Your interactions with the world are very tangible, which helps ground you in the game's setting even when the threads of reality are stretched thinner and thinner. Of course, nothing is as it seems, so is this a cruise you should go on or will you abandon ship before it’s over? Layers of Fear 2 is a sequel to the horror hit that once took us through the mind of a tortured artist. Layers of Fear 2 switches up that slow-burn horror with jumpscares leaving me dreading chase sequences. Xbox Console Exclusive The Medium Is Bloober Team's First Cinematic Horror Game, Black PS5s Go On Sale This Week, But You Probably Can't Get One, Destiny 2 Slaying Dragons Quest Steps For Iron Banner Season 12, By Layers of Fear 2 Review – Ready, Set, Horror. In 2016, writing about the original Layers of Fear, I asked “Can a horror game be successful if it never manages to scare?” and the same question dogs this sequel. By. Beware, for all may not truly be what it seems. It’s a case of life reflecting art that the developers at Bloober Team are just as adept at creating a eviscerating experience as the game’s wicked “Director” is, taking the player through a punishing emotional gauntlet. Unfortunately, these anxiety-inducing feelings diminish as the game progresses and it leans too heavily on tried and tested tactics. Twitter. It was around four hours long and the scares came so thick and fast, even that short play time began to wear out its welco… Without it, you’d come to a completely different (lesser) understanding of the story being told. Layers of Fear 2 looks to bring the scares to your summer, and it does deliver on that somewhat, but there is so much to discuss. It’s a tool, a process. Which brings us to Layers of Fear 2, a meticulously crafted homage to classic film that uses the visual language of horror to explore artistic creation—and specifically, acting—without uh...being scary. on May 24, 2019 at 1:22PM PDT. Provided, of course, the player’s willing to meet it halfway. The escalation—the increasing detachment from reality—mirrors the actor’s process, as they lose their identity in favor of digging deeper into the character. Layers of Fear 2 is an enjoyable horror adventure, but rarely does anything new with the genre. But there are also plenty of opportunities for the sound design to breathe on its own, too. It’s tempting at times to segment these games off into their own genre, to try and preempt pigeonholing. For every piece of good work there's an analogous aspect that lacks focus and direction. The creaking of wooden floorboards, rats scurrying past your feet, and the plip-plop of dripping water create tension despite their mundanity. GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers. Games can do the same, as evidenced by first Soma, then Layers of Fear and Observer. Still, Bloober Team’s rapidly proved itself as a master of psychological horror, using symbolism in ways most games don’t even attempt, let alone achieve. So what if it’s not very scary? Like Observer, Layers of Fear 2 completely commits to a theme—the visuals, the narrative, the audio—and a much grander story is created in the spaces where these elements meet. You might not be able to put the whole picture together before the game's conclusion, but it's a familiar and clichéd tale that isn't too difficult to discern once events begin to wrap up. A door projected from film onto the wall turns into a real doorway. When it … PCWorld |. SHARES. Layers of Fear 2 by Bloober Team piggybacks off the formula of the first Layers of Fear and the absolutely fantastic Observer. This is a problem with Layers of Fear 2 as a whole; the protracted playtime of around 10 hours struggles to maintain its early momentum through the last couple of chapters. Some of them are deftly woven into the narrative and the game's own art style, but others lack context and fail to rise above being mere visual spectacles, foregoing any semblance of cohesion with the rest of the game. What Layers of Fear 2 does do well is build atmosphere and an ever-escalating sense of dread. Layers of Fear 2 is a love letter to the dark side of the classic cinemasphere that should be a blast for anyone who enjoys horror games and/or old movies. And so if you want to go in blind (and you should) I recommend rereading the first sentence of this review and then walking away. But more than that, they convey elements of the character’s personality and history by drawing on the audience’s knowledge. Players control a Hollywood actor who heeds the call of an enigmatic director to take on the lead role in a film shot aboard an ocean liner. It’s no secret that film and the status of celebrity can do something to a person. Each word he bellows is a sonorous treat, no matter how terrifying his performance is. Layers of Fear 2 doesn't have many scares to offer, but visual panache and a multitude of classic film homages make for an extraordinary journey—for the right person. As you walk from a sepia-hued kitchen into a facsimile of the Emerald City, the implication is that the actor took refuge in both film and in their own imagination, an escape from their abusive home life. Layers of Fear 2 is a fascinating horror game that centers on exploring a mysterious ship and its ever-changing layout. It's the perfect place for a ghost story. Similarly, much of Layers of Fear 2's art design is wrapped around the classic films that inspired it, which doesn't always come together in a consistent way. The score is ominous, utilizing string instruments to send a chill down your spine. These creatures are unnerving, but they're not really specific to the game or this character, failing to capitalize on the strengths of psychological horror and the inherent importance of a character's fears and trepidations in manifesting intimate threats. Saying it takes place aboard a ship is a tad disingenuous, as the setting is constantly shifting and transporting you to a variety of disparate environments. Even for those who catch every reference, it’s still something of a challenge to sift through them—especially in the moment, connecting various motifs to the two or three story arcs playing out simultaneously in past and present, and (for the most part) tied to collectible items. The setting is a visually striking homage to Hollywood's golden years, The story doesn't go far enough in tackling the themes it presents, Relies too heavily on the same elements throughout its protracted playtime. 