In the late 2010, the first videos of screaming youtubers began to emerge from seemingly out of nowhere. Horrified faces blabbered incoherent curses as ominous instrumentals accompanied dark cellar walls on their way to bring terror to a wider audience. These wall would later come to house one of the most infamous and terrifying monsters to ever come out of any videogame ever and leave a lasting impression on the audience and industry alike.



Today, we will be looking at the story behind the infamous videogame Amnesia: The Dark Descent, a game that shaped Youtube for years and that turned the tables of its content for even longer.



Studio Conception and Penumbra Projects



Back in January 2007, a freelance artist Thomas Grip and a musician Jens Nilsson decided to band together and found a game studio, naming it Frictional Games. Despite having zero experience in the videogame industry and having only few small software projects behind them, they set off to create their own game engine and subsequently use it to develop their very own videogame.



The engine eventually bore the name HPL Engine in honour of the famous horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft. They stayed true to the genre even with their next creation and so, only three months after founding the studio, a first demo designed to test the engine ' s capabilities saw the light of the day. Titled Penumbra, it was so well received that only two months later its expanded version titled Penumbra:Overture was introduced as the studio ' s first proper input into the industry.



Promised to be but a first part of a trilogy, Penumbra: Overture was met with positive reactions from its audience. However, critics cited its clunky combat and weak exposure through lengthy diary notes scattered throughout the game as detrimental factors to the game ' s quality. Despite this, it has received mostly positive reviews, with 6/10 being the lowest score, as given by videogamer.com and GamesTM.



Immersive controls paired wit the dark atmopshere of an abandoned mine made for a truly scary experience that most players who sought out su ch things appreciated. The combat also helped in creating the overall image of terror, as the monster encounters could be trivialized by soaking the enemies in tons of bullets . Despite this, with Penumbra: Overture, both the studio and the franchise steeped out in the right direction.





source: mobygames.com

New Inspirations and Engine



Taking further inspiration from the Silent Hill series, Frictional Games eventually developed a sequel, which was also published by Paradox Interactive and was titled Penumbra: Black Plague. This time, the studio put more focus on the combat, attempting to fix everything that was wrong with the first game by removing the combat altogether. The attempts have been met with success and the removal was met with a positive response from critics and players alike.



To finish the promised trilogy, Penumbra:Requiem was released as a downloadable content for the second game a year after its initial release. This was the last piece of content for the Penumbra universe and was meant to close off the story and complete the world of the two previous installments. During its development the studio also began to work on a completely new project, that would later become their most successful one ever.



This project took inspiration from the previous games as well as the Resident Evil series and was later cited to have "aimed for what penumbra set out to be." Despite the working titles Unknown and Lux Tenebras, the game ' s name was announced as Amnesia on November 13th 2009. Frictional Games even developed a new engine, titles HPL Engine 2 for this and their future projects. Immersive controls paired wit the dark atmopshere of an abandoned mine made for a truly scary experience that most players who sought out su



Not even a year later, on September 8th 2010, the game was published under the name Amnesia: The Dark Descent for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.





Initial Reception and the Rise of Youtube



Fans of the Penumbra were already prepared for the next big thing and thus, amnesia exploded almost immediately upon its release. By the time the next year came, Amnesia had already sold nearly 200 000 copies, which was a huge achievement for an independent studio at the dawn of the indie gaming craze. However, it was not only previous positive experience that has drawn crowds to scare themselves over and over. A certain phenomenon was also at its beginning and Amnesia just happened to be at the right place at the right time.



Back when the internet culture was still in its diapers, huge groups began to form around certain Youtube channels, such as ' s ASDFMovie has been quoted repeatedly on the internet forums by people who appreciated random humor that was so popular at the time.



However, it was not entirely original content that has spawned the most prominent and ubiquitous Youtube channels. This place has been taken by the "let ' s play" community, i.e. people, who filmed themselves while commentating a walkthrough of a videogame. But surely, you have spent your fair share of time on the internet and you are more than familiar with this concept. Eight years ago, however, the gaming community on Youtube was a small underground affair and the concept of reaching six-digit subscription numbers on a "let ' s play" channel was nearly unthinkable.



