooms, waiting for the Butcher Gang to pass over. On top of this, the Butcher Gang's ability to detect your presence is somewhat janky. They don't have any peripheral vision and can't see through glass windows (or if they do, they have reduced vision through glass), but can see exactly where you are if you you stand in front of metal grates. To make matters worse, this was the section of the game where my controller broke, delaying my playthrough (and by proxy, this review) until I could get a replacement. Which I admit is not the fault of the game itself, but bad timing on a less than ideal section of a game causes me to like this specific section of the game even less.
The sound design is dang near perfect. The creaking of floorboards as you walk over them, the chugging and wheezing of old machinery, and the sputtering of film reels makes the experience more immersive. The constant gurgling of the Butcher Gang is disgusting, but its your best bet to figuring out where they are in relation to you. The voice acting is pretty solid. Henry sounds like a stoic old man who takes everything in stride. To be honest, the strongest reaction we hear from Henry is when he first finds the Boris corpse in Chapter 1, where he is clearly horrified at what he's looking at. Sammy and Susie both are portrayed with a delightful amount of over-the-top madness and insanity, and I enjoy that kind of performance for villains. One of my favorite moments in the whole game is when you're listening to a cassette tape left by Sammy, where he talks about his newfound obsession with Bendy, and asks, "Can I get an Amen?" at the end of the recording. Somewhere behind you, you hear the real Sammy say "I said, CAN I GET AN AMEN!?" And that is one of the most genuinely bone-chilling scenes in the whole game, thanks to the performance of Aaron Landon. There's also a handful of cassette tapes to collect in every Chapter, and these are always a blast to listen to. Not only does Bendy and the Ink Machine tell most of its story through these cassette tapes, they're all fully voiced and the personalities and accents stay consistent with the characters. Like how all of Joey Drew's tapes have this excitable, whimsical warmth to them (at least until Joey shows his true colors). Or how this one employee, named Wally Franks, speaks with a very thick Brooklyn accent and uses slang common that that area. It's a brief moment of levity that makes the tension and dread of the rest of the game more manageable. Also there's one employee who's randomly Irish, which I find hilarious.
The music is for the most part, intense and foreboding. Because it's a horror game. That said, the jingle that plays when you reach the Music Department in Chapter 2 is catchy, as well as the jingle when you reach the Administration area in Chapter 5. There's also this one motif that first plays in Chapter 3 but is used again in chapters 4 and 5 that sounds mystical and somber, though I have no clue as to what kind of instrument they used to make that motif. But the best pieces of music in this game have an interesting story behind them. In every Chapter, there is a jukebox hidden somewhere, and clicking on it will play an instrumental song. What song plays depends on what Chapter you're on, though they all sound great, in my opinion. That's not the interesting part. The interesting part is that all of the songs that play on the juke boxes are instrumental covers of fan-made songs created by the Bendy and the Ink Machine fan community. Apparently Joey Drew Studios (the real life one) found those fan songs and liked them so much that were put into the game itself as Easter Eggs during a free update. You can find the original, lyrical versions of those songs on YouTube, if you're curious.
In conclusion, Bendy and the Ink Machine is a great horror game. It has clear room for improvement, and Chapter 3 specifically was mediocre compared to the rest of the game, but if Joey Drew Studios takes the lessons they learned while making this game to heart, Bendy and the Dark Revival should be even grander than the original. But is the game scary? It depends on what you define as scary. The jump scares themselves are telegraphed and scripted to occur in the exact same place, at the exact same time every playthrough, so they are only truly "scary" on a first run of the game. That said, the immediate panic you feel whenever Bendy is close by is exhilarating, since Bendy is the only creature that feels like a legitimate threat no matter how far into the game you get. Honestly, just watching Bendy walk by while in hiding is more terrifying than the actual, intentional scares. The scene in Chapter 5 where you have to out-speed a giant hand as you sail down an ink river is also stress-inducing. Again, not a true jump scare, but the stress of having to outpace something just mere feet behind you makes the experience scarier. But anyway, this is a good game to play to celebrate Halloween, or if you want to test the bravery of your friends but don't want them to hate you for it. With that being said, Bendy and the Ink Machine is on the verge of greatness. The game's not perfect, but it's fun, and if you like horror games or games inspired by older time periods, it's worth checking out.
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