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The Evil Within 2
This article original appeared in Game Informer issue 294.
Famed game creator Shinji Mikami, known as the “father of survival
horror” for his work on the Resident Evil series, is not returning to
the director’s chair for The Evil Within 2. After successfully launching
this new horror series, he stepped back to let his young team at Tango
Gameworks take the reins. While Mikami remains a key player in
overseeing the progress of this sequel, he handed the bloody directorial
baton to John Johanas, who served as a visual effects designer on The
Evil Within, but also got his feet wet as the director of the game’s two
DLC add-ons, The Assignment and The Consequence.
The shakeup in
direction doesn’t mean a new start for the series. Unlike the first few
Resident Evil games, which introduced new protagonists and threats, The
Evil Within 2 once again inflicts pain and suffering upon Sebastian
Castellanos, a detective for the Krimson City Police Department who lost
his family, sobriety, and everything but his sanity.
At the
beginning of The Evil Within, Castellanos was dispatched to investigate
multiple homicides at Krimson City’s Beacon Mental Hospital, but soon
found himself the pawn in a sinister game created by a mysterious
organization called Mobius, as well as a sick individual named Ruben
Victoriano (known more commonly as Ruvik).
After losing his
sister in a barn fire, Ruvik created a device called STEM that unites
multiple users’ minds into one, allowing them to physically live within
one central user’s memories. Ruvik created this machine with the hope of
seeing his sister again. He was sloppy in his experimentation, and the
technology soon became the desire of Mobius. They killed Ruvik and stole
his creation, but soon realized that they needed his brain to operate
it. They reanimated his brain to use it as the central operating system
of STEM, which was activated again when Castellanos entered the
hospital.
Castellanos was trapped in a world of horror where he
experienced Ruvik’s torment and anger firsthand. After a hellish
journey, he ended Ruvik’s psychological threat by detaching his brain
from STEM, but it may not have stopped him completely. The game’s
conclusion is left ambiguous, perhaps implying Ruvik returned to the
real world and is now controlling the body of a patient named
Leslie Winters.
Three years have passed since the incident at
Beacon Mental Hospital, and Castellanos has been searching for answers
that may link Mobius to the death of his family. As The Evil Within 2
begins, he receives a message from his former partner Juli Kidman, who
was secretly working for Mobius the entire time.
“Sebastian, for
three years since Beacon happened, you’ve been searching for answers,”
she said in a recording. “You didn’t find what you were looking for
because they didn’t want you to. Mobius knows you’ve been following us.
They’ve been watching you for a long time. You trained and trusted me,
and in return I betrayed you. Long before we met, you lost your daughter
Lily. She’s still alive. This is your chance to save her; to get back
what you lost. Lily needs you. You’re going to need to go back into
STEM. Again.”
As reluctant as Castellanos is to return to a world
that nearly killed him a hundred times over, he learns that the central
brain being used for this new iteration of STEM is his daughter’s. He
must enter her mind to locate her, and hopefully save her. He also hopes
to destroy Mobius in the process.
An Old Threat Reborn
Our
demo begins in the game’s second chapter, called “Something Not Quite
Right.” We don’t know what events precede this playthrough, but the
dialogue leads us to believe Sebastian just entered STEM again.
Kidman is back as a guiding voice, but an untrusted one now that Castellanos knows her true intentions. She tells him that he should begin by looking for the members of Mobius’ lost Search Party Team, who disappeared in a town called Union. She suggests they may have a lead on Lily. The town, which is created by Lily, is supposed to be quaint and peaceful, showing how STEM should -really -work.
We meet Castellanos in a
deteriorating elevator, but he already looks like he’s been through
hell. His right hand is bandaged, he looks disheveled, and although he’s
wearing a tactical shoulder holster, he appears to have already lost
his weapons.
