Dad Schlock: The Evil Within 2's gameplay trailer
The city is the mind is the city
The Evil Within [official site] clicked for me the second time I played it, which makes me regret my slightly sniffy review when I read it back. It’s a schlocky tour through all kinds of horrors, riffing on director Miyakami’s own Resident Evil past as well as a host of other subgenres and tropes. Even though there’s a central plot underneath all the reality shifts, it almost feels like an anthology.
Yesterday's cgi-heavy reveal trailer didn't tell me a whole lot about what to expect from the sequel, but today's "gameplay trailer" gives a better idea despite using some of the same scenes. It looks gorgeous, in that grisly, grimy sort of way.
While I was watching the first video at Bethesda’s press conference, I tapped the words ‘Silent Hill’ into my phone, which is something I do quite often without any meaningful context. There was context this time though – the lost daughter and the warped creatures and settings bring the first in the series, and the film adaptation, to mind. No Sean Bean though, sadly.
This time round, as Alice noted yesterday, there will be larger areas to explore and more freedom.
Set in Union, a crumbling city built using Lily's mind as the Core, The Evil Within 2 presents a mix of closed off, claustrophobic environments that are reminiscent of the first game, and new, less linear areas that will give you the opportunity to explore at your own pace. You'll be able to wander freely and poke through all the dark corners of the world at your leisure, but this is still a survival horror game, and ammo and resources will be scarce.
The fact that the phrase "a crumbling city built using Lily's mind as the core" makese perfect sense to me may be the most frightening thing about this whole situation.