The Evil Within is scary. I never start a review with straight out statements like these, but this game deserves it. A lot of games are scary, but few are both scary and good. The Evil Within is one of the few titles which combines both, and that is the reason why I am so compelled to play it even though I know I will just piss myself upon turning on the game.
The game opens up in Beacon Mental Hospital, where there is blood everywhere and also a few corpses laying around. Upon reuniting with an investigation committee, the group meet and check out security camera footage, where something seems to assault multiple cops at once before it teleports behind Sebastian, our hero, and attacks him. Sebastian then wakes up in a butcher store, and this is where he gets in contact with these evil beings for the first time. After escaping from the butcher in a couple of rooms, you enter a lift which takes you back to the mental hospital you made your arrival into, and exiting triggers the initial cutscene, complete with an introduction video, accompanied by spooky music, just to set the mood.
The Evil Within racks up momentum from now on, giving you everything you need on your ventures and then throwing you to the unforgiving environment. As one observes from early on, the enemies are not your usual undead zombies, but rather human beings which have been mutated, probably affected by a disease or something. While you do get a revolver very early on in the game, the ammunition is very limited, and melee punches feel like they do not deal any damage at all, suggesting running is a very good option in the face of danger. The game’s hints while loading also says this, and coming from the game itself means it does have sense of it. Thankfully, you are able to outrun the majority of the enemies by just jogging around, conserving your stamina for the ones who are able to run. Stamina early on is very limited and only consents running for a couple of seconds at best, and exhausting it will have Sebastian bend over while regaining his breath. Thus, short bursts of running are the best tactic to evade enemies. One may also use traps to counter these beings, by baiting them towards the location of the traps while at the same time staying away from harm yourself. Traps may also be disabled to create parts for the Agonizing Crossbow, a weapon which is very flexible in equipping different bows and attachments and thus very handy for whatever situation. The game also features an inventory wheel where you can map different items, weapons or health kits to the d-pad in the order you want, which is very useful when wanting to switch items and guns on the fly. Lighting up downed enemies by means of matches found throughout the world is also a neat trick to conserve ammunition, especially due to the generous amount of matches compared to the very limited ammo available. Sneaking is also an option due to the crouch command, and is made even more appealing because of the fact that you can throw glass bottles to distract the mutants while you traverse to your objective.
The Evil Within also has a neat upgrade system. Green gel is found scattered across various locations. To upgrade, you teleport to a hospital room through special mirrors, and enter a weird chair which permits you to upgrade different abilities, from physical skills like increased life to weapon damage modifiers, to increasing the maximum stock of items and matches. The hospital may also be used to save progress so a visit through the mirror will be made gladly.
The bad guy in the game is Ruvik. Ruvik is a mysterious character, who seems to hold a grudge against Sebastian. He was the one to get you through this horrendous experience, and constantly haunts you and tries to make your life as miserable as possible. One of the game’s best features is the fact that Ruvik may appear before your eyes and the only thing you can do is flee. You cannot harm him no matter what weapon you use. The character is very detailed and has a massively ominous presence. His design is probably my favourite one, even better than Sebastian’s.
The game’s setting is almost always in dark rooms or outside by night, which is almost the case in all horror games. What The Evil Within does right in this respect is that your lantern with which you make light around you gives as much light as is required while not giving too much. This lantern may also be the cause of unnecessary scares due to your shadow popping on the wall, which is recreated very well indeed. The game feels fair compared to other titles which have little light from a smallish torch or a video camera, for example, to increase the tension without doing nothing to the gameplay.
Like all horror games, The Evil Within makes very good use of sound and music to spook the player, while never overdoing it. Enemies rarely make any shouting noises or the like to alert you, but when they are close you can hear their footsteps which is another element in favour of fairness. Some enemies, on the other hand, grunt a lot and can thus be heard from far away. The game plays a low music on the background of the game just to get you in the atmosphere, which really gets to you intense parts. The use of classical music is also incredibly effective, since in parts where I heard the music playing I felt more nervous rather than relax to the music. In fact, I think that my likeness for this genre of music has diminished even more than it was prior to the game. Sound effects are also recreated with incredible accuracy; a breaking bottle in the game would give the impression that a bottle next to you just broke. Effects for menus and inventory wheel are also spot on.
Visually, the game is beautiful and the darkness around never gets in the way of beholding it. Watching a replay on Twitch of my playthrough made me realize also how cinematic the game really is, since because of the anxiety felt ingame no one really gives any attention to details. Really, if there was no interface there would be doubts whether this is a game or a movie. Graphics and textures are beautifully rendered and the characters feel realistic and alive, as if they were next to you. The user interface is also neat and kept to a minimum, not getting in the way of the experience or neither cramming up too much information in the game.
On the negative side of the game, I encountered a bug which was a little annoying, being the enemies not triggering some traps after baiting them to their location. This was a little inconvenient seeing as then you are caught by surprise instead of them in the trap. This happened mainly to the bear traps not getting activated when walking through them. Other than this bug there were no major annoyances or problems. There is also a Season Pass to the game which makes a certainty the inclusion of more content, obtainable at an additional price come release.
On the whole, The Evil Within is one of the best games of the year, and surely is a candidate for best horror of the year. Shinji Mikami, creator of the first Resident Evil has done it yet again with another masterpiece which will terrify players from start to finish on this incredible ride. So you better fasten your seatbelt because there are no stops here!
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