When the elevator doors open, the environment around
him is shrouded in darkness. A lone florescent light illuminates a
small section of a regal black and white checkered floor. A fenced in
area can faintly be seen to the left. Castellanos approaches the light,
and ducks down to squeeze through a hole in the fence that appears to
have been munched on by something large. Again, we see nothing but an
unnerving black. Castellanos activates his flashlight, which provides a
little comfort, but not nearly enough. A quick scan of the area reveals
nothing of importance – more fencing to the left, torn white drapes to
the right, and the makings of machinery and equipment for a factory.
Looking dead ahead, Castellanos sees dozens of corpses wearing white
robes dangling from ropes. They all appear to have been hanged, but the
blood on their bodies shows something sinister happened to them before
this.
The only way forward is through the corpses. Castellanos
moves slowly, but accidentally runs into a couple of them. They remain
dead, swaying gently from his touch. The sea of bodies gives way to a
metal wall with a red eye painted on it. He can’t interact with it, but a
loud swooshing sound rings out, and he spins to see a camera on a
tripod across the room. He examines it, and again hears a swoosh. The
dangling bodies have moved, and now are lined in straight rows,
revealing a clear path to a metal door. Castellanos cautiously inches
forward, and opens it. A well-dressed man stands directly behind the
door holding a camera. Before Castellanos can do anything, the camera
flashes brightly, and then we see nothing but darkness.
Awakening
on the floor of a new room, Castellanos sees a wall-sized mirror
holding the photograph that was just taken of him. Frustration begins to
sink in. He angrily grabs the photo, and then sees something out of the
corner of his eye – a woman dressed in red reflected in the mirror. A
quick spin reveals nothing, just more white drapes covering age-old
items. Castellanos turns back toward the mirror, which now holds the
sinister smile of a demon that looks like Laura, the spider-like demon
that stalked him throughout the first game.
The mirror shatters
loudly, and this new version of Laura now caled “Guardian” stands in his
world. As a manifestation of Lily’s mind, she’s different now, standing
somewhat normally on two legs, but is at least 12-feet tall. Her hair
is still a hypnotic mess of black, but it’s no longer her defining
feature; her right arm is replaced by a gigantic, spinning saw blade. A
deeper look at Guardian’s body reveals her flesh is sewn together with
black wire, and every once in a while you can see smaller arms reaching
out from her limbs. She’s a monstrosity, and once again
incredibly violent.
Castellanos spins and runs, turning every
which way, but the room is relatively small, offering no escape route.
Guardian laughs hysterically, but has trouble keeping tabs on her prey’s
location. This allots Castellanos time to sprint past her into the
opening where the mirror once sat. Guardian’s wild laughter keeps up
with Castellanos’ descent into a lengthy hallway, his stamina draining
with each step.
Castellanos looks back to see where Guardian is,
only to see her burst through a wall. The pursuit continues, and panic
is clearly setting in on our unlucky protagonist. He keeps looking
behind him, but should keep his gaze directly ahead to a glowing white
door that has silently opened to reveal the man with the camera again.
He’s done taking photos, and now wields a sizable hunting knife. The man
throws the blade forward and it slides easily into Castellanos’
shoulder, sending him to the ground. The man turns around and vanishes
in a puff of smoke. Guardian’s pursuit intensifies. She lunges forward
and grabs Castellanos off of the floor with what appears to be three
separate hands that make up her left arm. As he’s being strangled to
death, Castellanos pulls the knife from his arm and jams it into his
attacker. She drops him and screams in pain, creating a window for
escape. After entering the doorway of light, Castellanos falls to the
ground, and the door behind vanishes in a flash. He’s now in a quaint,
abandoned house.
This is how our hero obtains his first weapon:
the hunting knife. This dramatic moment also signals a shift away from
unrelenting action to Castellanos becoming the hunter through
slower-paced exploration.
