It's easy to write The Evil Within off as Shinji Mikami attempting to repeat his success with Resident Evil 4 on a new generation of hardware but I think that'd be selling TEW a bit short. Yes, it has a lot of surface level similarities to one of the greatest games of all time, but TEW has a much darker side to it. A more ruthless, unapologetic side.
One very appreciated similarity between TEW and RE4 is how utterly unforgiving it is. While some shooters will offer the occasional one-hit-kill hazard, TEW makes them a constant throughout the 10 hour long adventure and you're expected to die to them frequently. TEW does not tolerate mistakes, either in the player's execution or decision making. Checkpoints are common enough that failure rarely feels soul crushing but death is around every corner and on a first playthrough you'll constantly be on edge. I was second guessing my decisions far more often than in most third person shooters and I consider that a strong positive.
While RE4 uses its tank controls and lack of movement while aiming as a key part of its challenge, TEW offers a more conventional control scheme. Your player character, Sebastian Castellanos(badass name btw), can move freely while aiming and is much more nimble. To accommodate this, enemies are far more aggressive and slightly less predictable than in RE4. While this can occasionally lead to moments where an enemies acts in a wild manner that borders on unfair, I think it helps make the fights more dynamic. Maybe it's because I've played through RE4 over 50 times at this point and have only played TEW around 7 but I find it a lot harder to go into autopilot in TEW as I feel a lot more can go wrong for you at a given moment. It's a similar tense feeling to RE4 but a bit more manic.
While RE4 feels very focused on it's set of escalating challenges, TEW is a lot more scatterbrained. Every few chapters introduces not only new enemies and obstacles, but entirely different pacing and context for the frights you face. One chapter will have you being cold and calculated while the next will put you into a mad frenzy. This all makes it hard to judge TEW as a whole because the game's quality can change on a dime depending on what kind of scenario it throws you into but overall I think the variety and ruthlessness makes for an engaging and memorable game. Perhaps it's the at times brutal difficulty and demand for you to learn on the fly that made TEW a bit of a dud to critics and casual players but like many games of its kind I recommend you give it a shot and don't immediately write it off as a cheap RE4 knock-off. It may not reach the same pristine quality of Leon's most acclaimed outing but it still manages to stand on its own, even if it can be a bit jank at times.
One very appreciated similarity between TEW and RE4 is how utterly unforgiving it is. While some shooters will offer the occasional one-hit-kill hazard, TEW makes them a constant throughout the 10 hour long adventure and you're expected to die to them frequently. TEW does not tolerate mistakes, either in the player's execution or decision making. Checkpoints are common enough that failure rarely feels soul crushing but death is around every corner and on a first playthrough you'll constantly be on edge. I was second guessing my decisions far more often than in most third person shooters and I consider that a strong positive.
While RE4 uses its tank controls and lack of movement while aiming as a key part of its challenge, TEW offers a more conventional control scheme. Your player character, Sebastian Castellanos(badass name btw), can move freely while aiming and is much more nimble. To accommodate this, enemies are far more aggressive and slightly less predictable than in RE4. While this can occasionally lead to moments where an enemies acts in a wild manner that borders on unfair, I think it helps make the fights more dynamic. Maybe it's because I've played through RE4 over 50 times at this point and have only played TEW around 7 but I find it a lot harder to go into autopilot in TEW as I feel a lot more can go wrong for you at a given moment. It's a similar tense feeling to RE4 but a bit more manic.
While RE4 feels very focused on it's set of escalating challenges, TEW is a lot more scatterbrained. Every few chapters introduces not only new enemies and obstacles, but entirely different pacing and context for the frights you face. One chapter will have you being cold and calculated while the next will put you into a mad frenzy. This all makes it hard to judge TEW as a whole because the game's quality can change on a dime depending on what kind of scenario it throws you into but overall I think the variety and ruthlessness makes for an engaging and memorable game. Perhaps it's the at times brutal difficulty and demand for you to learn on the fly that made TEW a bit of a dud to critics and casual players but like many games of its kind I recommend you give it a shot and don't immediately write it off as a cheap RE4 knock-off. It may not reach the same pristine quality of Leon's most acclaimed outing but it still manages to stand on its own, even if it can be a bit jank at times.