Bendy and the Ink Machine

Bendy and the Ink Machine is a survival horror game that features a mixture of puzzle solving, environment exploration and combat to aid Henry on his journey through the darkened halls of Joey Drew Studios. Players explore through a first-person view and have limited physical actions such as running and jumping. Different items can be collected, some of which are required to perform various tasks before proceeding. Cans of bacon soup, a reference to the game's creator theMeatly and his partner Mike Mood, can also be collected for achievements and to restore Henry's health if he is injured.

Combat is primarily focused around a variety of different melee-based weapons, such as an axe, pipe, plunger, or scythe. There are also long-range weapons such as a tommy gun or bacon soup cans. In-game enemies all have different strength levels and resilience to damage, forcing players to be tactical about keeping out of reach and striking when necessary. Failure to do so will result in a death. Henry can retreat inside Little Miracle Stations whenever enemies are nearby in order to recover or remain out of sight. If he takes too much damage, he can escape from the ink that consumes him and respawn at one of the numerous statues of Bendy that act as checkpoints.

In addition, players can find numerous audio logs throughout the studio that give more details about the game's story, particularly concerning the fate of the studio and its employees, similar to the systems used in games such as BioShock. Some of these logs can be missed and require further exploration to uncover the secret areas they often reside In.

Chapter 1: Moving Pictures

In August 1966, retired animator in his 50s, Henry Stein receives a letter from his former friend and employer, Joey Drew, asking him to return to their animation studio and see something important. He visits the now abandoned studio, but discovers an "ink machine", installed sometime after Henry's departure 30 years earlier. He finds a tape recording by janitor Wally Franks that suggests Joey engaged in bizarre occult practices while making the machine, as well as a mutilated real-life analogue of Boris the Wolf, one of the studio's cartoon characters. Once Henry fixes and starts the machine, he is attacked by a creature known as "Ink Bendy" that looks like an evil version of studio mascot Bendy. As the studio begins to fill with ink, Henry flees toward the exit, only for the floor to collapse and drop him into the studio's lower levels. Draining the ink from this area, he finds a chamber whose floor is marked with strange diagrams. He hallucinates seeing the ink machine, a wheelchair, and then Ink Bendy before passing out.

Chapter 2: The Old Song

Henry wakes up and begins to search for a way out, eventually reaching the music department. Henry finds a stairwell leading to the exit, but the entrance is flooded with ink. While looking for a way to drain it, he is attacked by ink creatures known as the Searchers; once they are defeated, Henry enters the office of Sammy Lawrence, the studio's musical director. After completing several tasks to drain the ink, Henry hurries toward the exit but is attacked by Sammy, whose body has been transformed into ink. Sammy intends to sacrifice Henry to Ink Bendy in order to become a human again, but before he can do so, he is dragged away by Ink Bendy and presumably killed. Henry frees himself and flees through the studio, pursued by Ink Bendy. Barricading himself behind a door, he waits until Ink Bendy has left and then meets a living, intact Boris, called Buddy Boris.

Chapter 3: Rise And Fall

Henry befriends Buddy Boris, and the two leave the latter's safehouse to continue searching for an exit. In the toy department, they find another ink creature called Twisted Alice, who is a distorted version of actress Susie Campbell and the good character Alice Angel. Twisted Alice leads them to her lair and reveals that she has been harvesting the ink of other characters in order to make herself beautiful. Henry must perform several tasks for Twisted Alice in order for her to let him and Buddy Boris go free, learning from tape recordings that Susie Campbell became bitter when Joey suddenly hired a replacement for her, called Allison Pendle. Because of Joey not telling Susie that he replaced her with Allison Pendle, and the latter doing to do the voice acting of Alice Angel, the ink transformed Susie Campbell into Twisted Alice. As Henry carries out Twisted Alice's tasks, he must hide from both Ink Bendy and the Projectionist, an entity of projector operator Norman Polk. Henry completes the tasks and boards a lift to escape with Buddy Boris, but Twisted Alice forces it to crash to the bottom of its shaft and suddenly pulls Buddy Boris into the darkness.

Chapter 4: Colossal Wonders

Climbing out of the crashed lift, Henry ventures deeper into the studio in search of Buddy Boris and finds a lounge filled with the Lost Ones, ink creatures who show no hostility. He also discovers that Joey had been planning to open a Bendy-themed amusement park called Bendy Land with the help of famed ride designer Bertrum Piedmont. Henry enters a large warehouse filled with rides, games, and props from the planned park. In order to reach Buddy Boris, Henry must restore power to the haunted house attraction by finding and flipping a series of switches, which requires Henry to do a series of challenges. Upon restoring the power, Henry meets Buddy Boris, but as a twisted version of him called Brute Boris. Twisted Alice orders Brute Boris to kill Henry. Henry tries to kill him, and when he does, it frees Buddy Boris' ghost. Twisted Alice then tries to kill Henry herself but is killed with a sword from behind by Allison Angel, a physically intact and sane duplicate of Alice Angel and reincarnation of Susie's replacement, Allison Pendle. She is accompanied by Tom, a reincarnation of worker Thomas Connor as a wolf character similar to Boris.