Fighting Back
Electricity still
pumps through the home, and many of the rooms have working lights that
show it’s been lived in recently. The windows are broken and trash bags
are everywhere, but everything else is pristine, such as the nicely
arranged vases on the mantel and modern furniture. The home holds
healing items, the first of 40 hidden documents, and a handgun.
Castellanos almost misses the firearm when leaving the house through the
front door, but grabs it from an end table with one foot out of the
household.
Standing outside on the front porch, his surroundings
are darkened woods with a tall tree canopy blocking out most of the
moonlight, but not the light rain. A concrete path begs him to venture
into the woodlands, and he wastes no time finding out where it leads. He
assures himself, “Don’t worry. It’s just a small, quiet town,” but
takes it back seconds later, “Yeah… Too quiet.”
A good way down
the path, he sees a woman sprint into another home. He calls for her,
but she doesn’t break stride. He tries to knock on the door, but it
slides open when his hand touches it. Again, darkness, but this time
with a voice saying “Skin and bones… Eat. Gotta eat…” We then see
plastic bags filled with unrecognizable meat, and a woman at a table
feeding a boy. He looks near dead, but his gargles say otherwise. She
slaps him when he struggles to swallow whatever she spooned him. “Don’t
cry. I’m doing what’s best for you,” she says, as she slams his head
against the table.
It’s a disturbing moment, and for the sake of
spoilers I won’t detail what happens next, but Castellanos learns humans
are more than they seem. Their heads are made up of white tentacles
that squirm wildly, but almost appear to be made of milk or glue.
So
far in this demo, one of the big things jumping out is Castellanos’
animations. He may vocalize his thoughts to a thing he is seeing, but
you’ll sometimes seem little animations that go along with his state of
thought. When he approaches the boy at the kitchen table, he puts his
left hand up to his face to cover his nose, and then his right as he
draws in closer. If the player didn’t approach the table, this little
sequence wouldn’t be seen. A thorough inspection of the house reveals
the crafting component gunpowder.
Castellanos once again enters
the wooded area. The rain has ceased and nightfall appears to be setting
in. A short run down the stone path leads to a road with abandoned cars
obscured in light fog. The sounds of gunshots and yelling ring out.
Castellanos tracks the sounds to what appears to be the heart of the
city, with several small two-to three-story buildings and a church.
Just
when it seems the coast is clear, several rotting zombies sprint across
the road in hot pursuit of a Union security detail. Although the detail
is decked out in flak jackets and equipped with heavy artillery, there
are too many zombies to deal with. A few panicked shots hit their marks,
but the zombie hunger wins out. One Union member enters a house and
slams the door.
Castellanos uses stealth to navigate the swarm,
sliding along the side of cars and emerging at the right times to
silently take down lone zombies with a knife through the top of their
skulls. Enemies have three stages of alertness: a sound wave indicating
they hear you, a partially open eye for thinking they saw something, and
an open eye for full awareness. Although timing is everything, and
Castellanos won’t want to remain exposed for too long, he wants to
recover the Green Gel enemies drop, which can be used later to upgrade
his abilities.
Most of the zombies are feeding on their new
meals, and Castellanos has no problem making short work of them. A close
look at one of their corpses again reveals the milky substance on
specific body parts. After entering the same home that the Union person
fled to, Castellanos moves a bookcase in front of the door to block it,
just like Leon could in Resident Evil 4.
The frightened Union
worker has barricaded himself in the basement. He reveals himself as
Liam O’Neal, and appears wary of a non-Union member talking to him.
Castellanos says he’s here to “restore the Core,” which likely means
he’s trying to remove his daughter from it.
The game then
indicates that the player has located O’Neal’s Safe House, a location
that can be revisited. The first Evil Within game was linear in design,
but the sequel now features areas you can return to. Union is somewhat
of an open space that can be freely explored. O’Neal won’t venture out
of the house with Castellanos, but does have information on the Core,
and tells him Castellanos’ “communicator” can be tuned to detect its
activity. The goal now is to track the girl’s voice to its origin.
