New Interview on AMFP - "Infection" Mechanic Was Cut

[Alardem]

I also echo Ash's interest in finding out where this idea about "most" people not completing the game comes from. Sounds dubious to me, given how massively popular TDD is. For a game "most" people haven't finished it's sure done pretty well for itself, financially, critically and culturally! I'm not being flippant here, I would really love to know how anyone could possibly know the completion rate for TDD.

I know that Steam records the total amount of hours played, but it assesses "completion" based off the number of 'achievements' fulfilled in a game. Amnesia doesn't have any 'achievements', so that method would not work. The number of scaredy-cats who claim they're too afraid/bored to finish the game should be a vocal minority, but I'm unsure.

Also, Amnesia 2 was not made "less scary" so much as it was made less difficult - the horror is most definitely there, but the aspects involving your character's interaction with the world are diminished. Game aspects like more frequent monster encounters (the audio interview with Pinchbeck reveals that a Pig would have attacked you within the first 5 minutes of gameplay), more complex level design, the Infection mechanic, resource hunting and harder puzzles were toned down. The interview acknowledges that they went too far in streamlining the game for the sake of progression, to the point that even unaccustomed newcomers i.e. non-gamers end up not scared during gameplay.

[Cue debate about "Casuals vs Hardcores"]