Resident Evil is not only considered one of the biggest video game franchises of all time, but the start of the survival horror genre. The influencer of all influencers. Well maybe not to that extent, but you get the idea. With its dreary atmosphere, tight focus on resource management, and fight or flight combat Resident Evil helped pave the way for several other survival horror experiences. Such games would include the masterpiece that is Silent Hill 2, a game so dense and full of depth that it focuses less on horror and more on symbolizing mental illnesses. Telling the tale of a broken man trying to forgive himself for the death of his wife. The sci-fi thrill ride Dead Space, which took direct influence from Resident Evil 4’s rushing on all side combat and made a variety of enemies that required a strategy rather than just shooting them in the head. F.E.A.R where making quick second decisions was the pinnacle to surviving against a horde of super soldiers. Most recently… well the one we’re gonna talk about today.
One of the main directors that helped out with the production of the Resident Evil games was Shinji Mikami, who worked at Capcom since the early 1990s. He enjoyed his time working on Resident Evil, but unfortunately once Capcom started to get too crowded and drove some of their famous franchises into the ground. Many of its main members left Capcom to work on other projects or seek work elsewhere, one of them being Mikami. Eventually Mikami and a few of his closest friends went off to establish their new studio, Tango Gameworks, a team independent from Cacpom but still maintained the Triple A standards most studios had. Mikami still wanted to make survival horror experiences but he no longer had the rights to the Resident Evil franchise, so he decided to make what was basically his own Resident Evil.
In 2013, Mikami and his team announced their new project to be known as The Evil Within, which was basically a mix between The Matrix and Nightmare of Elm Street. There was high speculation as to what The Evil Within would be. Would it serve as a spiritual successor to Resident Evil, or stand tall enough to maintain its own unique identity? These questions would be answered until release day, and luckily big Bethesda stepped in to buy out Tango Gameworks and help with the publishing of this project. Whoops, that can’t be good. In 2014, The Evil Within was finally released and it was met with pretty mixed reviews, receiving both good and bad reception. Some people stated that it was a solidly designed survival horror experience reflecting the roots of more traditional survival horror experiences and intense action. It even had a setting and atmosphere more dreary than your typical Resident Evil game. Others thought it was a mediocre title having a poorly written cringeworthy story that didn’t add up, pacing and encounters that were all over the place, and constant frame rate issues which could probably be due to how Mikami and his team were trying to rush The Evil Within onto next generation consoles. The Evil Within was kind of a flop at release, selling not as many copies as Tango Gameworks and Bethesda anticipated, but seeing how the game was patched overtime it showed how dedicated Mikami and his team were dedicated to making a good survival horror experience. One that paid respect to the past. Seeing how The Evil Within was starting to earn a cult following, consisting of individuals who obviously wanted more traditional survival horror goodness, Tango Gameworks began development on the sequel, The Evil Within 2.
However, Mikami would step down from his position as lead director and pass the duty onto a man named John Johanas. Mikami would help develop the game and make sure all the design choices actually added up this time around, and Johannes would decide where the game would go next in the plot and pacing. Evil Within 2 was announced during E3 2017 and sadly people weren’t really that excited for this game. Players of the original worried that it would end up being the mess the first game was, and then there was that audience who forgot about the first game since it was such a niche product.
Little did they know The Evil Within 2 turned out to be a huge step up from the first game. Sure it had a pretty rough launch, it still didn’t sell the amount of copies that Tango Gameworks wished it could, and unfortunately it came out the same year that Resident Evil 7 and Outlast 2 came out which were both the biggest horror games of the year. However, The Evil Within 2 made a lot of improvements and it certainly was the boldest amongst the three. The gameplay was vastly improved, level design was more varied, the story was better focused, and the game overall was pretty good. Many critics stated The Evil Within 2 was the perfect example of how to make a modern action survival horror game and some said it was an underrated gem. Johanas truly deserves the praise for all his hard work, and seeing how I just beat The Evil Within 2 a few days ago I can confirm it’s a good game. Great even in a couple of categories! Today we’ll be talking about why I surprisingly enjoyed my time with The Evil Within 2 and why it deserves your attention. So prepare to dive deep into the mind.
