When the Bethesda PR team shuffled us into an excessively hot, dark room behind black curtains for a hands-on demo of ‘Evil Within’, I knew right away the team had one primary goal in mind and that was to scare the bejeezus out of us.
Their nefarious plan worked; after couple of hours of hands-on time with ‘Evil Within’ my hands were sweaty, I was jumpy and well I was relieved it was all over. Despite this, another big part of me wanted more. Evil Within isn’t going to re-invent the survival horror genre anytime soon because I couldn’t help but notice a sense of familiarity with almost every aspect of the demo. Regardless, even based on my short playtime with the game, there is no question ‘Evil Within’ could be the sleeper hit survival horror fans are looking for on their next generation consoles.
The first part of the demo took us through Chapter 4: “Inner Recesses”. Playing as Detective Sebastian Castellanos right off the hop I encountered a ghostly doctor who happens to be looking for some boy named Leslie. Why he is looking for the boy, I had no idea but clearly this doctor was hell bent on finding him, so off we went.
As all my instincts were telling me to turn around, what do we do? Everyone knows horror movies and games are all really based on characters making extremely poor decisions so we decide to venture into a classic horror movie looking farm house. It didn’t take long before I ran into my first enemy. He was a nasty looking zombie-like creature with some kind of dagger poking out from the side of his head. Three shots from my handgun and I took him down. No problem, right? Wrong. Three shots depleted most of my ammo. Ammo is sparse in the game so there is a significant amount of emphasis on exploration and conserving. I learned this quickly.
After I disposed of my first enemy and became acquainted with the games weapon wheel where I could choose from a handgun, shotgun, knife, syringe or cross-bow, the next part of the demo took me downstairs in the house where I encountered a character gutting some kind of corpse on a medical table. He seemed to be enjoying himself, so why interrupt him, right? Well the doctor had other ideas and starts opening his BIG FAT STUPID mouth. This of course catches the attention of the Mad Butcher and it doesn’t take long for him to take out all his frustrations on you. A shotgun blast to the head took care of him in no time flat but just when I thought I could take a breath we get our first encounter with Ruvik. Ruvik plays a significant role in the game but why he is there haunting Sebastian every step along the way remains a mystery.
After our first encounter with Ruvik, I eventually ended up in a room balls deep (not the good kind) in blood and guts. Knowing damn well this cannot possibly end well, I decided to explore the room where I ended up diffusing traps, picking up ammo, scooping up green gel (used to upgrade your abilities), finding parts to build cross-bow ammo and collected some matches used to burn corpses (this is recommended as creatures can come back from the dead if you don’t burn those cock suckers). Just after I found myself saying hey this room isn’t so bad, a glut of creatures appeared from the blood bowl and made their way towards me. Fortunately I was standing by a pull switch which dropped daggers from the ceiling. This didn’t kill all of the enemies but after a few pulls it took down the bulk of them. The rest I took care of with my trusty shotgun.
Following the sequence of events in the blood bowl, I ran into a creature reminiscent of Samara from the movie ‘The Ring’. If you know who I am talking about you know that is one creepy bitch. It’s not long before you figure out there is no killing her, so I could only do one thing at this point – run! Frantically trying to find an escape route while she came hurdling towards me was easily one of the more intense moments of the demo. I was panicking but also frustrated with my character. Sebastian must be a chronic chain smoker or living off one lung because the dude gets gassed easily. I must have only run the equivalent of maybe 20-feet before I would hunch over completely out of breath. I had to catch myself from yelling at the screen on more than a few occasions.
After a few deaths (yes I died quite a bit in this demo) I found safety. Well at least for a few minutes as Ruvik reappears and instantly killed me as I could not get away fast enough. You need to do some cardio Sebastian! After this final encounter with Ruvik, the area becomes distorted and morphed by the evil forces at work. I then find myself falling from the top of a stair well where the demo abruptly ends.
The second half of the demo took us to Chapter 8: “The Cruelest Intentions”. Here I found myself outside a dark and foggy mansion. As I entered the mansion our ghost doctor is seen taking Leslie behind a vault door. The bulk of this mission is essentially a puzzle based mission where I had to find a way to open that vault door. Again exploration, planning ahead and managing your resources remained a theme throughout this chapter as well.
As I made my way throughout the mansion navigating through one startling ‘jump out of your chair’ scene after another, I ended up at a work table where a human’s head was on display with the brain completely exposed. I then had to insert a probe into the sweet spot of the brain which drained blood into some kind of apparatus and moved me one step closer to opening that door. There were three brain probes in all and each one took some time to get to. As I progressed along, bits and pieces of the story were told. I wasn’t able to make much sense out of what was going on but I get the impressions Sebastian is a tortured soul and sometimes these demonic forces haunt him.
After you complete your three brain probes, the vault door opens where you subsequently witness another creepy scene or two. Much like the way Chapter 4 ends, Chapter 8 ends in the same abrupt manner.
What I most enjoyed about the demo was how it kept me off balance and it did so in numerous ways. Whether it’s zombie-like enemies lunging towards me or slowly opening that door to see what is on the other side, Evil Within successfully manages to keep the hairs on the back of your next standing. If you are expecting a run and gun experience you won’t get it here. This is not an action game and is in many ways a true survival horror experience. The game finds a variety of different ways to keep you off balance and so for that I enjoyed my time with the demo. There is nothing incredibly new on the table but if you go in knowing that, Evil Within should be a blast for you.
