You play the role of Torque, a death row inmate with an ambiguous past who has been imprisoned for slaying his ex-wife and children. Shortly after being interred in a new prison on Carnate Island, an earthquake appears to release demonic creatures based on the many modes of execution used in the sordid history of the island. These creatures proceed to eliminate much of the prison population, leaving only you and a scant few other inmates and guards to eliminate the horde and find out what has happened.
A GameCube version was already planned, but was cancelled because previous Midway titles sold poorly on the platform.
Development
The creatures and characters in The Suffering were designed by movie special effects master Stan Winston (designer of the Terminator exoskeleton, the Predator, the Alien Queen and the Jurassic Park dinos). The prison of Abbott State Penitentiary in the game was partially inspired by Alcatraz; Alcatraz was originally a military prison and the prison in the game was built from the remains of a WW2 army base.
German version
There are a number of changes in the German version:
The making of feature and a trailer were removed.
There are no mutilated humans to be found.
Several cutscenes were cut. In some just the blood was removed, a few scenes are completely darkened out.
In the PlayStation 2 version, an instrument of torture was removed from a dead guard.
All swastikas were removed (this applies to every version except US)