6.5. Layers of Fear 2 Review: Stunning Scenery But Seldomly Scary Layers of Fear 2 ups the ante from the original game's haunted house simulator style of horror, but that still leaves it all feeling too scripted to instill any real sense of dread. Problem is, “horror” has always been one of the more one-note game genres, perhaps because the medium came of age during the slasher era and its decades-long death rattle. You did. Nobody uses the words “The Method” though. Both the iconic factory scene and clock make an appearance, the first time I realized Layers of Fear 2 was borrowing scenes from film history directly. Note, it’s very hard to explain any of this without referencing specific examples or ruining the process of putting together this story yourself. Both games are centered around an artist gradually losing their grip on reality. Copyright © 2021 IDG Communications, Inc. Yet Layers of Fear also made an impression for its occasionally disappointing nature. The conundrums it places before you are never particularly challenging or memorable, whether it's using a dial with 10 numbers to multiply up to a specific digit or manipulating a roll of film to create a doorway. And its approach to horror feels like a step back. There is a pattern. Angela DiLella - May 29, 2019. I started to understand around the time I saw Metropolis, or “Mechanopolis” as it’s called on the in-game poster. Layers of Fear 2 feels lost at sea. Then you ran from monsters, a la Penumbra and Amnesia. Layers of Fear 2 Review – Mannequins, Monsters, and Monotony This is a ship you might want to sink. That’s my official stance. Layers of Fear 2 Review – Nautical Nightmares and Tidal Terror Layers of Fear 2 is the follow-up to indie developer Bloober Team’s sleeper horror hit, Layers of Fear. Layers of Fear 2 shows a superb level of craftsmanship for a horror title. Layers of Fear 2 takes place aboard a British cruise liner carving its way across the Atlantic Ocean. In fact, when Layers of Fear 2 does fall back on jump scares or clumsy chase sequences, those are its worst moments. Layers of Fear 2 is over and done in less than 6 hours. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Bloober … Layers of Fear 2 Review – Manifesting Psychological Horror Where psychological horror often tends to go awry is when the horror isn’t psychological anymore. Layers of Fear 2 also has more traditional scares than the original. Layers of Fear 2 is impressive to look at and listen to but like so many games in its genre, it feels sterile. I think I might be in the minority on that one, and that’s fine. Layers of Fear 2’s film homages certainly make for unique visuals, and a surreal journey. During the first act you catch spectral forms out of the corner of your eye, and this eventually evolves into frequent appearances from crudely assembled mannequins and a formless monster that stalks you through much of the game. There have been plenty of books and films on the topic, not to mention the actual examples that we see like clockwork in real life. Find out in our full review! Review code was provided by the publisher. While the original game focused on a struggling painter in an opulent Victorian mansion, Layers of Fear 2 shifts art forms to tell the story of a Hollywood actor during the Golden Age of cinema, as he embarks on a new role in a movie being shot aboard a decadent ocean liner. What parents need to know. But there’s a rich horror tradition, one where the threats are mostly unseen or unknowable—The Thing, The Shining, The Omen, even In the Mouth of Madness and Jacob’s Ladder. The story is too hazy to latch onto until the latter stages, and then nothing about it is particularly engaging, with its central mystery building towards something we've seen numerous times before. Layers of Fear 2 is striking in its unsettling places, but is a looser experience than its predecessor, losing the player with busywork puzzles and winding corridors. Myself, I wrote that Layers of Fear's follow-up Observer “wasn’t a horror game” when it released in 2017. Share Tweet. It isn't the scariest game, but the unsettling nature of everything you encounter more than makes up for it. The constant environmental changes designed to mess with you are amazing and one of the best aspects. All the glimmers of recognition, the moments where you thought you noticed a pattern? Layers of Fear 2 is a brilliant work of art. Matthew Wojciow Jun 10, 2019 0. Sometimes their appendages move as you inch closer. What Layers of Fear 2 does do well is build atmosphere and an ever-escalating sense of dread. When you walk into a room and find a locked door with nowhere else to go but back the way you came, the suspense hits, tapping into that fear of the unknown--of what's waiting to greet you once you turn your head. 2019 Under Article , Reviews Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Then I worry I’m reading too much into it. It is, perhaps, the solitude that gets to you first. There’s