![]() ![]() ![]() There’s also more to proceedings than simply walking from room to room and waiting to be spooked or for the exposition to be doled out. Though they can’t resist the temptation to chuck in some random loud noises and unwanted appearances, Layers of Fear 2’s scares generally feel more justified - and even more liable to make you screech. Thankfully, Layers has very favourable checkpointing so failure rarely gives way to much frustration. Reminiscent of Outlast 2 but better applied, these sequences are most effective the first few times, but as they don’t happen too often, they’re almost always a thrill when they do crop up - even if repeated failure does inevitably suck the tension right out of them. Like all good movies, Layers of Fear 2 is great throughout all of its acts.īloober seem to have learned how to be a bit more temperate with their scares this time out, it spacing out its innovative storytelling with panic-inducing chase sequences, which mostly feel earned. ![]() This is the inverse of what I find with almost all horror games, which tend to start strong before sputtering out. Whether it’s suddenly floating apples or your entire perspective being flipped like a switch, Layers of Fear 2 is determined to utterly mess with your mind: The further into its depths you sink, the more morbidly irresistible it becomes. Layers of Fear 2 does this even more impressively thanks to a significant engine upgrade, so you are now even less sure of when the rug will be swept from underneath you. This being a horror game, you can be assured that it does’t stay as innocent as Captain Spirit for long.įor those not familiar with the Layers “formula”, you are unarmed against psychological threats and must progress through constantly twisting environments that you cannot trust. The plot thickens before long as you become familiar with the story of two stowaways, one older sister and her meek younger brother, as they play-act being pirates on the seven seas. Sadly, it’s not all canapés and cocaine for our protagonist as they seem to be all alone with nobody but mannequins and a formless shape of limbs for company. You play as an unnamed actor hired for an eccentric director’s mysterious project. While Layers of Fear 2 is still no oil painting and has some issues of its own, it represents a step up on all fronts from Bloober Team. I’ve never tried to hide my disappointment with the first game, which I found to be a little too repetitive and cynically motivated for its own good, it favouring cheap scares as YouTube fodder when it should have simply done a better job at building tension and fleshing out its bones. That’s why a desolate cruise ship is the perfect place for Layers of Fear 2 to drop you, which is, for my money, far scarier than any rickety old manor ever could be. Vast beyond comprehension, nothing can make you feel as minuscule - like a drop in the ocean, as it were - as time spent aboard a ship out at sea. ![]() No, it’s something that makes up two thirds of our planet that we cannot truly begin to understand. The scariest place on Earth is not some ancient crypt or a crumbling mansion with things that go bump in the night. ![]()
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