Game Picks: Update leads ‘Evil Within’ in scary new direction
One of the last year’s scariest console titles, “The Evil Within,” is a stylish survival horror game that’s all about the little moments. Like when the hybrid zombie-spider girl, with her long black hair, pounces from the elevator shaft. Or when the undead asylum patients swarm, with their knives. Or when the teleporting psychic manifestation appears over your shoulder with its festering maw of ...
Anyway, you get the point. Directed by Japanese designer Shinji Mikami, creator of the venerable “Resident Evil” franchise, “Within” is a superior genre specimen. As with good scary movies, effective horror video games build tension and dread by providing unnerving environments and images. Mikami’s hallucinogenic house of horror doesn’t look like, say, Stanley Kubrick’s Overlook Hotel in “The Shining.” But it shares a lot of the same notional DNA.
‘The Evil Within: The Assignment’
“The Evil Within: The Assignment” ($9.99; rated M) is the first downloadable content expansion issued for the main game, and it takes the series in an interesting new direction. Instead of simply continuing the adventures of our original protagonist, police detective Sebastian Castellanos, the game switches focus to supporting character Julie Kidman and reveals her hidden agenda from the mothership game.
In fact, the storyline of “The Assignment” is threaded around and through events from the first adventure, so that several key scenes are revisited and depicted in a new (sickly, flickering, spooky) light. Mysteries set up in the previous adventure get paid off, suggesting that the design team has a master plan for the downloadable content – a good sign, since “The Assignment” is the first installment of a planned trilogy of add-on releases.
Kidman is a more interesting hero, too, as she explores the game’s derelict buildings and haunted moors. In the original game, Sebastian doesn’t have much agency as a character. He essentially wanders into a surreal nightmare scenario and acts like a cop. He has no idea what’s going on. The estimable Ms. Kidman, on the other hand, has both an agenda and a goal. Fans of the late, great Showtime series “Dexter” will note that Kidman is voiced by Jennifer Carpenter, Dexter’s sister.
“The Assignment” also switches up gameplay with a fundamental shift in focus. Kidman is unarmed for most of the game and must rely on stealth to avoid the story’s terrifying monsters. The game introduces a new cover-based mechanic in which Kidman crouches and scoots around environmental objects – a bloody hospital gurney, say – while gibbering lunatics pass by juuust out of sightline.
Kidman can call out or toss bottles to lure enemies toward or away from her. Some of the game’s most harrowing sequences are simply spatial puzzles played out in real time, as you employ careful timing to navigate a lethal labyrinth. Everything is stripped down to basics: Kidman auto-heals when she rests, and the first game’s inventory and upgrade system have been jettisoned entirely.
“The Assignment” also boasts a clever new lighting scheme. Some areas are almost totally dark, and Kidman can only see what’s revealed in the beam of her flashlight. The designers leverage this scenario for many satisfying scares.
I liked the game’s baddies, especially the relentless creature with the spotlight head – another example of the creative use of light as a gameplay element. With a relatively short running time of about four hours, the add-on leaves you wanting more. The cliffhanger ending is there for a reason.
The good news on that front is that Part 2 of the DLC set, “The Consequence,” was released this week. There goes my discretionary time. Updates as warranted.
Also New This Week: The Assassin’s Creed franchise gets a female protagonist and a new side-scrolling 2-D treatment in “Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China.”
This story was originally published April 23, 2015 at 11:00 AM with the headline "Game Picks: Update leads ‘Evil Within’ in scary new direction."