Released in the fall of 2014, The Evil Within is Bethesda's breakout horror hit. The cinematic gaming experience came as somewhat of a surprise to fans of the genre and the publisher themselves, as most of their previous works center around the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout and the ever-changing epic fantasy realms of The Elder Scrolls series. It's noteworthy to mention that Shinji Mikami, the creator of the Resident Evil franchise, worked with developer Tango Gameworks in order to give birth to this survival horror beast.
Police detective Sebastian Castellanos is sent to investigate a mass murder at Beacon Mental Hospital in Krimson City. Upon arriving with his crew, consisting of his partner Joseph Oda, and Junior Detective Juli Kidman, the trio stumble into a gruesome bloodbath, unlike anything that they'd ever witnessed before. After checking out some security camera footage, Sebastian finds himself in the sewers below the hospital, after barely escaping with his life while running from a deranged madman with a chainsaw. When he gets back to the surface, he finds that the world he once knew is no longer there, and the whole city is shifting right before his eyes. Determined to find out what's happening, he and his ensemble go in search of the evil within.
With Shinji Mikami working on The Evil Within, it should come as no surprise that much of the gameplay, environments, and enemies come off as overly Resident Evil inspired; he did create the beloved franchise, after all. With that being said, there is a distinct connection that gamers will be able to make between this title and Resident Evil 4 in particular, with a big side-serving of the action from 5. A lot of the foes are reminiscent of the possessed villagers from 4, while the more grotesque and malformed creatures take heavy inspiration from the series as a whole. Many of the horror elements also seem to be lifted from another well loved genre entry, Silent HIll; specifically 2, with hints of 3 throughout. Though that's not to say that Bethesda and Mikami only ripped off the two aforementioned franchises, there are also elements of the Saw films and many grindhouse horror projects sprinkled around.
When it comes to gore, Saw-like carnage, and horror, there's no doubt that this title is well endowed. From the first scene to the last, players can expect to experience gallons of blood, tons of gore, near-constant scares, and an impregnable grindhouse atmosphere. The enemies here are not the only threat, as nearly each level is laden with various kinds of traps; be it acid, various forms of spikes, explosives, mines, and more. There's also a huge psychological overtone to the entire experience, as the environments can change in the blink of an eye; later in the campaign, the changes become more frequent and even areas that are revisited tend to alter into a more dilapidated state. Each chapter offers something different in terms of visuals, which keeps the gameplay fresh for its entire duration. It's also impressive that the graphics, which are nearly four years old, hold up to modern day standards.
There's little doubt that the most shallow aspect of this title is its story. Behind all of the blood, guts, gore, carnage, scares, and intense action, there is little upholding the game at all; there are even massive plot holes that never become filled, even by the way of reading all of the 151 collectible pick-ups, such as journal entries and documents. With no proverbial man behind the curtain, so to speak, that leaves The Evil Within bordering on being simple gore pr0n, much akin to the Evil Dead reboot. Sebastian himself isn't even fully fleshed out, and he's the main protagonist of the entire charade, much less his junior detective assistant Kidman, or his sidekick Joseph. In all actuality, the only character that truly gets any sort of backstory is villain, Ruvik. Having noted all of that, if you're going to play The Evil Within then ensure that you are going in with low expectations when it comes to plot and overall character depth.
Presenting itself as a 'survival horror' game, this title doesn't have very much in the way of survival elements. Sure, you need health items to heal, bullets and arrows for your weapons, and matches to burn bodies if that's what you want to do, but the inventory space is entirely too generous for the genre. Along with the upgrades that can be done to Sebastian using green gel found throughout levels and after killing enemies, at times the inventory feels neigh unlimited. If you're used to either of the two games that this title was inspired from, you will find the non-inventory management to be a breeze, since there isn't any; you just pick up whatever is laying around until you're full up on it all, and away you go.
Encompassing a total of 15 chapters, the gameplay lasts roughly 6-10 hours depending on the difficulty level and how quickly you can figure out what to do next and how to kill a boss. There's very little value in replayability since there are no unlocks, save for an insanely difficult mode called Akumu. The good news is that all of Sebastian's upgrades, weapons, and collectibles will carry over to a New Game+ mode if you wish to relive the nightmare all over again. Picking up and reading certain collectibles, most notably the easy-to-find journal entries, is essential for understanding and bridging the gap between major plot-holes within some cutscenes, and for some this may add a tiny bit more replay value.
As a side note, I originally played The Evil Within at launch in 2014. At the time, and for some ungodly reason, Bethesda thought it was good to have a mandatory letterbox surrounding the gameplay screen, as well as a 30 FPS cap. After massive backlash from the community, both of the aforementioned "features" were removed, and on my i7-6700k/GTX 1080 rig at a resolution of 1080p, I saw framerates of no lower than 115, with a height of 144. The optimization in my case is solid, though many people are still reporting that they have framerate and technical issues. I did find a huge amount of glitches in my secondary playthrough (which just happened in late 2017), including infinitely spinning camera, and falling into an abyss. Both, however, were solved by a simple autosave reload.
The bottom line is that if you're set on playing The Evil Within, go in with low story expectations, but a high assurance that the grindhouse horror will not leave you disappointed if you're all about gore. Although I really enjoyed my initial playthrough back in 2014, my most recent slog through the mire left me with the impression that the more this game is played, the less impacting it is, which is hard to understand. Since The Evil Within is so akin to Resident Evil 4 and Silent Hill 2, two solid releases that most horror fanatics can never get enough of, why is it that this game loses its oomph after one round? Let's chalk it up to lack of story, fleshed out characters, and true survival horror mechanics. That being said, it should definitely be played once by all fans of horror; buy it on sale for cheap, enjoy it for what it is, and let it sink into the abyss of your library.
Rating: 4.0/5.0 - Excellent, highly worth playing.The Horror Network
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