THE EVIL WITHIN Review

“When a chainsaw
shows up, you
know that horror
tropes are being
fully embraced

DETAI LS
PUBLISHER
Bethesda Softworks
DEVELOPER
Tango Gameworks
CREDITS
Resident Evil [1996]
Resident Evil 4 [2005]
Vanquish (Shinji
Mikami) [2010]
PLAYERS
1
KINECT?
TBA
SMARTGLASS?
TBA
RELEASE DATE
TBA 2014
WEBSITE
theevilwithin.com
TWITTER
@TheEvilWithin
Whenever Bethesda
reps talk about The
Evil Within, they’re keen
to name its director: Shinji
Mikami, the creator ofResident
Evil. They want you to know that
they’ve got the “father of survival
horror” on board, so that maybe you’ll
dare to believe this might really be the
embodiment of the genre that they’re
promising. You can almost see the tickboxes for what they’ve shown of the
game so far.

THE EVIL WITHIN

Protagonist Sebastien Castellanos
arrives at an asylum (check) at which a
mass murder has taken place (check),
with the heavy rain (pathetic fallacy,
check) showing off graphics that will
look especially beautiful – despite their
grittiness – on the Xbox One. When a
chainsaw shows up later, you know that
horror tropes are being fully embraced.
But maybe that’s a good thing. After
Castellanos has cut himself down from
where he’s been strung upside down
from the ceiling, Lara Croft-style, he
has to spend a tense few moments
creeping around to escape a monstrous
butcher who could kill him in an instant.
With no music, his footsteps sound like
betrayals as he watches the convincing
shadows that the butcher casts on
the walls. He can’t run, and he can’t
defend himself. Maybe this really is pure
survival horror.

THE EVIL WITHIN

Then again, a later scene, which takes
place in an abandoned house after
some supernatural force has turned the
outside world upside down, features a
swarm of zombies. He can shoot them,
or set mine traps, though his ammo is
limited. He may end up just having to
run away, but the scene can apparently
have different outcomes. And if
Castellanos (who seems far too calm
for all the mutilated corpses he’s seen)
manages to fight his way relatively
easily out of “overwhelming” odds too
many times, the constant anxiety that
earlier scenes tease may not be as
pervasive as we hoped.

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