The Evil Within Review Round Up


Here are the latest reviews for Bethesda’s The Evil Within.

The Evil Within is what you get when you take the most iconic horror clichés, blend them into a bloody pulp, and spread them across the sturdy bones of Resident Evil 4. I can’t overstate how firmly planted The Evil Within’s roots are in RE 4, but that’s a wonderful thing given the 2005 GameCube title’s legacy. Everything from the core combat, A.I. behavior, and escalation of the enemy types feels like the incredible Capcom classic.

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The Evil Within is aesthetically, functionally, and spiritually in step with director Shinji Mikami’s last foray into the genre, the iconic Resident Evil 4. It’s not simply a rehash of that game, though, as Mikami and his new development studio Tango Gameworks have delivered a harder, bleaker game this time around.

Read Review “8.7/10”


 

I have come to call The Evil Within “Resident Silent Evil Hill 4” as that’s what it feels like–a strange blending of the oppressive environmental horror of the Silent Hill series that the weapon/item based survival horror of the Resident Evil series. It’s a game with a lot of fantastic ideas, a horror opus from an old master, Shinji Mikami, that at many times made me gag, cringe, and have mini-panic attacks. It’s the sort of game that makes you repeat to yourself “this isn’t ok. None of this is OK.”

Read Review “4/5”


 

To say Bethesda’s new title is dripping in blood is akin to suggesting that Usain Bolt is ‘a bit fast’. Certain areas of the game are awash with the red stuff with huge vats of blood to wade through, corpses and body parts piled up in corners and, if you are unlucky, you will watch some of the most graphic death animations ever seen in a video game.

Read Review “8/10”


 

Directors are undervalued in this industry. While looked to as a clear indicator of quality in the motion picture business, their role in game development tends to be minimized or outright ignored. Case in point: Shinji Mikami. Relinquishing his director duties after Resident Evil 4, the series has never been the same. Resident Evil 5 was a departure from the tone of its predecessors, while Resident Evil 6 was a critically derided leap away. While some chalked this up to franchise fatigue or modern sensibilities taking over, The Evil Within proves that everything that was Resident Evil was Shinji Mikami.

Read Review “4/5”


 

After much anticipation and at least four years of development, The Evil Within has finally been unleashed on most major platforms. From the twisted mind that conceived and created the Resident Evil franchise Shinji Mikami, this is a new attempt to scare the bejeezus out of you. With Halloween right around the corner, is this a perfect game to play with the lights off?

Read Review “8/10”


 

Climbing into a metal storage room lined with moist, gleaming viscera, I spot one of the undead Haunted horde, chowing down on some unlucky sucker. I quietly sneak up behind it, but it hears me somehow and turns around to attack… just in time for a giant tentacle to slide out of an overhead pipe, grab it, and disappear. Uh, all right then. But it isn’t long until I’m facing that belligerent squid monster myself, while viciously outgunned and with no idea why I’m fighting it, because that’s how this game works.

Read Review “4.5/5”


 

The Evil Within knows how to make you sweat. Tango Gameworks’ disgusting debut outing will leave you teetering on the precipice of failure with every twisted encounter, causing you to curse your shortage of resources or your character’s lack of superhuman strength. This is a game that, like its survival horror superiors, isn’t satisfied with slowly whittling away at your sense of safety – it wants to erode it at every opportunity.

Read Review “7/10”


 

The Evil Within often provides almost no breathing room between intense, exhausting encounters. No sooner would I clear a room of a half dozen enemies than another half dozen would appear to take their place, with a frustrated quip from the protagonist. Stealth and running away are options for a portion of the scenarios, but just as many force you to take out all of the enemies before moving on.

Read Review “6.5/10”


 

Misplaced expectations can destroy your enjoyment of a game before you ever pick up the controller. Thinking of The Evil Within as a horror game, then, would be a misstep, because while it’s certainly awash in grotesque imagery, it places far more emphasis on combat and stealth than it does creating an atmosphere of dread.

Read Review “3.5/5”


The Evil Within has been an exciting prospect among the recent resurgence of horror games. Riding high off the back of Alien: Isolation and striding on a foundation of independent scare fests, Shinji Mikami’s return to the genre he helped codify has felt like something worth getting eager for. Unfortunately, for all its attempts at being a full-blooded survival horror game, The Evil Within suffers in execution, and isn’t quite the bastion of terror it could have been.

Read Review “3/5”