GENRES: Walking simulator, "horror", artsy
MY RATING: 25%
RECOMMENDED RETAIL/PURCHASE PRICE: €2.00


As far as run-of-the-mill horror games hyped up by YouTubers go, Layers of Fear may just be the run-of-the-milliest. The publicity it garnered from throne-sat let's players was nothing to scoff at, either; I remember it well, that first PewDiePie video, as he waded through the wake of Amnesia: The Dark Descent, casting the eyes of his blooming audience towards his playthrough of the promising demo of this very title. Oh, the excitement I felt, when the prospect of another Amnesia-like series flooded into my mid-teenage mind. Needless to say, I was ready to see what wonders the official release would hold.

But I never did watch that series of his; and I can't entirely say why. Maybe the full game took too long to release for me to retain a vested interest, or maybe I just stopped wanting to watch PewDiePie. Either way, Layers of Fear and the hype that surrounded it fizzled out of my mind, and I continued on existing without it.

That was, of course, until a dear friend gifted it to me for my birthday.
"Layers of Fear?" I reminisced, with a vague fondness, "That old game? I wonder if it holds up to the hype."

And then I forgot about it again for a while. A few months later, I found myself spiritlessly sweeping my library for a long-forgotten, unplayed title to cure me of my crippling boredom. Immediately, Layers of Fear caught my eye, and a mild excitement brimmed within me. I installed it right away, curious to see how it had evolved since that PewDiePie video all those years ago. It finished installing and I started it up, setting aside the next two hours to play through the game in its entirety.

Tragically, my friends, I will never see those two hours again. God rest their temporal souls.

Layers of Fear isn't just bad - it's boring. I don't mind it so much when a game has a gripping story but a lack of compelling gameplay, and the same can be said when the opposite is true, but this game somehow manages to have neither! I found myself holding W and occasionally stopping to open an empty drawer as I wandered through those folding halls of mild atmospheric tension, waiting with ironically bated breath for the next blatantly obvious jumpscare to make a loud noise in an attempt to elicit a reaction from me. Layers of Fear has no monster to hide from, no dwindling sanity to manage, no difficult choices, no clever puzzles - in fact, a part of me is convinced that the game has no soul! And every game needs to have a soul to get published on Steam! The game's only saving grace is that the artwork within it is wonderful; it manages to be creepy and beautiful, and I found myself stopping to appreciate the paintings, finding momentary solace in their relative excitement before going back to walking down empty hallways. Until I reached the game's ending.

And what an ending it was?

Sorry, I worded that poorly; what I meant to say was "And what kind of ending was that?"
I was so profoundly disappointed by the game's ending that I instantly checked to make sure there weren't any alternate, TRUE endings. And, thankfully, there were!
"Oh, the relief," I exhaled, "I thought I just wasted the last two hours of my life for a moment there."
So, I started up the game again, replaying it twice, in its entirety, to get both other endings.

Another two hours, taken too soon. Lowered into the earth atop their lifeless progenitors. Their time was up, they had clocked out, and I was ticked off. Filled with a primordial discontent, I warned my friends of the calamitous sludge that is Layers of Fear, and swore to one day avenge my four slain hours with a strongly-worded, if occasionally humorous, review.
And here we are.

At its best, Layers of Fear is a suspenseful and intriguing art gallery, that occasionally surprises you with unexpected visuals.
At its worst, (where it seems to enjoy spending most of its time,) the game is bland, boring, and overall shamefully lacking in genuine fear. If I had to re-title it, I would go with something closer to "Layer of the Occasional Irritating Jumpscare". I feel like that's a little more representative of the final product. I wonder if PewDiePie enjoyed it.


Thank you for taking the time to read my review on Layers Of Fear! I'd appreciate if you could rate it, and let me know what I could do to make my reviews better. Happy hunting!