Back then most of the gaming content was watched and shared through sites like Minecraft or various horror games.



source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4_3TBCUZXo

Place in Youtube History



As far as horror games in popular culture went, it was mostly about the aforementioned Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Unfortunately for the videomakers, these games could not provide enough entertainment value to the viewers, save for the occasional walk-through or video of a difficult puzzle. To make for and entertaining video, one would need to play something more immersive and personal, such as the Penumbra series, which has gained its small cult following by this time.



Since this survival-horror community was already bent on their favourite genre, fresh games were more than welcome. And who would be more fit to provide the biggest hit of the genre other than a studio that has made three successful entries to it already. Amnesia: The Dark Descent was heavily anticipated among the fans of the Penumbra series and so, videos of the latest game began to emerge as soon as the game hit the shelves of virtual stores. Among the first-day videos we can find ones like



It took only a month or two until the first commentary appeared on Youtube, most notably the ones made by the youtuber ' s:



“I knew people were big at other types of videos, but there was no one big in gaming, and I didn’t know you could make money out of it. It was never like a career that I could just quit college to pursue. it was just something I loved to do. And here we are five years later and it’s exploded.” - Felix Kjellberg

Quality and Impact Not even a year later, on September 8th 2010, the game was published under the namefor Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.Fans of the Penumbra were already prepared for the next big thing and thus, amnesia exploded almost immediately upon its release. By the time the next year came, Amnesia had already sold nearly 200 000 copies, which was a huge achievement for an independent studio at the dawn of the indie gaming craze. However, it was not only previous positive experience that has drawn crowds to scare themselves over and over. A certain phenomenon was also at its beginning and Amnesia just happened to be at the right place at the right time.Back when the internet culture was still in its diapers, huge groups began to form around certain Youtube channels, such as TomSka Smosh or JennaMarbles . Most of these channels would eventually become an important part of the internet culture in terms of their presence or relatability. For example, TomSkahas been quoted repeatedly on the internet forums by people who appreciated random humor that was so popular at the time.However, it was not entirely original content that has spawned the most prominent and ubiquitous Youtube channels. This place has been taken by the "lets play" community, i.e. people, who filmed themselves while commentating a walkthrough of a videogame. But surely, you have spent your fair share of time on the internet and you are more than familiar with this concept. Eight years ago, however, the gaming community on Youtube was a small underground affair and the concept of reaching six-digit subscription numbers on a "lets play" channel was nearly unthinkable.Back then most of the gaming content was watched and shared through sites like Newgrounds , which would also allow for hosting various independent Flash games. Big part of this community, including content creators, would eventually migrate to Youtube, since the videogame community thereslowly became more and more prominent and it was much easier to share content there due to its social-media-like interface and large userbase. This was also due to the rise of letsplayers, most of which have started their channels by either playingor various horror games.As far as horror games in popular culture went, it was mostly about the aforementioned Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Unfortunately for the videomakers, these games could not provide enough entertainment value to the viewers, save for the occasional walk-through or video of a difficult puzzle. To make for and entertaining video, one would need to play something more immersive and personal, such as the Penumbra series, which has gained its small cult following by this time.Since this survival-horror community was already bent on their favourite genre, fresh games were more than welcome. And who would be more fit to provide the biggest hit of the genre other than a studio that has made three successful entries to it already.was heavily anticipated among the fans of theseries and so, videos of the latest game began to emerge as soon as the game hit the shelves of virtual stores. Among the first-day videos we can find ones like SanCo654's playthrough , which was without commentary at the time.It took only a month or two until the first commentary appeared on Youtube, most notably the ones made by the youtuber Pewdiepie . From these humble beginnings, Felix Kjellberg, the man behind the channel, has eventually come to be the most subscribed channel on Youtube and has been the most subscribed non-corporate channel for almost five years straight. In a video titled " Let's Talk About Money ", Kjellberg has given his commentary on the situation in the early 2010s: