You see, there is a ghost in The Evil Within 2 that hunts you, phasing through walls as it eerily hums Clare de Lune. Other sections remind me of Clock Tower, the survival horror game that spawned the unkillable, ever-stalking threat in the genre. At certain points, you are accompanied by an AI character, similar to Resident Evil 5’s single-player faux-op, though they do not outstay their welcome. There is even a section where you are defending a cabin from advancing zombies, keeping them at bay as they tumble through the windows, just like Resident Evil 4’s famous sequence. Story missions take you to more familiar territory: through haunted woods, swampy hellscapes, medieval dungeons, and even high-tech laboratories. The Evil Within 2 pulls some clever tricks in its optional buildings, hiding creepy set-pieces away from the main story, both as rewards and punishments for the curious explorer.
The evil within 2 ghost free#
You explore little hubs, and are free to go off the beaten, bloodied track to scavenge for supplies. Here, however, Union is presented as a semi open-world urban space. It is slightly more action focused than the first game, and the open nature of the city gives a different feel to the tight confines of The Evil Within’s Beacon Hospital, just like how Resi’s mansion compares to Raccoon City. The setting of Union itself reminds me of the shift between Resident Evil and its sequel, Resident Evil 2. Crafting ammo and supplies on-the-fly, knifing a zombie in the back, or using a disposable axe – essentially a TLoU shiv – in a desperate moment all gives off that vibe. Creeping around Union, climbing onto the roofs of vehicles, taking out enemies with stealth, and scavenging for supplies, it is hard to not be reminded of Naughty Dog’s post-apocalyptic PlayStation exclusive. Overall, it feels like Resident Evil 4 in a post-The Last of Us world. After playing the latest wave of first-person horror games – Alien: Isolation, Resident Evil 7, Outlast 2, etc – The Evil Within 2’s third-person action is not particularly scary, but it has its moments, and it does schlocky gore horror better than most.
The evil within 2 ghost full#
It is packed full of visually-arresting scenes, exciting action, and knife-edge tension. Here we have the Greatest Hits album of the survival horror genre, taking inspiration from various influences but still managing to feel like its own thing. It is a mass of limbs, disparate components from other games stapled together into a squirming organism. You see, Gertie, it turns out, is the perfect metaphor for how The Evil Within 2 is pieced together.
The evil within 2 ghost license#
Somehow, those heads are always a young Japanese woman’s, but I am going to allow a little creative license here – both to the developers and to myself. When she appears, all the body parts skid along the floor like they are magnetised, squelching together to form a writhing, grotesque organism with multiple heads. She is formed from the chunks lying in the streets.
![the evil within 2 ghost the evil within 2 ghost](https://i.pinimg.com/236x/4d/2a/a2/4d2aa29eebf919505a3b6fb4e48e608f.jpg)
I like to call her Gertrude – it makes her a bit less pant-wettingly terrifying when she is searching for me, laughing maniacally as she goes.