The Evil Within Review

When The Evil Within was first announced, many fans of the survival-horror genre got super excited as it’s the game directed by the famous Shinji Makami, creator of the Resident Evil series. With Shinji Mikami directing The Evil Within, expectations were quite high as many loved the original Resident Evil games and hoping he will bring back the survival-horror genre back to its roots. Now that the game is out, I am confident to say that The Evil Within is a survival-horror game indeed but it fails to bring something new to the table.

The Evil Within follows the story of Sebastian Castellanos, a detective called in to investigate a gruesome collection of murders at a local mental hospital. Leading up to his investigation, mortifying twisted events happen where Sebastian was brought into an alternate creepy universe where fans of the survival-horror genre will see a story that involves apparitions, big monsters, and nightmare backdrops. The beginning of the game will guarantee to get you hooked to the story but it fades down to confusion as you reach the later chapters of the game. Those who love the story of Resident Evil games will not fall-in-love in the story of The Evil Within as it’s shallow, confusing, and lacks background story to the characters that you will get to meet.

Since the game is directed by Shinji Mikami itself, fans will notice the the gameplay is heavily inspired by the Resident Evil games. The very first time you set foot in the hospital, you will feel some nostalgic moments as you just entered the mansion from the first Resident Evil game. As you get deeper, you will then see inspiration from Silent Hill games. When it comes to combat, it’s very similar to Resident Evil 4, which makes the game somewhat action-based. It’s pretty disappointing to see the game has action-elements, but the environments are spooky enough to give you that feeling of playing a horror-game.

In the fourteen chapters of The Evil Within, expect the environments to scare you occasionally. Tango Gameworks did a phenomenal job in creating an atmosphere that will get to your spine. The locales, and the zombie-like creatures that you get to fight are well crafted, thus making the game to be somewhat scary at times. If the game doesn’t have action-oriented gameplay, The Evil Within will be a prime example of a perfect survival-horror game for this generation. It sure is disappointing that the game has action-elements on it, but there are good parts within the gameplay that I enjoy. Those who hate running and just gunning down enemies, there is another way to take down your opponents and that’s by sneaking. If you happen to love stealth games, you will then love certain parts of the game where it will give you an option to sneak around the enemy and do a stealth kill. With that kind of gameplay feature implemented, you will find things that you can throw to distract your enemies.

Helping Sebastian solve the mystery of the hospital will not be easy. As there are enemies sprawling around everywhere you go, it’s important that you have a lot of your items stocked up. Luckily, there is a crafting system in The Evil Within. Yes, it’s nice to have a crafting system within the game, but it’s not as good as you think. The crafting system in The Evil Within is quite simple and the amount of items that you can craft is very little. With many materials scattered throughout the world, you can use them to craft the items you need. This varies from your ammunition, syringes to heal your HP, and many more. The good thing when you craft the game is that it pauses the game. Sure, here’s crafting in the game but the scarcity of the materials are there. When you have one bullet, you have to think twice whether to use it on an enemy or save it for a much tougher boss later.