more important work to be done. Horror icon Tony Todd--of Candyman fame--lends his bassy growl to the disembodied and omnipresent voice of the film's eccentric director. The jump scares are a bit overdone, same as the original Layers of Fear, and there’s an abysmal chase sequence in the second act that could’ve been cut completely. Layers of Fear told the story of a painter gone mad. Layers of Fear 2 is building towards this moment where you realize it’s all intentional. Layers of Fear 2 Review. I’ve seen film circles struggle with the same questions of late, throwing around the term “post-horror” when discussing Get Out, Us, Haunting of Hill House, Hereditary, and more. 0. My mistake. And there are so many references to catch. None of the references are too obscure, to be fair, but they’re certainly not all common touchstones. Richard Wakeling The Wizard of Oz sequence, for instance, dovetails with details about the actor’s bleak childhood. Parents need to know that Layers of Fear 2 is a downloadable survival horror game for Windows PCs. A refreshing change, that latter, but still fundamentally more of the same vein of horror. The majority of your time is spent simply exploring each space, gathering knick-knacks to fill in the story, and solving puzzles to progress. Layers of Fear 2 uses the strongest elements of interactive story telling to immerse you in a horrifying experience – atmosphere and playing with perspective. Some, I’m not sure I’ll ever know for certain. Lights, camera, action! This isn't necessarily a bad thing, particularly if you have an appreciation for this era of cinema, but it also makes Layers of Fear 2 feel like an inconsequential mishmash of film references without any clear significance to the story it's trying to tell. Share this: Horror games have always been a favorite genre of mine. Layers of Fear 2 instead goes for the instant gratification of the shock scare right off the bat, rather than the slow, growing sense of unease and dread that can snowball over time. In many ways it’s the kind of game that would be perfect in VR. The Trip to the Moon segment adapts the iconic rocket-hitting-the-moon sequence so it also reflects the father’s wartime injury, which left him with only one working eye. By Angad Singh on May 31, 2019 No Comments / 60479 views. Google+. It also makes you hesitant to simply turn around, as the environment toys with impossible spaces, distorting the world around you when you're not looking. Layers of Fear 2 sees you summoned to the ship because you are auditioning or filming for a big part in a movie. Posted By Billy Givens | On 29th, May. Layers of Fear 2 has some seriously splendid puzzles that often help inform the events of the story. When the original Layers of Fear released in 2016 it made a big impression. They offer more than visual flair. The usual inclination is to summarize as much as you can, then duck out with a vague value judgment and a promise to the reader. Dialogue contains occasional profanity in the form of words like “bulls--t,” “g-ddamn,” bastards,” and “f--k." What you do know though is that you’ve been invited on an ocean liner by a famed yet strange director (who’s voiced by the brilliant Tony Todd of Candyman fame) to take the lead role in a movie that’s being filmed on board. “The story is great, but I can’t tell you why for fear of spoiling it.” I’ve written some version of that sentence countless times, as recently as last week with Observation. The art design, too, while disjointed, conjures some breathtaking imagery that you can't help but marvel at. Some of them are in keeping with the tone of the game and its cinematic feel, but others are so inane they just feel out of place. Layers of Fear 2, by comparison, feels bereft of original ideas. It builds, and at first the constant changes in tone and location seem random. Much of Layers of Fear 2's art design is wrapped around the classic films that inspired it, which doesn't always come together in a consistent way. Sometimes the monster's arrival comes so suddenly that you're dead before even realizing what's happened, and these cheap insta-kills mean you're frustratingly subjected to the same death animation over and over again. Bumps in the dark. Facebook. Childhood trauma is the key motif, built around the relationship you had with your sister, but Layers of Fear 2 regularly uses routine horror tropes as opposed to something more personal. Layers of Fear 2 Review. Be that for the photo-realistic house of horrors Bloober had lovingly crafted. The score is ominous, utilizing string instruments … Or don’t, as may be. Hayden writes about games for PCWorld and doubles as the resident Zork enthusiast. An elevator opens up onto a city block, skyscrapers stretching into the mists above. Layers of Fear 2 puts you in the shoes of a famed actor who has had a troubling time as of late, though the details of what exactly has been going on are a little sparse. Or the wackiest hallucination scenes -- possibly -- ever seen in gaming. So again: Layers of Fear 2 is brilliant. Keeping with the film theme, creepy mannequins are scattered throughout the ship as if they are acting out scenes. There are remnants of an excellent horror game submerged just below the surface of Layers of Fear 2. You’re the actor, and the whole premise of Layers of Fear 2 is that you’re one of the early adopters of the Method—which, as you probably know, asks actors to search for emotional truth within themselves in order to embody a role, or “Build the character,” a recurring mantra in Layers of Fear 2. In the original game, you played as a tortured painter shacked up in his home, struggling to finish his magnum opus as his mind slowly deteriorated