Story
Set three years after the events of the first game, where ace detective Sebastian Castelannos and a couple of his allies defeated a mad psychopath named Ruvik through a horrifying simulated world, Sebastian has retired from the Krimson City Police Department and spends his days mourning his problems away. Drinking mass amounts of alcohol and trying to forget about his family. The events that drove them all away and left him a ruined man. Specifically the loss of his young daughter Lily, who perished in a house fire while Sebastian was at work. His wife went crazy thinking that Lily may still be alive, but Sebastian tries to convince her that Lily will never come back. Sebastian’s wife leaves him and he is left alone to spend the rest of his days sitting at a desk. Drink coffee, read papers, investigate a crime scene, go home, repeat. Sebastian blames himself for his daughter’s death and ever since then has beening loathing..
One night while at a local bar Sebastian is confronted by his old partner Juli Kidman, who was revealed to be a secret agent working for a corporation known as Mobius. Juli informs Sebastian that Lily may still be alive and that her consciousness is lost deep within a simulation similar to the one he explored before that Mobius set up called STEM. Sebastian refuses to believe her after the betrayal from last time, but she provides evidence by stating to him that the house fire years ago was actually fake and actually set up by Mobius. Sebastian still doesn't believe Kidman and refuses to go back into STEM, but after being knocked out by men in black suits he is taken to Mobius headquarters. He is shown the amount of people trapped within STEM and the massive capsule possibly containing his daughter. He is informed that a team of Mobius operatives have been sent into STEM to find Lily, but went missing after a few hours. He is tasked to track the rescue team down along with what’s causing the disturbances, and if he does so he may be able to get his daughter back.
Sebastian is sent into the simulated town known as Union only to find that the place is overrun with man-eating monsters, more than half the residents are dead, and that a psychotic teleporting artist is on the loose killing anyone who tries to escape the simulation. The artist talks about a little girl who is in the simulated world and the description he gives matches up to Lily. Sebastian, knowing what he must do, decides to chase after the bastard and find the whereabouts of Lily. Something strange is going on in Union, and Sebastian will soon realize that there is a much deeper threat lying deep within. That’s why the title of the game is, “The Evil Within”.
Gameplay
The Evil Within 2 takes everything you love about classic survival horror and blends it with a few interesting mechanics to make it an entirely unique experience. You explore each area collecting supplies, fighting or sneaking your way around enemies, and completing any mission objective assigned to you. When it comes to enemy encounters you have two options, stealth and going guns blazing, and depending on what you are facing one specific approach may be better. Sometimes sneaking around is the best option, because with careful planning you can stealth takedown enemies and preserve supplies for tougher encounters. Especially the ones the game forces you into.
If you do get spotted almost every enemy in the vicinity will home in towards your location and try to take you down. The combat in this game is more action packed than other survival horror games, because while some enemies can chop you down within seconds you have a powerful arsenal of tools to tear right through them. You can throw a jar to distract them or lure them towards a spot for a stealth takedown. Pick up an ax that can take down enemies in a single swing, but has a limited amount of uses before it breaks. Fire your crossbow which has a range of elemental arrows. Shock arrows to stun enemies or groups of them in pools of water, explosive arrows which can bounce off walls and detonate if latched onto an enemy, or normal piercing arrows that can instantly kill an enemy with a well placed headshot. Then there are basic options like the shotgun which is great up close, and the pistol which is much weaker but good for a ranged approach. If your gunshots don’t kill them immediately but knock them down towards the ground then you can perform a finisher, which kills them immediately.
There are other ways to take down foes besides using your weapons. By using the environment to your advantage you can get the edge on them. Like shooting an explosive barrel, or making clever use of level geometry. Everytime you kill an enemy they drop something. Most of the time you get green gel which is a substance used to upgrade your physical skills. These include maximizing your health bar, stamina bar, running speed, and unlocking new perks to use. Some of these are actually really cool and going out of your way to accumulate more gel is worth your time. You can also pick up scrap metal which is a material used to upgrade the efficiency of your weapons at workbenches. Firepower, range, reload speed, ammo capacity, you name it!
Unlike most horror games where the levels are tight linear corridors, The Evil Within 2 ranges between linear story moments and open ended maps which isn’t something I would expect from a game like this. It kind of reminded me of Metro Exodus, another game from a series focused on linearity but swapped to having open ended levels. Nice levels to be honest. The ones where they aren’t too big or small to work with, and their actual points of interest that can be seen clearly by the player. I like these levels the most because they allow the player to go at their own pace, and the side objectives reward you with supply caches or hidden weapons.
