The Suffering is an action game in which the player controls Torque, the player character, from either a first-person or third-person perspective, depending on their preference. The game is fully playable in both first and third-person views, with all actions available in both modes. Torque can run, shoot, jump, interact with the environment, interact with NPCs, and use items, such as flashlights, flares, flash grenades, TNT, shrapnel grenades, and molotov cocktails. Weaponry includes a shiv, an axe, a .357 revolver, a tommy gun, dual revolvers, a shotgun, an improvised flamethrower, and M2 Brownings. Other items which can be found during the game are Xombium tablets (which restores the player's health), paperwork with story content, maps, ammo, and flashlight batteries.
Most of the enemies in the game are representative of different types of execution methods that have taken place on Carnate Island. Slayers represent decapitation, Marksmen represent death by firing squad, Mainliners represent lethal injection, Noosemen represent hanging, and Burrowers represent burial alive. Other creatures represent events from Carnate's history. Festers are the reincarnation of slave traders who ran their slave ship aground on Carnate, and left their slaves tied up in the hold to be eaten by rats, rather than freeing them. Infernas are the trapped spirits of three children who accused eleven innocent people of being witches during the time of a Puritan settlement on the island. The eleven people were burnt alive.
As Torque kills enemies during the game, an on-screen meter called his "Insanity meter" begins to fill. Once it is full, it begins to flash, and at this point, Torque can transform into a monster. In this form, Torque can tear enemies apart and can perform several powerful attacks. The more enemies Torque kills whilst in this form, the more powerful the monster becomes and the more combo moves become available. However, when in this form, Torque's health automatically depletes, and if he doesn't change back to his human form prior to his health meter fully depleting, he will die.
A major part of the gameplay in The Suffering concerns Torque's morality. At numerous points during the game, the player will encounter situations where they have several choices as to how to proceed. These situations involve NPCs, and the choices are usually to help the person (good morality), kill them (bad morality), or ignore them (neutral morality). In many situations, when Torque first encounters an NPC, the player will hear the voice of Torque's dead wife urging him to help them, and almost immediately afterwards will hear the voice of a demon urging him to kill them. How Torque's actions affect his morality is usually indicated by the reaction of his wife, who will praise him if he commits a good act and chastise him if he does something evil. Often, when Torque saves an NPC, they fight alongside him for a time. However, not every choice presents the player with all three possibilities. For example, when Torque finds the controls to the electric chair, he can turn the chair on to torture an inmate strapped to it (bad morality), or simply ignore the controls (neutral morality). There is no good morality choice available here. Another example is when Torque finds a guard who has had his limbs removed and is slowly dying. He can kill the man to relieve him of his misery (good morality), or ignore him (neutral morality). Here, there is no bad morality choice. Over the course of the game, the decisions made concerning Torque's morality cumulate, and the player will get one of three endings based on Torque's final morality level. The player can get a rough idea of Torque's morality level by both Torque's own physical appearance (he will begin to look less and less human the more evil acts he commits) and by looking at a family photograph which he carries with him at all times; the cleaner the photo, the purer his morality. If the photo is dirty, crumpled and covered in blood, his morality is moving towards evil.
Plot
The game begins as Torque (who never speaks) is being escorted by CO Ernesto Alvarez (voiced by Mark Dias) onto death row in Abbott State Penitentiary on Carnate Island, off the coast of Maryland, an island with a long and troubled history. Torque has been sentenced to death for murdering his ex-wife and their two children, although he claims to have blacked out during the incident, and can remember nothing. Shortly after entering his cell, an earthquake rocks the prison, and moments later, all of the inmates on death row except Torque are killed by strange creatures. One of the creatures opens Torque's cell, and he sets out to escape. After seeing several guards killed by the creatures, Torque uses security monitors to find the entire prison is under attack. He then gets a phone call from his dead wife, Carmen (Rafeedah Keys), telling him the island is more than a prison, that it brings out evil in everyone, and advising him to escape as soon as he can.
Descending to the basement, he soon encounters the spirits of three of Abbot's most famous occupants. Dr. Killjoy (voiced by John Armstrong) was a psychiatrist/surgeon who ran an insane asylum on the island in the 1920s. Obsessed with discovering what is wrong with Torque, Killjoy appears as an image projected from 16 mm film projectors. Hermes T. Haight (John Patrick Lowrie) was the executioner in Abbot for twenty-seven years, before he committed suicide in the gas chamber. He appears as a green vapor formed into the shape of a human. Hermes is determined to drive Torque into unleashing the evil inside him. Horace P. Gauge (John Armstrong) was an inmate who was executed in the electric chair for murdering his wife during a conjugal visit. Full of guilt for his actions, he claims Carnate drove him to it, and wants to help Torque realize his decency. He appears in the form of electricity. They teach Torque how to unleash the anger inside himself and transform into a powerful monster, although the transformation is only in Torque's mind.
