Honestly surprised that this game is divisive at all, this was easily one of the best survival horror games I’ve played. It effectively borrows from the greatest games in the genre while still maintaining its own identity. The action combat is excellent, with satisfying, tight skillful aiming and movement combined with very well-balanced difficulty that keeps you on your toes but rarely, if ever, feels unfair. I died nearly 100 times in my playthrough and yet almost never felt frustrated at the game itself, which is quite the accomplishment in game design.

While I was a bit concerned about the environment diversity after the first hour or so, hoping it wouldn’t be just a continuous lineup of dark, bland horror-cliche areas, The Evil Within gradually eased my worry with a variety of interesting and oddly pretty aesthetics that effectively use the game’s gritty art style, which itself I am a big fan of. The level design is great, backing the pleasing aesthetics with a wide variety of things to meaningfully interact with, enemies to defeat, secrets to find and unpleasant horrors to take in, with rarely a dull moment in between. I found the pacing of this game to be phenomenal, pushing me to complete the 14 or so hour story in a string of a few days, fully engaged from beginning to end.

While I do think Resident Evil 4 is the better game still, The Evil Within feels like a successful spiritual successor to it, and scratched a similar itch for me. While not my favorite part of the game and far from the best within the genre, the story was strong enough to be a positive as well, and felt like another solid piece of the game, if not a slight bit rushed. Regardless, this was a great experience that I feel like I could easily recommend to any horror fan on the fence about trying out this franchise.

9/10