6 people found this review helpful
Recommended
0.0 hrs last two weeks / 25.2 hrs on record
Posted: 30 Sep @ 5:31am
Updated: 30 Sep @ 5:35am

The Evil Within is a survival horror game which wears its inspirations on its sleeve.

...Which is both to its benefit and detriment. There's an immediate sense of familiarity with the game which makes taking it in easier at first and the idea of combining those two worlds is great, however the game often lacks any identity of its own. There's shooting galleries Ala RE4 and then you've got a boss the Executioner which is so similar to the likes of Pyramid head which it might as well be.

The story of the game is very confusing at first, which is not necessarily a bad thing however you are never given a reason to care about anything that is happening. There's no character you are rooting for because everyone is just so bland or downright evil. For example, Ruvik, the game's antagonist, or villain rather, has good reasons for doing SOME of the things he does, however some other things seem to be added on top to what may only seem to make him more edgy? I honestly don't know. The two-parter story DLC somewhat remedies this which is why I consider it a must when purchasing this game. It gives a backstory to one of the characters and a cliffhanger for our protagonist and actually makes the plot interesting.
Regardless the game does offer interesting setpieces and visuals and you are definitely "in for a ride".

Now that's not so bad, I would actually rank this among the best survival horror games I've played but sadly, it's not.

Again concerning identity. The game just doesn't know what it wants to be. Difficulty from chapter to chapter will spike through the roof and below sea level depending on what it wants to do. There's on rails chase sequences in almost every chapter. Think of them like the Gator in RE2R or areas with barely any enemies and then the game for only 2-3 segments will go nuts with enemies or back to back bosses leaving you with no resources whatsoever, since there's no adaptive difficulty that will make enemies drop more ammo here. Some may like this... I didn't since you can screw yourself over because you didn't use a specific weapon for a specific part. The gameplay itself is good, there's weight to your guns and the crossbow is a very interesting weapon that brings it all together with all the different ammo types.

BUT SADLY we are not done.

This game is a mess from a technical perspective and this is the biggest issue I have with the game. Bugs if you unlock the FPS above 60, low FOV unless you use mods and no way to disable the nauseating camera shake (unless ofc, you own the gamepass or epic versions and copy over the files). It just makes me angry.

So we have the debut title of a promising studio, so the story or gameplay flaws I can excuse but there's also the technical issues which push this game into the "one and done" territory for me. Still, glad I played it considering the second game is seemingly an improvement.

Definitely more of a mixed bag but since there's no such ranking, I do recommend it.

My full playthrough of the game here.

My Curator page.
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