into madness. For a while you shot the monsters, a la Resident Evil and Silent Hill. The aforementioned mannequins are consistently impressive due to their creepy stop-motion-esque movement, but they're featured so heavily that their effect as something to be scared of is severely diminished. Layers of Fear 2 lends itself to multiple replays, catching references or visual tricks you missed the first time when you were distracted more by the mechanics of playing it. WhatsApp. Pinterest. And while it is a visually striking horror game, Layers of Fear 2 struggles to establish its own identity and explore its themes of anguish and despair in meaningful ways. A horror game at its heart, Layers of Fear 2 ramps up the sense of dread slowly, but with purpose. Layers of Fear 2 is steeped in enough symbolism that these overreaches seem normal though—even encouraged. I prefer to take my time creeping through horror titles, not dashing through so quickly that I don’t get to absorb the environments. August 09, 2019 Justin Celani 0 . Games Reporter, The biggest thing a horror game needs to do is create the right kind of atmosphere to instill the player with the right amount of fear for what is to come. Layers of Fear 2 is an astonishing feat of storytelling viewed through an off-kilter horror lens that Read our, Learn more about PCWorld's Digital Editions, Uses classic film references to craft a unique aesthetic, Uses symbolism and subtext to enhance an otherwise straightforward story, Plays off genre expectations, but doesn't deliver, Story can feel disjointed without context. Layers of Fear 2 is a first-person psychological horror game with an emphasis on exploration and story. This decision doesn't coalesce with the story to provide a sense that your character's state of mind and past anguish are shaping what's happening. Finding a hidden gem that manages to surprise and scare is a guilty pleasure. © 2021 GAMESPOT, A RED VENTURES COMPANY. You start Layers of Fear 2 on an ocean liner, but as with the first game the ship is an impossible Escher space where you exit a room and find yourself back inside, or double back to find a new hallway’s replaced the old. These parlor tricks continue through the entire game, but they gradually grow more ambitious. Layers of Fear 2 is brilliant, and unfortunately it probably won’t be recognized as such because it defies genre definitions. That’s sort of the problem. Hell, even in the process of writing this review, I’ve had multiple realizations, along the likes of “Oh that’s why such-and-such happened.”. The exaggerated shadows of German Expressionism look splendid, but if you don’t understand the parallels between the character’s situation and say, Dr. Caligari or Nosferatu, then there’s a disconnect. A normal suburban kitchen opens onto woods, with a glimmer of opulence in the distance. In the sequel, you play as an actor on board a ship in the ocean, set to film the movie of a lifetime. The story itself is like a jigsaw puzzle; some of the pieces come together as the narrative unfolds, but others are scattered across the environment as notes, optional puzzles, sound recordings, and paraphernalia that provide new details on your character's troubled past. It occasionally hints at interesting themes but fails to go anywhere with them, falling back on telegraphed jump scares rather than delving deeper into the psychological horror it can only tease at. Great work. Thus people (naturally) assumed Layers of Fear 2 did the same, but with cinema. Developer Bloober Team has created something more varied and ambitious than its past work, taking inspiration from iconic film directors like Georges Méliès, Fritz Lang, and Alfred Hitchcock. At all. Rather, it relies on the audience having certain knowledge of film, film production, and film history in order to connect the dots. It's just a shame that Layers of Fear 2 frequently pays lip service to the films and games that clearly inspired it while struggling to find a voice of its own. The formless creature that oftentimes stalks you adds some urgency to what is otherwise a methodical affair, but the most terrifying thing about the chase sequences is the threat of having to redo them if you fail. If you don’t have a certain frame of reference it’s all lost—seemingly random changes in tone, in color versus black-and-white, in setting. Layers of Fear 2. I don’t need to spoil every reference. This manifests similar to madness, with constant flashbacks and disorienting geography, but it’s not. However, I wasn’t dreading them out of fear, but annoyance. Others follow, from Melies’ Trip to the Moon to The Wizard of Oz, Psycho, Nosferatu, Casablanca, and so on. The game is a sequel to 2016's Layers of Fear, and casts players as a mentally disturbed actor suffering post-traumatic stress as a result of childhood abuse. Layers of Fear 2 is steeped in enough symbolism that these overreaches seem normal though—even encouraged. Make no mistake: It’s rarely frightening at all. You aren’t playing Tony Todd though. And there are certainly parallels, with Tony Todd’s gravel-voiced Director hoping to create his own Great Work. There’s an extended sequence in the ship’s engine room for instance, and I’m pretty sure some of the machinery was designed to resemble an oversized 35mm camera. I want to talk about Layers of Fear 2 though—at your expense, perhaps. Peel back the layers and there's a clear connective tissue tying Layers of Fear 2 and its predecessor together. PCWorld helps you navigate the PC ecosystem to find the products you want and the advice you need to get the job done. Layers of Fear 2 – Review . The point is: There’s intent, here. 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