Layers of fear 2 plot explained9/19/2023 LoF 1 basically had one trick, but a trick that worked really well: at any given moment, whenever your back was turned, the haunted house could reconfigure itself into new and twisted shapes. I don’t say this as false bravado – I confess to finding the original terrifying – but rather because the sequel simply lacks some of that grittiness and unpredictability which may well have been a product of the lower budget afforded the original. Where LoF 2 really falters is that, in the end, it’s actually not that frightening. Perhaps paradoxically, black-and-white games often appear more lifelike than those in full colour, since the latter more easily reveal their blemishes and unreality. It’s a strategy that was used to great effect in The Blair Witch Project, not to mention in one of the hallmarks of the horror gaming genre, Fatal Frame. The second element: at least 50% of the game, by my count, is in black-and-white. On the whole, though, these homages add a nice metafictional layer to the whole thing, even if they’re not inherently scary. (The Wizard of Oz sequence is a highlight.) Others, however, are rather clumsy, as if the developers couldn’t find a good place to work in a beloved film, and so just slapped together a random tableau for the player to stumble across. Some of these references work really well, especially when you turn a corner and find yourself in a twisted recreation of a famous film. Here’s a quick rundown of just some of the references I caught: Hitchcock (of course), Ridley Scott, David Fincher, Kubrick (naturally), Jean Cocteau, Lynch (no kidding), Willard/ Ben, and, pardon the pun, a hell of a lot more. In particular, there are a couple elements that may technically constitute spoilers, but are so central to the experience I’d be remiss to omit them from this review:įirst is arguably the game’s main selling point: its many, many (many) references and homages to classic horror and cinema in general. That the game later abandons this for an increasingly supernatural approach is both a major weakness – once everything is spooky, then nothing is – and also one of its strengths: there are some truly surreal moments in LoF 2, ones that could only work in this medium. In many ways, it’s the most “haunted house” of the haunted house games, at least in the early goings. There’s little here that couldn’t plausibly be arranged by a sadist with a penchant for used film sets and simple robotics. Initially, the game sets up a sadistic film director as the game’s driving force, with some early sequences proving the most frightening precisely because of how plausibly they play out, and how little they rely on otherworldly elements. Setting aside the mythos of the original, LoF 2 tells a brand new story involving a washed-up actor (in the original, it was a failed painter) plagued by malevolent forces psychologically torturing him for reasons both annoyingly clichéd and frustratingly enigmatic. Sadly, its sequel, out now, pales in comparison – though it does have a few neat tricks up its sleeve. One of the best of the genre remains the original Layers of Fear, a game that successfully balanced disturbing aesthetics, mind-bending gameplay, and well-timed jump scares. Less resourcefulness, more cowering in fear. In many ways, these are the games that come closest to emulating how you or I would actually attempt to survive a similar scenario. Whereas traditional survival horror titles like Silent Hill or Resident Evil give players a gun or a crowbar with which to ward off ghosts and goblins, haunted house games are expressly designed around the idea of defenselessness: your hero is alone, afraid, and vastly overpowered by the evil forces that surround them. Titles like Slender Man, Amnesia, and the Toronto-set SOMA all tend to have certain things in common: a first-person perspective, spooky/decrepit environments such as hospitals, insane asylums, or creaky Victorian mansions, a plethora of jump scares, and, significantly, player-protagonists with little-to-no ability to defend themselves. There has lately been a surge in popularity in what might be called haunted house video games. It’s fun, though disappointing in that it’s more creepy than genuinely frightening. Released on for PS4 (reviewed), Windows, Xbox One.Ī spooky and nightmarish haunted house simulator. Our review of Layers of Fear 2, developed by Bloober Team.
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