#LAYERS OF FEAR 2 RATING FULL#

It’s a character study without characters, attempting to tell its tale mostly through visual metaphors. This disconnect extends to the storytelling, which is so obsessed with being enigmatic and vague that it constantly holds you at arm’s length. You might get splashed by some water or blasted by a fog machine, but you’ve got your seat belt on and nothing will actually hurt you. I mentioned a theme park ride because that is really what it feels like: things are happening around you, without your input, and with few exceptions there is an understanding that there are no real stakes. The game is divided into five chapters, each of which consist mostly of walking forward through corridors as jump scares and surreal imagery are triggered by your presence. As you explore the vessel, you'll find that space, time, and reality warp and twist, sending you on a nightmarish theme park ride of the actor’s life as framed by horror cinema history. Leaving behind Victorian England and its unnamed mad painter, this game takes place on an unnamed Titanic-esque ocean liner and puts you in the shoes of an unnamed mad actor, preparing for a role in a new film helmed by an unnamed mad director. I could almost get away with reprinting my review of the first one and changing a few story details – the strengths are the same, my issues with it are identical, only the setting has changed. Given the dramatic improvement in >observer_, I approached Layers of Fear 2 with the cautious optimism that Bloober Team would take the lessons learned from their second game rather than revisiting the template of their first.Īlas, the sequel is in every way another Layers of Fear game. This time around, players were given characters and a world to latch onto, something that infused meaning into its lengthy wild “dream” sequences. Despite plenty of structural similarities to Layers of Fear, >observer_ turned the first game’s failures into strengths, telling a disturbing and visually exhilarating tale of a dystopian future where personal privacy has been thoroughly dismantled by the state. Then came >observer_, a cyberpunk mystery heavily inspired by Blade Runner, about a cybernetically enhanced detective with the ability to dive into people’s minds.

What started with so much promise ended up being deeply disappointing overall. The pacing was relentless, with nearly every room foisting a burst of paranormal activity and frights on the player, to the point where it became almost comically predictable.

#LAYERS OF FEAR 2 RATING FULL#

The game consisted of a strictly linear series of set-pieces connected by corridors full of jump scares, spooky imagery, and disconnected scraps of dialogue that implied, rather than told, the story.

The original Layers of Fear told the tale of a painter in Victorian England as he succumbed to a dark obsession with creating his masterpiece, a painting so disturbing it cost him his sanity and his family. The problem is, that mark often leaves me totally cold and I’ve struggled to put into words just why that is – and I’m not sure if there's anything more frustrating for a reviewer than not quite being able to express why you don’t like the end result. In large part this is because these games are clearly the result of supremely talented developers chasing a strong vision and seemingly hitting the mark they were aiming for. I’ve spent more time erasing and rewriting large chunks of my Layers of Fear reviews than I typically spend doing a full write-up. Not only have you decided on a name that I cannot manage to read or say without chuckling, but your games have been some of the most difficult for me to evaluate in all my years writing for Adventure Gamers. Bloober Team, oh dear, sweet Bloober Team.

Layers of fear 2 rating