Before
leaving the safe house, Castellanos drinks a cup of coffee, which
restores him to full health. He must brew another pot if he wants to use
it again, but this action will take some time to complete. He also
grabs ammo, weapon parts, and more gun powder, which he combines at the
workbench to craft more handgun bullets. He also uses this station to
upgrade his handgun’s ammo capacity. The other upgrade options are
firepower, fire rate, and reload time. All options feed from the same
weapon parts pool, and each field can be upgraded numerous times,
leading to the weapon gaining levels. Castellanos can also craft items
in the field, but at the expense of more resources.
Resonances
The
hallway in the safe house produces a familiar sight: a specter of a
nurse walking into a mirror. Castellanos shouldn’t be confused by this
vision, as they were one of the few beacons of safety in Ruvik’s mind,
but he immediately questions it. “What the…who was that?”
He peers
into the mirror and is teleported to what appears to be a police
station. At the end of a hallway sits a wheelchair under a spotlight.
When Castellanos approaches it, static appears on screen and he’s
teleported to another reality, one that cannot be made out for a split
second, before returning to the chair. Reality shifts to a darker place
again, and we see the chair consume
Castellanos, fastening his arms and
placing a device over his head.
The nurse approaches him, and he
finally recognizes her as Tatiana. From this chair, the player can once
again exchange Green Gel for upgrades in health, combat, athleticism,
stealth, and recovery.
These fields should allow players to
sculpt skills to their preferred play style. Upgrading stealth can lead
to small bonuses like increased movement speed, and bigger perks down
the skill tree like the ability to perform a stealth kill from around a
corner. The combat tree increases damage of melee attacks, and can
decrease the kickback of a shotgun. Athleticism can be upgraded to
enable an auto-avoid for specific attacks, and recovery has a perk that
makes Castellanos automatically use a medical syringe when taking a
fatal blow.
The police station is a haven for Castellanos. Here,
he finds the first of a new collectible, one of 11 photographic slides
that can be viewed through a projector on his desk. This particular
slide shows us a moment from Castellanos’ family life. He comments on
it.
After returning to Union via another mirror, Castellanos ventures
to the city square to track down a girl’s voice using his communicator.
By holding it in front of him, he can scan for resonance, indicated by a
frequency fuzz that intensifies when he points the communicator in the
right direction. Once a strong signal is found, he can lock onto it.
Heading
onto the street again triggers an event. Part of the world sudden
collapses, creating what appears to be a bottomless canyon. Another part
of it jets upward to create a mountain-like structure with a portion of
the city still perched precariously atop it. The search for the girl
requires just as much stealth as before, but now with the added effort
of bringing up the communicator to keep going in the right direction. At
one point, Castellanos picks up chatter from a fallen Mobius operative
and uses the frequency to find his location, leading to the bounty five
handgun bullets.
The world is open for him to freely explore,
should he chose to do so. He can also track “unknown resonance” to
perhaps find other people in need. In this playthrough, he scavenges the
exterior of homes for a bit, but continues following the girl’s voice.
His
journey leads to a beautiful white home, where he finds a journal on
the kitchen table. When he touches it, the room temperature drops, and a
chair shakes violently. Lights flicker as he retreats to the living
room. Before he can get there, a ghost-like apparition of a woman
appears behind him. She hums a melody, as she slowly floats forward.
I’ll
again refrain from spoiling what happens next. This sequence shows just
how terrifying The Evil Within 2 can be for encounter design, pacing,
and keeping players off kilter. The gameplay hasn’t changed much since
the original entry, but this second stage shows the player has more
freedom in exploration.
It’ll be interesting to see just how far
Tango takes this element when The Evil Within 2 launches on October 13
(Friday the 13th). Our first taste of this dark adventure was filled
with jump scares, gore, and monsters galore, but the big hook is once
again Castellanos’ journey for answers, which is far more personal this
time with his daughter being dangled in front of him.