But I won't cry for yesterday.. there's an ordinary world somehow I have to find.. And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world.. I will learn to survive.
A fractured successor, but one that fights tooth and nail to win over your approval, in the end worthy of standing alongside its predecessor when all is said and done.
The Evil Within 2 (2017) is the sequel and swan song of the franchise, developed by Tango Gameworks and directed by a new director, John Johanas, endorsed by Mikami himself, who'd stepped down to the role of producer. It had a more turbulent development cycle, shorter than the previous project. With a much higher focus on characters this time and less on trippy setpieces, it is a far more personal installment than the previous, though it could've been argued that the first game was as dedicated to the villain as the second was to the protagonist.
Mechanically, the skeleton of the previous title is kept intact; stealth is encouraged, you come with ammo storage limitations that must be upgraded with Green Gel, resources are scarce and must be crafted using items found on the field, and mindmelting sequences appear that disrupt your usual combat encounters. It differs in the improved fluidity of the controls, better key remapping, and overall mechanical changes that make the experience smoother. You now have up to nine quick slots for weapons, stealth allows you to run into cover to almost any flat surface or hide in foliage, and you are given a field crafting kit, though it eats more resources to make items. Crafting has been overhauled, allowing you to make ammo of every type, as well as healing items using scrap, gunpowder and herbs you can find all over the various levels. While the same level format is present, it's now seamless, without giving you separate loading screens between chapters, and the focus has shifted to a semi-open world. The new setting of Union, an experimental artificial community ran by MOBIUS and populated by brainwashed civilians, is full of discoverable buildings housing loot and potentially new weapons and crafting recipes. You are given a walkie-talkie type device that serves as not only a minimap, but to detect nearby frequencies, some pertaining to main story objectives, others to side quests that could trade challenging encounters for rare valuables. Mirrors are back, letting you travel to your safe space, which is no longer Tatiana's ward, but your own mental safe zone, modeled after Sebastian's office in the KCPD, which you slowly fill up with memorabilia from your side quests and collectible items you can find in STEM. Environmental combat tools are more useful here, with oil drums you can kick over to spill out and light on fire with a well-placed shot, and electrical panels that can be shot with electric crossbow bolts to open gates or shock enemies. Weapons are more varied, with numerous types you can collect (silenced, semi-automatic, laser dot sight pistols/sawn off, full barrel and double barrel shotguns), expanded crossbow bolt functionality (regular, explosive, freeze, electric, smoke), ontop of new additions such as the sniper rifle, flamethrower and assault rifle. Many of these variants can be obtained through exploration and side quests as rewards. Enemy variety is limited but meaningful, with the new Lost taking the previous role of the Haunted, albeit far more aggressive and numerous, joined by new arrivals such as the putrid and gaseous Laments, dog-like conjoined Spawns, explosive Gluttons and burning Disciples. While the same system of finding and using Green Gel to upgrade yourself exists, it's been changed into a skill tree, mostly giving you physical boons (reduced weapon sway, more health, more stamina, etc.), while weapon upgrades and full crafting are available at anywhere in STEM. The skill tree gives you brand new abilities not present in the previous game, such as Bullet Cascade which increases firearm damage with each shot fired for a certain interval, Ambush which lets you stealth kill any enemy if you're behind cover near a wall they're heading towards, and Predator, which lets you use the automatic movement from the cover system to quickly dash toward an unsuspecting enemy and execute them quicker. Not all of your time is spent in the several hub worlds of Union, as there are also smaller areas in later levels once you leave it, but one that you'll be using regardless of location is The Marrow, a sort of series of subdimensional maintenance tunnels MOBIUS agents travel through via the use of computer terminals to take shortcuts within STEM, and you too can find these computers to skip entire areas, or go to ones out of reach. These all contain their own loot and enemies, so beware, as nowhere is safe. Setpieces are great, introducing new and terrible bosses and anomalous areas, such as hiding from the mysterious Anima who can phase through mirrors, the camera-like Obscura that can freeze time like in a photograph, the amalgamation of corpses that is the Guardian, and more. There are no extra DLC or gamemodes unlike the first game due to the resource and time constraints this time, but there are post-game difficulties, costumes and other knick knacks for you to enjoy.
It is 2017, and Sebastian Castellanos had been convinced that he'd gone mad from his experience at Beacon Mental Hospital, with no one from the Krimson City police force believing his ravings. Finding comfort in drinking and just about ready to give up all hope, he's confronted by Juli Kidman and her MOBIUS escorts, informed that his daughter, whom he'd thought died in 2013 because of a house fire, was kidnapped and placed within STEM and being used as its core, as only her childlike innocence could maintain stability within the system. Something wrong is happening in their new and experimental community, Union, a world they used to test kidnapped civilians through mind control and memory erasure, as they'd begun mutating into The Lost, mindless and violent fiends, and the very fabric of the STEM has started crumbling away. Given no other choice, he's inserted into the mental soup once again. What he finds is the idyllic suburbs falling apart at the seams, entire chunks flying away from the center, and a loose psychopathic serial killer and a preacher with a god complex picking up whatever's left of the uncorrupted tenants, both aiming to take the Core's power for themselves. In order to find Lily, he has to meet up with any remaining MOBIUS agents trapped inside with him and find a way to stabilize the dimension. The story is a lot more personal this time, wrapping up some plot threads left undone from the first game, namely Sebastian's family tragedy and the problem of MOBIUS still running around abducting people for their experiments, and I think it was done about as tactfully as it could've been. A lot more of the lore can be seen within the cutscenes instead of documents in the second game, as was the intent by the developers to focus more on the writing this time around.
The Evil Within 2's gorgeous. The cul-de-sacs in Union provide a false sense of security to hide the gore and rot of the citizens who were driven to madness. Auto repair shops, warehouses, city halls, art galleries, restaurants, it would be an unassuming place had it not all been artificially constructed for a more sinister purpose. The deeper Sebastian goes into STEM, eventually through Father Theodore's cult headquarters and dungeons, the more distorted the landscape becomes, culminating in drifting landmasses all leading to the Castellanos family home. It is a visual treat.
On the technical side, there are some glitches here and there, but far less than with the first game, for which I am glad. Despite going through rough development, I think this is a fantastic and emotional sendoff to the series for what it is. It's worth the cash, though it goes on sale often enough either way.
