REVIEW

The Evil Within 2 Review

by Luke Walsh, October 23rd, 2017

The Evil Within 2 starts with Sebastian Castellanos a drunken man, spending most of his time in bars after he blames himself for the death of his Daughter, Lily. His wife leaves him shortly afterwards and is kicked from the police force as his life spirals downwards. That all changes though when his old colleague Kidman tells him Lily is still alive. He’s told he’ll need to enter the computerised world of STEM to save her after it all goes a bit wrong.

Sebastian was the lead character from the first Evil Within and it seems he doesn’t have much luck being shoved into a familiar situation once again. Despite the fact the storyline is a bit cliché and sometimes struggled to keep a consistent direction, The Evil Within 2 sets out to be an enjoyable Survival Horror experience.

Tango Gameworks has done a great job at creating a chaotic, unstable and tense environment but the character building is a little thin. Even after being thrown into pretty much the same place like before, Sebastian still finds the world around him bizarre spouting lines such as “What the..” or “What the hell…”. The opposite is also true as when in even the most dangerous of situations he rarely speaks or shows any sign of human emotion, apart from when a glimpse of his daughter appears on screen in the form of flashbacks through tear-like “resonances”.

What keeps things interesting is the world itself and it can be downright weird. A nurse runs your upgradable abilities through a world in the mirror, the same place that has a shooting range. Green gel can be used to upgrade your skills for better survival but comes by syringing the blood of fallen enemies. What you actually do with it…drink it, inject it…remains a mystery.

In the early chapters of the game, Union, the town which you are tasked to explore is a semi-open world. A lot of building can be entered and scavenged for supplies which can then be used in crafting ammunition, medical supplies and other bits. In games such as these, I always spend as much time as possible finding every little drop of consumable the world has to offer. This is a useful tactic for a world filled with zombie-like creatures called The Lost.

Typical of games to fall back on the zombie archetype, these guys and girls eat the fallen populous of Union. At first, these are terrifying than they actually are. As toughness on the “Survival” difficulty only really makes these a pain to deal with in the earliest of chapters. Once stocked with different weapons and ammo, two shots to the head or a sneak attack usually finish these off without any issue. For a survival horror, this usually happens with the need to bring in stronger more dangerous enemies without overusing them, The Evil Within 2 is no different.

It’s a shame really, as I spent most my time crouched, buffed with stealth skills where fighting most of The Lost was a test of patience, lacking any real tension. There’s only so many times you’ll jump at one grabbing you from under a rocking car or pretending to be “dead” on the floor before it becomes a sixth sense to see it coming.

Being vulnerable is the key to a survival horror game and apart from The Lost, the other monsters you encounter can be terrifying. Fighting them with a knife is a one-way ticket to suicide with a lot of them requiring a combination of tactics, stealth and sometimes a lot of ammo. Shadows forming creatures skulking past, unfamiliar noises of beasts around the corner and the odd times being trapped in small spaces with them is where the horror aspect of The Evil Within 2 makes your heart pump.

It’s the unexpectedness of the world which makes you stay on edge as you explore. Once I was in a house rooting for supplies, picked up an innocent diary and spawned an elongated ghostly woman. Thinking I could run, I was teleported into an abandoned hospital where my only chance of escape was sneaking around her to find an exit. These discoveries make you expect it to happen at any moment but crave relief when you realise your cautionary approach was unnecessary…this time.

As time went on, I become much more confident taking on enemies as my pockets were full to the brim. I stopped with the Stealth approach and even took the advice of the Nurse in the mirror to “pick up some combat skills”. Instead of using my trusty knife, a quick shotgun to the head finished most enemies but ignoring my survival horror training I thought my plentiful ammo would continue to come.

True, earlier chapters the game throws components and ammo at you but in the later chapters, it all become much more scarce. This was particularly true in a boss battle where a full kit of ammo for every weapon left me barren, searching for components to craft replacements. I was back to crouching, enemies were tougher and a lot of guns in my inventory were empty. The Evil Within 2 set me up to fail by giving me a false sense of pace and security, I loved it.

There are plenty of crazy moments just around the corner.

Apart from the main quest, there are a lot of side missions to complete and although optional are worth doing to learn more about the town of Union. Some were multi-part quests helping Mobius agents for useful rewards while others were smaller simply helping the few remaining citizens.

These tasks help pivot the narrative and keeps things feeling fresh, this is particularly more important in the early chapters where I feel the story is not as strong. You meet a couple of characters along the journey, most only to push Sebastian a little further forward without much substance. Usually, because they die very soon after handing him an item, or telling him where to go. There are a couple notable characters, one particularly towards the later stages of the game. Evil Within 2’s main antagonist, Stephano, is very similar to Sander Cohen from BioShock, an artist who is well articulated and found his art form by dismembering and reassembling people.

This is, however, where The Evil Within 2 takes on the role of a B-movie, the screenplay writer Trent Haaga knows his place in the genre. The game is pretty mad, eccentric, melodramatic and plain creepy, it’s just a shame that for the first half of the game Sebastian is blindly enraged to follow Stephano without much storyline other than “he took my daughter”. Luckily, the second half of the game is much stronger and where you really start to delve into it.

Playing the game on PC, performance was not too bad there were a couple moments where framerates dropped but nowhere in the heat of battle. I don’t have a powerhouse of a PC but it is decent and those who don’t have the recommended 16 gig of ram might want to push down the settings a little, just to be sure.

The only frustration I had is in combat when enemies seemed to be invincible to my gunfire, or no feedback was registered. With The Lost, if they attempt to grapple you, more often than I’d liked bullets hit but had no effect. In a big boss battle, I fired many clips of ammo into them without so much as a flinch to know my shots has connected. In a game where you ammo matters most, it would have been nice for them to not feel wasted.

It might get off to a stuttered beginning but The Evil Within 2 a brilliant survival horror game. It keeps you in a fine balance of tension, confusion and sometimes overconfidence, ready to knock you down a few pegs and watch you build yourself back up again.

The environment is enjoyable to explore, with lots of buildings, alleyways, and other places to explore that is great for any hoarder. The sound and Foley design in the game is chilling, being able to hear the moans of The Lost or noises of more unforgiving monsters lurking on the ceiling or in the darkness.

There’s much more to do than the first title but it will feel familiar to those who played the first game with a lot of the narrative taking bits from the previous game. New players won’t need to worry too much though, it relies on it but does not take away from the storyline.

The pleasantly crazy world is something you’ll enjoy spending your time, even if sometimes it will be an anxious experience or a slightly frustrating one. It’s nice to find a survival horror game that constantly keeps you feel a step behind from your enemies.