Brendan Jacques
Connector Staff

“The Evil Within” is the type of game that the industry desperately needs right now. Every great horror video game franchise from the past ten years, from “Resident Evil” to “Silent Hill,” has lost sight of its roots with either too heavy a focus on action or a deluge of terrible games trying to capture the old classics. While indie titles have been able to hold up the survival horror genre for the past several years, gamers like myself have been clamoring for a real return to what made the genre great in the first place.

In a lot of ways, ‘The Evil Within’ is the game I’ve been asking for; but, at the same time, it’s a game that feels oddly out of time, as if it tries too hard to emulate that old terror that it brings back a few of the old problems along with it.
The story of the game focuses on Sebastian Castellanos, a detective for the Krimson City Police Force who’s called in to investigate a disturbance at the local Beacon Mental Hospital. He arrives to find the staff of the building dead and the guards being slaughtered by a mysterious hooded figure, who then promptly knocks you and your partners unconscious. From there, you are tasked with finding your partners and escaping the hospital before the hospital’s new warden can kill you. This is harder than it first seems, however, for escaping the hospital’s grasp isn’t as simple as walking out the front door.

Sadly, my biggest problem with the game is with how the story is present. The game likes to shroud a lot of the rules of its world and the motivations of its characters under a thick layer of mystery in order to drive the player to find the answers. While I did find this compelling and I understand why a horror game requires a shroud of mystery, the effect only works if there are answers to find, and “The Evil Within” doesn’t. I watched every cut scene, listened to every audio log and found every collectible the game had to offer, and I still have only the vaguest idea of what was actually happening for most of the game, who some of the characters were and why those characters acted the way they did. The story raised more questions in its narrative than it ever answered, and this culminated in the most blatant example of sequel baiting I have seen in a while, which is more than a little disappointing.

On the other hand, you don’t really come to a horror game to be wowed by its story: you come to be scared out of your wits, and “The Evil Within” gets this perfect. Unlike most recent horror protagonists, Castellanos handles himself fairly well in a fight, with enough guns and gadgets to manage most contests in the game. His arsenal is even further bolstered by the Agony Crossbow, which can be equipped with a variety of bolts that range from rounds that freeze enemies solid to bait that lures enemies out of the shadows.

However, even with all the equipment you’re presented with over the course of the game, you never feel overpowered. I only ever had enough ammunition to get through any given encounter and there were stretches of the game where I was forced to sneak past groups of enemies out of fear of wasting the few rounds I had left on a pointless fight. It adds a level of desperation to the game that only makes the game’s tenser moments all the more terrifying.

This persistent feeling of desperation only further bolsters the game’s excellent atmosphere and art direction. Everything in the world feels like it was pulled out of a low-budget grindhouse slasher film, with a level of metallic grit and gore covering practically everything in the game. No matter where you go, there’s always this feeling that the world itself is a living thing, hostile to your presence within it. This applies to the enemies as well, with each one seeming tortured and broken in one way or another, as if they themselves were in your position and were each broken by something much more powerful and sinister. This commitment to a particular style really helps pull the player in, even if the graphics themselves aren’t very impressive compared to other next-gen titles released in the past few months.

In the end, “The Evil Within” isn’t really the revolutionary survival horror game I was expecting, but it never tries to be. It’s a game that knows exactly what its audience expects from it and spends its entire 15-hour run time delivering it.
While I don’t think the game is anything close to a classic, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it and would recommend it to anyone looking for a good horror game that isn’t just another “Slender” clone.

Final Grade: B-