The Suffering captures the disturbing and terrifying nature of the horror genre in a third-person action/adventure game set in the mature and gritty world of a maximum-security prison. The player controls the prisoner Torque, a hardened inmate in his late 20s, sentenced to die for a murder he may or may not have actually committed. Slightly mentally instable, Torque has flashbacks to the events from his past, throbbing images that depict the events that lead up to the crime for which he was imprisoned. The game features nine levels, frightening character morphs, and more than 10 deadly weapons from the shiv to the tommy gun to aid in the survival of this freakish nightmare.