Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh - Plot

Plot

In the game the player controls Curtis Craig, an introverted 26-year old man who, on the surface, seems to be living a mundane life, while working at a pharmaceutical company. However, the player quickly learns that nothing in this game's environment is what it may appear to be. Curtis regularly has disturbing visions of gore throughout his office and sees messages on his computer, such as an e-mail from Hell offering him a job as a murderer.

Curtis has been released from a mental institution one year prior to the game's events, and following the onset of his visions he has regular visits with a therapist. His mental health problems largely stem from having an abusive mother who committed suicide and a father who, before he died, was working on a top secret project at Wyntech, the same company where Curtis is currently employed. Curtis has repressed most of his childhood memories, and over the course of the game he remembers that his father was murdered by Wyntech.

One day, Bob, an unpleasant and backstabbing coworker is brutally murdered in Curtis' cubicle. Though Bob was generally disliked, Curtis has expressed the desire to kill him and Curtis expresses apathy towards Bob's death, which leads him to suspect that he may have murdered him in a psychotic break.

While Curtis is dating a controlling female office coworker Jocelyn, he also becomes involved with a more liberated woman, Therese, who introduces him to the local S&M fetish scene. His best friend Trevor is an openly homosexual man, and Curtis himself admits to his therapist he is likely bisexual, claiming to be attracted to Trevor.

After Curtis' superior Tom is murdered as well; Curtis suspects his boss, Paul Allen Warner (who had threatened Tom the previous day) to have murdered him and possibly Bob as well. The next day Therese is murdered as well. As the number of deaths and hallucinations keeps increasing Curtis eventually discovers this is all connected to "Project Threshold", the project his father had worked on. Decades prior, Wyntech had discovered a rift leading to "Dimension X" in the basement of their building and sought to use it for monetary gain, performing experiments using mental patients supplied by the corrupt Dr. Marek, a doctor at the asylum where Craig was committed. At one point, Warner even used the then pre-pubescent Craig as a subject, without his father's permission. The project was eventually shut down when the military showed no interest but was recently reactivated when Warner discovered the inhabitants of Dimension X could synthesize any chemical desired at the cost of some components and a couple of "human specimens". Warner planned on sacrificing several people in exchange for a highly addictive antidepressant/weight loss drug, which would then be released on the market, causing the Earth's population to want to become addicted on the product and making Wyntech the most powerful corporation on Earth.

After Curtis' therapist and Trevor are murdered, Curtis confronts Warner. Warner is suddenly knocked out by the Hecatomb, a horrifying humanoid creature that introduces itself as a "manifestation" of the real Curtis Craig. It turns out that the Curtis that came out of the rift is in fact an alien duplicate while the real Curtis was trapped on Dimension X and became hideously mutated and developed psychic powers as a result. The real Curtis, acting through the Hecatomb, was responsible for the murders and hallucinations with the purpose of driving the duplicate Curtis insane so that he could take over his body. The duplicate Curtis escapes the Hecatomb through the Dimension X portal, kills the real Curtis and returns to Earth. Jocelyn suddenly appears revealing that (somehow) she knows the truth and that she loves him. However, a message from the inhabitants of Dimension X is heard asking Curtis to return since he doesn't belong on Earth. The player then has the choice between two endings: either Curtis chooses to leave, in which case he spends one last day with Jocelyn before departing or he chooses to remain on Earth. If the player chooses the latter, we see Curtis and Jocelyn talking happily in a restaurant while the camera focus on Curtis' hand beneath the table which morphs into a grotesque blob before changing back.

A post-credits scene shows the still-living severed head of Warner suspended in the air in Dimension X.