The Evil Within's New Trailer is Downright Freaky

[John Keefer]

The Evil Within's New Trailer is Downright Freaky

The upcoming survival horror title from Shinji Mikami and developer Tango Gameworks is a walking nightmare.

It's a good thing The Evil Within takes place in an mental hospital because the look and feel of the game so far is chilling, eerie and really weird. Of course, that's the mood you want in a survival horror game, right?

Bethesda has released a new trailer for the upcoming title, and it stays true to what we have seen so far in the game -- lots of blood, strange abominations and countless attempts to make the main character feel insane. Of course, you can draw your own conclusions from the video below.

The Evil Within is coming to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on August 26 in North America and August 29 in Europe.

Based on what you have seen so far, is this a game you want to play? If anything, it makes you want to leave the lights on.

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[dumbseizure]

Oh good, I was just thinking that I get too much sleep. This looks like it'll keep me awake for days, from both playing it, and nightmares.

Goodie!

 

[LordMonty]

Oh good, I was just thinking that I get too much sleep. This looks like it'll keep me awake for days, from both playing it, and nightmares.

Goodie!

Sounds like time well spent and great value for money, I too coannot wait for the joys of the horror to come.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Doesn't look too scary, or what I would consider scary, but there's a nice creepy look to it. From the looks of it it seems to be going for that Evil Dead/Resident Evil 4 horror themed weirdness, rather than genuine fear. And with Shinji Mikami at the helm I'm sure it'll be one groovy ride.

 

[Metalrocks]

for some reason this doesnt make feel exited at all. it does look creepy but nothing that wants me to get this game.

 

[Flaery]

I like that they didn't make the mistake of giving you absolutely no way of dealing with hazards. Being helpless is fine but there comes a point where not being able to solve your "problems" stops being scary and starts being annoying.

Other than that I'm oddly not too excited about this game right now. My impressions are that it's some odd mix between RE4 and SH: Homecoming and that worries me.

 

[Doclector]

Doesn't look too scary, or what I would consider scary, but there's a nice creepy look to it. From the looks of it it seems to be going for that Evil Dead/Resident Evil 4 horror themed weirdness, rather than genuine fear. And with Shinji Mikami at the helm I'm sure it'll be one groovy ride.

Yeah, I was trying to nail down what I wanted to say, and that's about it. Doesn't look to be that scary, but it might just be interesting, and the setting's nice.

 

[Deathfish15]

Where to begin, where to begin....

-Let's start with how that cover/trailer ending has that "Evil Dead" -the remake-, which isn't bad in of itself, but has almost no context to what's actually shown as gameplay/the game. Kind of like "hey, here's an Evil Dead looking game...oh, we lied, it's not"

-The graphics.....HORRIBLE! That might be an understatement for a game that is launching in 2014, but has a trailer that looks like it's pre-2008 and oh so 2000late (queue Blackeye Peas song). Take for example 'pile of bodies' at 1:12 that looks like a mud pile with a few pikes on it that has a body being placed on it; and the wooden fence at 1:13 looks like a rip from Age of Empires II: no joke as there's almost no texture to it and the pixels clearly stick out.

-Big guy with metal cover on head and giant weapon: oh the Silent Hill rip-off! Sure it's not a pyramid shape, but instead a box (like that matters). That's still a giant red flag of unoriginality.




Overall the trailer looked bland and unappealing in this day and age of video gaming. I don't care of Bethesda's name is stamped on the box, there should be some kind of standard of quality now days instead of just riding on a name. That trailer didn't speak quality at all, it spoke "random segmented pieces of horror videogames from a decade ago in a montage".



P.S. Lights on? Really, author? That thing was so far from scary it bordered on comical.

 

[FootloosePhoenix]

Not sure if I like the lead being some soldier/swat type guy. Horror is supposed to make you feel helpless.

Yeah, the guns he had bothered me. I wouldn't object to the protagonist having something to defend himself with, as that would only be logical given the situation, but it would be so much better if he had to depend on a knife or other very close-range weapon. A gun is just such an impersonal, "easy" means to kill that doesn't go well with a horror game in my opinion.