Bosses in this game range from challenging to colossal. Sometimes you’ll have to fight back and other times you have to run away or stealth around them. It will take quite a bit of thinking to analyze their attack and how to defeat them, but once you get it down you should be able to surpass them. Besides that, there isn’t much else I can say about The Evil Within 2. The game design is much better than it needed to be, the combat is more satisfying with all your attacks having impact, and you never get lost during your adventure. It may even have better design than Resident Evil, which is hard to admit coming from someone who loved RE7 and is currently working through another entry. Hopefully you can push through the simulation, find Lily, and bring her home.
Thoughts
The Evil Within 2 is a game I wasn’t expecting myself to like so much. I never played the first game and from what everyone else is telling me I don’t have plans to, but dear lord this is good. It has everything to make it a great sequel and far better than the original. Level design is superior to the first game, and the switch between linear corridors and open ended sandboxes means you will never get sick while playing the game. The open levels encourage the player to explore by having side quests and points of interest on the map. Linear levels are mainly for scripted cinematic moments, intense boss fights. and providing a break between the long open segments.
Graphics and textures are better than the original, and some of the locations you crawl through are brimming with gore and detail. The combat, while not having as wide of an arsenal as other survival horror games, is very satisfying and I would rather prefer it to the combat of Resident Evil 7. Somehow this game makes more use of less, and stealth never felt like a boring option. The progression of your weapons adds a lot and you really feel like a powerhouse during the final moments of the game. The bosses are really great as well, with some of the set pieces being the most intense I’ve seen in a survival horror game. I think one mechanic that adds a bit to the flow of combat is the stamina meter which I forgot to mention earlier. The stamina meter dictates how far you can run before Sebastian starts to choke and slow down. You are still offered the option of fight or flight, but The Evil Within 2 punishes you for taking the option of flight so much. It forces you to manage your stamina, and increases the pressure of landing your shots perfectly. Not saying your weapons have a terrible trajectory or spread, but the game motivates the player to play more engagingly. Stealth is fun and once you unlock a new takedown maneuver it feels even more satisfying, but you do want to eliminate as many enemies as possible. Accumulate more green gel to unlock physical upgrades and there’s multiple skill trees to follow. I wasn’t expecting this to be enjoyable, but it added to the sense that my character was growing stronger overtime.
A couple of other features that added to the gameplay was how your only useful melee weapon has a small amount of uses, so melee combat is heavily not encouraged until it’s a last minute decision. Then there’s the safe rooms which every survival horror game has, but here in The Evil Within 2 you’ll encounter NPCs hiding in them as well. Members of Mobius trying to communicate to them on the outside. It helps remind you that you’re totally not alone while exploring this hell hole of a place.
Now I do have to bring up some problems with this game and there are quite a few. This game is published by Bethesda and much like any of Bethesda’s games it still has lists of bugs from launch. The game lags whenever too much stuff is happening on screen, and areas would struggle to load certain environmental objects due to the scope and size of them. The story took a while to start up. It doesn't get a move on until you're halfway through the game, but once it starts it’s pretty dang good. It’s the stereotypical video game plot about fatherhood which is getting more common these days. We’ve seen it in BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us, and God of War. It’s not even handled in the same sense either. We don’t see Lily all that much throughout the game, and you’re not offered that many reasons to care for her besides that she is your missing daughter. No personality or growth whatsoever, but moments where you learn about Sebastian’s family and past are interesting. The twist of what happened to his wife isn’t great, but it’s interesting. I thought having the psychotic artist as a villain was a very creative idea and the game did a great job at making you feel freaked the f*ck out, but wasn’t until they swap him out with a stereotypical cultist who wears a suit and tie. I know I’m spoiling quite a bit of the plot here, but some of this could have had a better direction. The ending though was pretty good and I thought it wrapped up a majority of problems nicely. Probably best that we don’t make a third entry.
Overall, while The Evil Within 2 suffers from a few performance issues and inconsistent storytelling it is a pretty well designed game to play. There’s a lot of cool ideas on display, a horrifying world to progress through, and in some ways I personally rather prefer this to the multitude of Resident Evil games out there, because creativity is much higher with The Evil Within. Not saying that Resident Evil is lacking creativity, but you get what I’m trying to say. There is a good amount of replay value to be found with this game and the amount of content is more than expected. I definitely recommend it to any survival horror fans and if you were turned down by the first game then come back around. The sequel is actually worth it and may be another great new standard for the genre. In the end I’m giving The Evil Within 2 an 8.5/10 for being pretty good.
Opmerkingen