The Evil Within Review

The Evil Within is more than just a typical survival horror game. Bethesda’s latest release is a psychological suspense thriller, and I’m loving every minute of it. It’s dark, gritty, spine tingling, and at every moment death awaits at me at every corner letting me know that I’ll never feel completely safe. This is the kind of game where I needed to turn down the lights and put on a pair of surround sound headsets just to experience every chilling moment. I love it.

Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami delivers a game, not under the Capcom banner, where nightmares indeed become a dangerous reality for Detective Sebastian Castellanos. After getting ambushed and knocked unconscious while investigating a murder mystery at Beacon Medical Hospital, Sebastian finds himself fighting for his very life both mentally as well as physically against countless horrors including zombies, a chainsaw wielding maniac, a spider creature, and even a man with a safe covering his head wielding a giant hammer. Talk about iconic.

Where The Evil Within shines best is in the gameplay itself. Other than the Safe Haven where Sebastian can upgrade his weapons and abilities by finding jars of green gel, it’s the world around him is surrounded by a literal house of horrors where no corner is safe. I did have an array of weapons at my disposal, but I had to conserve my ammo since resources are rather scarce. I had to use my instincts to my advantage to get the upper hand. Hiding in lockers or under tables, utilizing stealth tactics, as well as setting traps helped keep me out of trouble. Setting dead or wounded enemies on fire with matches assured me that there was no coming back for them. By the way, out of all the weapons, I will say that the Agony Crossbow is awesome.

The only thing that really bothers me about The Evil Within is that all the characters are rather bland and boring. They show no emotion, no sense of fear, and don’t seem to care about what is going on during the course of the game. It’s almost like they’re just going through a typical day dealing with the supernatural. It’s a real shame because while the dark and bloody gore filled atmosphere is great, the dull characters with their “whatever” style of attitude kind of take me out of the overall theme of the game.

Survival horror games are clearly making a comeback, and The Evil Within is the perfect example of survival horror games done right. Honestly, this is what Resident Evil 5 or even Resident Evil 6 should have been especially since the creator of Resident Evil is behind the helm. The end result shows that he still got it and that’s a good thing for the genre as a whole.

* Review based on the PlayStation 4 version.