Posted in: Games, Review, Video Games | Tagged: bethesda, Bethesda Softworks, game review, The Evil Within, the evil within 2

The Evil Within 2 Might Just Be The Best Game Bethesda Has Put Out In Years

As far as sequels go, The Evil Within 2 is pretty fantastic. It's also guaranteed to make you shed a tear or five. One of the things that Bethesda does so well as a publisher is give us incredibly detailed, story-heavy single player games. And The Evil Within 2 is no exception. It's got the same light RPG elements as the first game, with the same focus on survival and stealth. It is quite possibly the best game Bethesda has put out in years, and might actually be better than the first. If nothing else, The Evil Within 2 is far more stable, and absolutely got some of the attention it rightly deserves.

The game is set up as a semi-open world, with plenty of room for exploration and side missions, but without the ability to totally leap ahead in gameplay the way you can in true open-world games, so you can't totally skip the story. Which is good because, really, what are you doing here if you don't care to find out if Sebastian actually finds his daughter or not? The game's animations and graphics are solidly AAA level, with only some minor objects missing detail or depth.

You've got a ton of features, including crafting, multiple difficulty ranges, new game +, as well as a massive array of weaponry and enemies. There should be enough to keep you pretty damn busy as you work through the story campaign, and there's even a decent amount of replayability. Personally, I tend to keep things pretty stripped down with my weaponry in this game, because it just doesn't feel as much like a survival horror game if you're using a weaponized Tesla coil, but if you like fancy weapons, those are definitely available for you.

I honestly had no complaints about the combat, but if you're in it just for story, well, there's aim-assist and a story-mode level of difficulty for you. So, regardless of what you're looking for, you should be pretty well covered. And if you didn't play the original game, well, the first chapter of the game does a pretty good job of laying out the story for you – and makes sure to really hammer home the stakes.

But the two cores of The Evil Within 2 are the game's story, and it's unsettling atmopshere. The game goes beyond cheap jump-scares this time around by making just about everything you do have a subtle sense of wrong. Even in your safe zones, the upgrade mechanic does a whole lot to make you feel unsafe. And that's pretty rare for horror titles. Sure, many can create a creepy atmosphere, but very few have actually made me sit back and say, "I probably shouldn't be playing this at 3am if I plan to sleep in the next week." But The Evil Within 2 did. Because at no point during the game did I think I was completely safe from being attacked by random body horror enemies, zombies, or masked assassins. And I'm not exactly easy to scare.

The story, well, I don't want to spoil you even though the game has been out for a month now, but I will say this, it's one you definitely won't forget or regret sitting through. Horror mastermind Shinji Mikami really outdid himself this time and it shows. The Evil Within 2 is hands-down the best survival horror game I've played this year, and is a solid game of the year contender. You definitely don't want to let this one get past you.

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