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 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. 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 about 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.
Plot
Chapter One: Moving Pictures
In 1963, retired animator Henry Stein receives a letter from his former employer, Joey Drew, asking him to return to Drew's studio and see something important. Having not worked there for 30 years, Henry finds the place abandoned but discovers an ink machine in the basement, installed after Henry's departure. He finds a tape recording 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 characters. Once Henry fixes and starts the machine, he is attacked by the Ink Demon, a monster resembling the studio's mascot Bendy, as the studio begins to fill with ink. Henry flees toward an exit, only for the floor to collapse and drop him into the studio's lower levels. Draining the ink from several rooms, he finds a chamber whose floor is marked with strange diagrams. He hallucinates seeing the ink machine, a wheelchair, and the Ink Demon before passing out.
Chapter Two: The Old Song
Henry wakes up and begins to search for another way out, eventually reaching the studio's music department where he first encounters hostile ink monsters known as Searchers. A stairwell leading to the exit is overflowing with ink, which must be drained by flipping a switch in the office of musical director Sammy Lawrence. Henry learns that Sammy had begun to worship Bendy as a deity after the ink machine was installed. Once the stairwell is clear, Henry tries to leave but is knocked unconscious by a now-insane Sammy, who plans to sacrifice him to Bendy in the hope of having his humanity restored. As Henry escapes, Sammy is dragged away by Ink Bendy, who then chases Henry through the studio until he flees through a door and barricades it behind himself. He is surprised to encounter Boris hiding in this area, alive and whole.
Chapter Three: Rise and Fall
Henry and Boris leave Boris' improvised safehouse to continue searching for an exit. In the studio's toy department, they find another ink creature who is a distorted version of the character Alice Angel. She leads them to her lair and reveals that she has been harvesting the body parts of other characters in an effort to keep herself beautiful. Henry must perform several tasks for Alice in order for her to let him and Boris go free, learning from tape recordings that Alice's original voice actress became bitter when Joey suddenly hired a replacement for her. As Henry carries out 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 Boris, but Alice forces it to crash to the bottom of its shaft and suddenly pulls Boris into the darkness, proclaiming that she wants to use him to fix herself.
Chapter Four: Colossal Wonders
Climbing out of the crashed lift, Henry ventures deeper into the studio in search of Boris and finds a lounge filled with Lost Ones, ink creatures who show no hostility. He also discovers that Joey had been planning to open a Bendy-themed amusement park 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 Boris, Henry must restore power to the haunted house attraction by finding and flipping a series of switches, one of which is guarded by a ride that contains the remains of a revenge-driven Bertrum. After flipping the last switch, Henry is chased by the Projectionist, who is in turn ambushed by Ink Bendy and decapitated. Ink Bendy notices Henry but leaves him alone, and Henry enters the haunted house only to find that Alice has turned Boris into a hulking beast named Brute Boris. Henry is forced to kill him in self-defense; Alice then tries to kill Henry in a rage, but is fatally impaled by a machete from behind. The wielder is Allison Angel, a physically intact and sane duplicate of Alice. She is accompanied by Tom, a wolf character similar to Boris who is an entity of studio repairman Thomas Connor.
Chapter Five: The Last Reel
Allison and Tom hold Henry captive, but he eventually gains Allison's trust and she gives him a 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. Sammy attacks Henry, having survived his encounter with Ink Bendy at the end of Chapter 2 and blaming Henry for Ink Bendy's decision to abandon him. Unmasked by Henry, Sammy gains the upper hand and tries to kill him, only to be killed by Tom instead. Tom and Allison aid Henry in fighting off the Searchers and Lost Ones, the latter of whom were only kept in check by Sammy, and Henry moves ahead on his own. Tape recordings reveal the truth about the studio's downfall; after the Bendy cartoons declined in popularity, Joey began looking for a way to bring the characters fully to life and installed the ink machine as a means to this end. The first attempt resulted in the creation of Ink Bendy, who was rejected as a monster because he had no soul, and Joey tried to use his employees' souls to create better attractions.
