by Chase Streetman
Survival horror games have been in a weird place these past few years.
First there was the massive influx of action. Games like Dead Space and F.E.A.R. focused on having you confronting and fighting the evil instead of merely surviving it.
Then came the trend of completely removing combat, led primarily by Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Slender. In these games, running and hiding became the only reasonable option for survival.
Shinji Mikami, the widely revered “father of survival horror,” has now led development on and released The Evil Within, calling it a return to classic survival horror.
But that’s not really what The Evil Within has turned out to be.
Tango Gameworks really nails the aspects of horror creating an atmosphere that induces revulsion and shock, but it’s rarely terrifying and doesn't really make you feel genuinely afraid or unsafe.
Despite being dark, charismatic, and a real joy to explore, the world is never as terrifying as it should be.
In addition to suffering from a slew of technical issues such as graphical pop-ins, clippings, and some inexplicable frame rate drop, The Evil Within falls just short of accomplishing most of what it sets out to do.
The game opens up with Detective Sebastian “Scruff-McGruff” Castellanos going to a mental hospital to investigate reports of a multiple homicide. Obviously though, things go terribly wrong.
The intro sequence is actually one of the best parts of the entire game, featuring no combat and some of the most impressive horror imagery I've seen in a long time. It also features two of the most damaging things that the game gets wrong.
The first issue is the protagonist. Castellanos has almost no believable reactions as some truly messed up things are happening to him. His dialogue makes you wonder how he ever became a detective in the first place, and he sounds more like someone who is discovering a store is out of their favorite chips instead of someone who is constantly in mortal danger.
The second, and the primary reason it’s not scary, is how thoroughly the gameplay, at least early on, relies on trial and error. The fact is, things are not scary the second time around, and with every attempt at the same scenario, the scene becomes less tense and more annoying.
The final flaw is the illusion of choice presented to you. Early on, there’s the clear promise that stealth will be a viable option, as well as setting traps. However, about 90% of the time, there’s no choice but face-to-face combat. The game leaves you woefully under-prepared in almost every scenario by denying you adequate resources and withholding information. I was still learning things that the game never addressed before I faced the final boss.
Additionally, much of what goes wrong in a fight is completely out of your hands. The prime example of this is the upgradeable stat on the starting revolver that causes bullets to veer off in ways you can’t possibly predict. Regardless of how still you or your revolver are, the bullets can deviate by up to five degrees from where you’re aiming. Couple this with an inability to steady your aim by crouching, and it results in a lot of wasted ammunition.
It’s really disappointing that you have to rely on the combat so often, because the best parts in the game are the moments when all three play-style options are actually usable. These moments are genuinely exciting, tense, and occasionally scary.
The story has a rough start, but really gets into a good stride about halfway through the game. Almost everything that you see and experience is a clue as to what’s really happening. Even more exciting is seeing how the story affects the world around you as you constantly question where you are and why you’re there. Uncovering the truth stays exciting until the very end, at which point the story crumbles under its own weight, leaving a few of the more interesting questions unanswered in what is clearly a bit of sequel bait.
It’s truly a shame that you are forced to play as Castellanos, as his personality is flat and uninteresting compared to a cast of well-written and fascinating supporting roles. Even Castellanos has a story that can be uncovered by finding collectibles scattered throughout the game, but we never quite find its ending and it never affects how Castellanos acts.
The idea of your own mind being untrustworthy is briefly touched upon, but the concept never goes more than skin-deep. Perhaps pulling in some mind-altering mechanics similar to Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem would have been to its benefit.
The imagery and sounds are the most impressive aspects of The Evil Within. Every single bit of it feels oppressive and unsettling. The camera rests incredibly close to the protagonist and your view is in a widescreen format, leading to the disturbing feeling that you aren't seeing nearly as much as you would like to.
Most of the game is spent in dark hallways, and the sound design always leaves you wondering if what you’re hearing is waiting around the next corner. The best moments of The Evil Within is when it takes out all the combat and simply let’s you explore its horrifying world.
Lurking through dark corridors, scouring for a health syringe, and hoping that the horrible monster you saw in your hallucination isn't waiting around the next corner. Sometimes you’ll see a body on the floor that has disappeared without a trace while your back is turned, leaving you wondering if it was ever really there, or if it is now lying in wait for you.
These moments are where The Evil Within shines, showing that, despite it’s focus on action there is a clear understanding of how to set a mood.
The eerie atmosphere, decaying locales, and nearly unmatched sound design are evidence that Tango can create a truly terrifying experience, and simply decided not to.
This is not to say that the combat, or the game in general, is not enjoyable. Once you get used to a lot of the questionable design decisions like one-use hatchets, being unable to burn corpses with torches, and being able to accidentally climb down a ladder instead of stealth killing an enemy, the tense combat can actually be fun.
Taking down a horde of enemies with only a handful of bullets and a wine bottle becomes a very satisfying and rewarding experience. There is nothing quite like the relief you feel when your very last bullet manages to bring down the last enemy in a room.
The enemies themselves are all rather beautifully designed, almost all of them utilizing the barbed-wire motif. There is one enemy who stuck out to me as one of the most brilliantly designed and terrifying bosses of any game I've ever played, and he stayed that way regardless of how many times I died. Most of the bosses are fun to fight against, but the trouble of trial and error rears it’s ugly head in once again.
In contrast, the common enemies quickly become dull and annoying as you pump more lead into them than you can afford to. In all honesty, The Evil Within would have probably been much better if there had been less than half as much combat, with a much stronger emphasis on boss fights.
Shinji Mikami and Tango Gameworks made a valiant first effort that fell tragically short of what it promised. Despite this, the end product is a challenging, mostly fun, slightly clunky action-shooter with horror aesthetics.