Anyway, the trailer, while kind of disturbing, didn't actually frighten me. Seems like The Evil Within might be horrific at night with the lights off and my headphones on, but I'm not overly optimistic at this point. It looks like it could be good, but not great.

 

[TwistedEllipses]

Not sure if I like the lead being some soldier/swat type guy. Horror is supposed to make you feel helpless.

Yeah, the guns he had bothered me. I wouldn't object to the protagonist having something to defend himself with, as that would only be logical given the situation, but it would be so much better if he had to depend on a knife or other very close-range weapon. A gun is just such an impersonal, "easy" means to kill that doesn't go well with a horror game in my opinion.

I hope the gun has the same role it has in some Lovecraftian tabletop RPGs, by which I mean it's next to useless but it's just there to give the player a false sense of security. After all, you can't shoot what isn't there...or what shouldn't...

EDIT: Alternatively, give the player a gun, but no bullets. Or just one bullet with the implications that has.

 

[Alhazred]

I'm not usually a big fan of survival horror games (the only one I've played was Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs; not exactly the pinnacle or terror, oink oink!), but I'm getting a good vibe from this.

From the looks of it, Mikami has dissected Resident Evil 4 for the internal organs, sewn on Resident Evil 1's face, and grafted on some unidentifiable extraneous limbs from Silent Hill, then zapped the whole thing with some current-gen visuals.

Will Mikami's newest monster show up the mouldering old guards of Survival Horror, or will it be beaten with cricket bats and shoved into a jukebox to the tune of 'Don't Stop Me Now'? Only time will tell...

 

[Saetha]

Hmm. Sorry Evil Within, but SOMA's still got me more interested than you. I've always found blood and guts and gore to be gross rather than scary - I ran into the same problem with Outlast, getting grossed out rather than actually scared. SOMA looks like it's got a... quieter horror going for it. I've always preferred that sort of thing.

Or I suppose I could just try 'em both. But then who would start the pointless fandom rivalries?

 

[Malbourne]

Couldn't quite put my finger on how the trailer struck me until I thought about it: it was cut more like an action game. The whole setting seems pretty crowded, so I'm not sure how much Evil Within could offset all the evil apparently without. Hopefully the eerie aspects are played up more and the atmosphere is fleshed out. The worst thing that could happen to a psychological thriller is ignoring the development of the main character (or at least the world around him).

 

[lacktheknack]

1. On the whole, the SOMA trailers are better, because they just let the creepy fester and barely show anything (except the epic undersea trailer).

2. The "it's in your mind" chanting at the end was admittedly pretty awesome.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Looks like the best Resident Evil game since RE2.. which means it may be the first RE game I actually buy since RE2 as well.

 

[EHKOS]

Doesn't look too scary, or what I would consider scary, but there's a nice creepy look to it. From the looks of it it seems to be going for that Evil Dead/Resident Evil 4 horror themed weirdness, rather than genuine fear. And with Shinji Mikami at the helm I'm sure it'll be one groovy ride.

Yeah, I kinda got "The Suffering" vibe from it too. Maybe it's more the graphics as well. They look well...I don't want to say bad, but they look bad. Which isn't a huge deal, it just makes the game look old, like the blood on his hands and most of the wall textures.

 

[AldUK]

Nothing I've seen particularly excites me. It doesn't look scary, it looks gory. And gore isn't frightening, it's just gross. Amnesia freaked me out in a few places because of the expectation of horror. That is to say; I was scared to walk down a dark hallway because I had no idea what might be down there and my own mind created the tension. When you remove that aspect and simply show the player all the nasty gooks with their axes and barbed wire accessories, it just feels like you're in an action game. Not a horror.

I could be in the minority, most horror films these days just gross me out. Genuinely creepy horror is few and far between, but I enjoy the hell out of it when it's done well. SOMA looks great, by the way.