Bendy and the Ink Machine developer Joey Drew Studios has revealed the November 15, 2022, release date of the sequel, Bendy and the Dark Revival. The first game in the horror franchise released episodically over the course of two years beginning in 2017. Bendy and the Ink Machine was received mostly positively, won a few awards, and also experienced a surge in popularity when it made the rounds on the channels of well-known YouTube content creators like Markiplier and Jacksepticeye.
The game, which features a stylized world resembling a cartoon from the 1930s and 40s, was also heavily inspired by the BioShock series. Bendy and the Ink Machine is a survival horror game that tells the story of a retired animator named Henry Stein who visits his former workplace, Joey Drew Studios, and learns that some of the company’s cartoon characters are now alive. The sequel to Bendy and the Ink Machine was announced in December 2019 and was expected to come out sometime in 2020, but after that didn’t happen, fans remained uncertain about when they might get their hands on the game.
Now, a new trailer has revealed that Bendy and the Dark Revival will release for PC on November 15, 2022. There will also be Xbox and PlayStation versions available at a later date, though it’s unclear whether that will be on last-gen or current-gen consoles. The brief video shows that the trademark graphics of the series have been retained, though with a nice visual overhaul, and many of the gameplay mechanics from the first game will be present in Bendy and the Dark Revival.
Players will once again find themselves navigating in first-person perspective through Joey Drew Studios and will need to use agility, stealth, and environmental puzzle-solving to overcome obstacles and defeat “ink-tainted” enemies. This time around, players will embody Audrey, a cartoonist and animator who finds herself mutated and possessing mysterious powers.
If the title “The Dark Revival” sounds familiar, that’s because Joey Drew Studios already released another indie game in the series with a very similar title in February 2020. Boris and the Dark Survival serves as a prequel to Bendy and the Ink Machine and again takes players through the inky, corrupted animation studio, this time as Bendy’s cartoon wolf companion Boris.
In addition to games, there are other ways for fans to learn even more about the lore of this unique cartoon universe. Shortly after its successful launch, the world of Bendy became a full-fledged franchise with animated shorts, a crossover with Cuphead, a mobile spinoff game called Bendy in Nightmare Run, and other merchandise. There are also two books in Bendy and the Ink Machine, titled Dreams Come to Life and The Illusion of Living, which have since both actually been published. Written by Adrienne Kress, they provide further insight into the world of Joey Drew and the fictional animation studio that he founded.
Bendy and the Dark Revival releases for PC on November 15, 2022, with PlayStation and Xbox console versions in development.
Source: Joey Drew Studios