Chapter 5: The Last Reel

Allison and Tom hold Henry captive, but he eventually gains Allison's trust and she gives him a "seeing tool" that allows him to see hidden messages on the walls. After Tom inadvertently reveals the location of their hideout to Ink Bendy, he and Allison abandon Henry and flee. Henry escapes on his own and crosses a river of ink on a paddleboat, reaching a shantytown built by the Lost Ones. There, Henry is attacked by Sammy, shown to still be alive and blaming Henry for Ink Bendy's decision to abandon him. Unmasked by Henry, Sammy tries to kill him, only for Tom to kill him instead. After Tom gains Henry's trust, Tom and Allison aid Henry in fighting off the Searchers and Lost Ones, revealed Sammy kept them at bay, and Henry falls into the administration hallways. After completing a puzzle, Henry finds Tom and Allison. Henry learns that Ink Bendy has stolen something important from the film vault and enters his lair — a much vaster version of the ink machine — to retrieve it. Allison and Tom remain behind, fearing that the ink will absorb and corrupt them. Inside, Henry finds one last tape recording by Joey, expressing his regret for everything that has happened and asking Henry to destroy Bendy. Henry finds the stolen item, a film reel marked "The End." Ink Bendy chases him throughout the machine while transforming into a giant beast, called Beast Bendy. Henry eventually plays the reel, projecting a "The End" title card on every available screen and causing Beast Bendy to disintegrate when he sees it.

The game suddenly changes to a flashback in the inside of Joey's home, with a bulletin board covered with letters from Allison Pendle, now married to Thomas Connor, and Wally Franks as well as sketches such as Bendy Land. Entering the kitchen, Henry finds Joey waiting to talk to him about the paths they took in their lives. After Joey tells to Henry visit the studio, Henry exits the house and finds himself immediately entering it, repeating his opening lines from Chapter 1. It is presumed that Henry and all of the studio's employees, now ink monsters and ink characters are trapped in a time loop of unknown origin.

In a post-credits scene, the camera focuses on a framed portrait of Bendy, Boris and Alice, which was a gift from Henry to congratulate Joey for his success (alongside a rusty ink machine sitting in one corner of the room). Just then, a little girl's voice asks "Uncle Joey" to tell her another story, implying that the entire game was merely a story Joey was telling his niece.

The idea for Bendy and the Ink Machine came from theMeatly pondering the idea of a world that resembled a cartoon sketch. As he started developing the idea, he realized that it felt "creepy" and needed a monster that inhabited it. Bendy was created to be that monster, but did not have a name. When the character finally received a 3D model, the name was chosen from a typo while saving it in a 3D modeling program, Blender. theMeatly was not a programmer and thus Mike Mood joined the production as he saw potential in the game.[4] Bendy and the Ink Machine was inspired by the BioShock series.[5]

The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ports were developed and published by Rooster Teeth Games, originally intended to be released on October 26, 2018, while the Nintendo Switch port was scheduled to release on November 20, 2018, but both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One's release dates were pushed to the same date for Nintendo Switch's release. On December 15, 2018, a mobile port was announced by theMeatly and Joey Drew Studios Inc., and it was released on December 21, 2018.

While the game was highly acclaimed by the community, the critic reviews are largely mixed, with aggregating review website GameRankings assigning the PlayStation 4 port a score of 77.50%,[10] the Xbox One for 75.00%,[11] and Nintendo Switch for 65.00%,[12] but the original PC port was not received yet.[13] The critic review from Metacritic was not received yet. It receives praise centering on its vintage aesthetic and story. In the months following its release, it quickly gained a cult following from exposure on platforms like YouTube and Twitch. The game has received the "Best Horror Game" award by IGN and is listed as #1 in "18 Best Horror Games of 2017", while its percent score didn't receive from the site yet.[14] The mobile port received the "Game of the Day" award on February 23, 2019.[15]

A mobile spin-off called Bendy in Nightmare Run was announced on January 26, 2018.[16] It was released on the App Store on August 15, 2018[17][18] and on the Google Play Store on September 27, 2018. The game is an endless runner style game involving the player characters of either Bendy, Boris, or Alice collecting Bacon Soup while running away from large bosses chasing the player character.

The creator has discussed wanting to collaborate with the developers of Cuphead, another game with rubber hose animation.[19]

A spin-off called Boris and the Dark Survival was released on February 10, 2020, on Bendy and the Ink Machine's 3-year anniversary. The game is a prequel, taking place before the first chapter of the original game. It revolves around Boris the Wolf searching through the different levels of Joey Drew Studios looking for supplies for his safehouse while escaping Ink Bendy, Twisted Alice, the Projectionist, the Butcher Gang, or Borkis, a yellow-eyed version of Boris.

Another game, Bendy and the Dark Revival was announced on April 14, 2019. A gameplay trailer was released on June 24, 2019, announcing the game's release for Fall 2019. However, in December 2019, a new trailer was released to say that the game was being delayed and will release sometime in 2020. Another trailer was released on June 1, 2020, revealing that the game would be released in its entirety with all five chapters included, unlike the first game which was released episodically. The trailer also suggested the game would come out in the latter half of 2020.[20]

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