“Come gather, both the young and the old!
Come enjoy the show
A show of lies and gods”

It’s as existential as horror can get and, in the ocean of indie top-down horror RPG, it’s the only trilogy worth the entry price from beginning to end. This time, the world is broken from the very start, every wish for everyone to be happy has failed and death is destined to come no matter what. After three games of journey through etherane’s personal hell-scape, we are addressed directly to accept that nothing in it is alright, and probably can never be as long as we think of it as a story. Individuality is questioned to rationalize the game logic that make it possible to treat people and feelings as items. It is worthless. The only normalcy that can be achieved is to recognize ourselves as individuals that need to be together.
It’s corny to treat your own story as a parasite, to see it being carried over into the world outside, trying to scare the viewer with the idea of being endlessly, helplessly seen, to no end. Stuck is a world soaked in ugly colours, being tainted, incapable of achieving the pure white. It’s a world of regrets, but it’s also a world where we can inject love. Because, all this time, we have listened.

“Inside a dream, I laugh, and the world laughs with me
Inside a dream, I forget, and the world forgets with me
Inside a dream, I am the world
Hello, world!”

Full of itself to an almost comical degree, yet all the more brutal and real exactly because of this contrast.
Following the thematic input of the first game, the struggle within, against the antipathetic world of false Gods, goes on, this time without even tip-toeing around the subject matter but ramming at full train speed into Charlotte’s reality, in her quest for free will. How does the world reflects in her eyes? Is it bleak, foggy and disgusting, or a wonderful, brighter place worth fighting for? For hope.

“Congratulations” BANG

Simple and juvenile in a delightful way. Hello Charlotte oozes the honesty of an author that has yet to find their voice but understands the language of a world inherently hostile, so to make it surreal yet comprehensible with just enough imagery.

It’s a fast paced, short tale of being always journeying and always unwelcome, of being terrified by what may warp us in something different, of junk food, gods and teddy bears

Bizarre design on so many levels, not least the retention of the fixed camera of the early Resi and Silent Hill while also making each room more cluttered with objects that hinder navigation and shooting, and with enemies way too fast for these environments. This is compounded by the most mundane puzzles imaginable and a barebone horror storyline, not interesting enough to leave a lasting impression and not campy enough to be thrilling while played with a friend. Also, teenagers are inherently not made equal, there is little incentive to swap between characters as most of them clearly have better abilities than the rest overall.
What a weird, weird experience.

It's fine for what it tries to achieve but every beat, from gameplay to story, just makes me think of better games I wish I was (re)playing instead. As with the first game, what lacks in The Evil Within is any sort of identity, something that grabs the players during gameplay and something that haunts them after they've experienced it, something that, it needs to be said, makes you say "there's an evil within too". Instead it all comes off as a sanitized, no-risk, cookie cutter product that doesn't fully commit to anything in particular.