A game that fixes everything the first game got wrong!

The Evil Within 2, much like the first game is spiritually but not literally a spinoff of the Resident Evil franchise. This franchise was made by one of the original creators of the older RE games, Shinji Makami and the first game played much like RE4 with a bunch of references to the original games of that series. Evil Within 2 breaks away from that leash with still some references to RE for sure but stands strong as its own unique game while also fixing a lot of the errors the first game had.

Gameplay: This is a 3rd person survival horror game with stealth mechanics, and now an open world. At the time this game was released RE didn’t have any open world games like the new RE4 remake or RE Village so I guess you could say they weren’t much alike before but certainly are now. This game takes place in a dream world so a lot of the creatures you fight are nightmare fuel monsters and enemies, a lot of which call back to RE in many ways. You play as a detective so almost all of your weapons are standard pistols, shotguns and snipers and some melee weapons. The enemies in this game have changed a lot from the first with a lot more variety in enemy types like fire types, sub bosses, flame thrower enemies’ creatures that move fast or spit acid on you with some of them having unique mechanics and styles. The gameplay controls are extremely better than the first game with Sebastain feeling much easier to control and maneuver obstacles. With this game being an open world, you can backtrack to different areas and find collectibles and meet NPCs to get side quests from. The NPC interactions feels like average Bethesda which can come off as cheap if you are someone who doesn’t like those style of games like Fallout or Skyrim but overall, it doesn’t feel much like any of those games and is only really present with certain mechanics. You still have a hub area you upgrade, save and see collectibles at just like the first game but this time with it being a police station. The same nurse lady from EW1 is present here (why or how? Who knows) and you still use the electric chair to upgrade with green gel, the weapon and upgrade variety is significantly better in this game as well.

Graphics, Voice acting & Music: Visually this game looks great and has some really interesting level designs that really captures the idea of a dream world. The color pallet still has a lot of greys, blacks and reds, like the first game but this time around a lot more color and vibrancy here while EW1 felt a bit too black and white at times. The music and ambient themes here are all just as great as EW1 was with again, a cool opening song, this time being a spooky rock cover of “Ordinary World” by Duran Duran. The biggest let down with this game is honestly the voice acting, the original cast of Evil Within 1 didn’t return because of a voice acting strike that was going on that year, so everyone sounds very different and its almost unsettling especially Sebastian’s voice being the most different.

Story/minor Spoilers: So, the story was a place where a lot of people had criticism for the first instalment, EW1 following the idea that you are in the mind and collective nightmare of a serial killer and trying to escape while also grappling an “RE4 Ada” side conspiracy with a vague ending. Evil Within 2 fixes this problem and makes a pretty simple and straight forward story about Sebastain trying to save his daughter, I wont say much more than that because this story is actually fairly engaging and if you did play the first game and its DLC this games story will definitely have a bigger impact on you (even though the first one is a clunky convoluted mess I still highly recommend it before this one, especially the DLCs) but if you haven’t played the first game, this game still holds on its own pretty well. Speaking of the first game, I have to say EW2 wasn’t nearly as scary as EW1 was for me, there was something about the atmosphere, gore and dark story elements that really made the first game feel disturbing. Of course, this game has some great horror enemies and moments, but I didn’t feel like this one held up as good as 1 did with some horror aspects but don’t get me wrong it’s still a great horror game regardless. This game also brings up some left-over mysteries about the EW universe and a potential sequel and I sure do hope we get at least one more to finish this trilogy but considering no one played this game (it seemed like no one was playing horror games that year) I highly doubt we will see a part 3 anytime soon,; too bad because this one is pretty great.
Overall: 9/10

Reviewed on May 24, 2023


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