Layers of Fear

The Polish development team Bloober Team returns to the Layers of Fear game series, which was the reason for its popularity among a group of horror game fans, and this time in collaboration with Anshar Studios to offer an experience that cannot be called a remake can or new edition of the series, but rather a retelling that includes the story of the first and second parts with many… New additions: Was the team able to present its masterpiece and address the problems of the original versions?

Story and Characters

What the game tries to do in terms of story is to give a clearer picture of the game world and the reality of darkness and madness in which its characters live. In addition to the story of the first part, which focuses on the painter and his daughter, a new chapter was added that focuses on the story of the artist’s wife, who excels in music, while the story of the second part focuses on the actor . The famous film shoots its latest film on a voyage from the eccentric director and here comes the story of the new author that takes us through all these stories and highlights the common denominator of all these characters and the truth behind their suffering.

Narrative and Gameplay

When we looked at the content of the story and the development team introduced some changes, we found that the narrative is not well coordinated between the story of the painter and his family and the story of the actor As he read letters and looked at paintings to the To understand events, the second part focused on different types of storytelling. Through letters, he recounted the events that took place on the ship in the past, while understanding mainly the events related to the actor’s life. The plot related to the film projectors and a series of environments visited, which is what the player will experience in the second half of the Experience gave the feeling that the style and manner of the narrative changed suddenly and strangely.

Visuals and Effects

On a visual level, the game is very beautiful and uses the capabilities of the Unreal Engine 5 development engine to provide many beautiful effects. While the attention of the development team was clear in the original versions, it stands out even more in this version, as many environments have been redesigned and more details have been added to them with very nice lighting. While we find that many games in their beginnings focus on providing a level of technicality that becomes less interesting over time, Layers of Fear focuses on this aspect from start to finish, so much so that when viewing the Light sources will notice dust particles flying around that source, and the team contributes to this. Beautiful visual level, excellent audio level and attention to all special effects.

Gaming Experience

When it comes to the gaming experience, the same original experience of wandering through tight environments, reading news or interacting with the environment to a limited extent to solve some puzzles has been retained, albeit with the addition of a new feature, which is the Lamp that can be used in the story of the first part to fight the monster that is chasing you and slow down its movement. With the addition of a lamp that allows you to interact with the environment and puppets in the second part, But the problem with Layers of Fear and its collection of all these stories in one experience and the addition of more content is that the experience becomes boring and repetitive, especially after completing the first part, as the original experiences could be completed within a year. There will be no boredom by repeating the process of exploring and reading, but this experience will take longer, up to 10 hours , as the repetition of this process.

Environmental Manipulation and Puzzles

One of the characteristic features of this series remains the manipulation of the environment and the changes that occur in it, which occur smoothly and directly, especially at the technical level that is presented. The rapid change of environments, the lighting within them, etc. The elements and effects contained within are an amazing affair, and the series is primarily based on environmental puzzles that have to do with the greater manipulation of the environment. Some of these puzzles have been beautifully presented in the new content.

Conclusion

We completed the experience in 11 hours and took care of many collectibles. The experience can be completed within 9 hours, perhaps for those who want to complete the experience faster, and the difference in hours is not big considering that you have to read a lot of texts and explore the environment to learn the story to understand. Layers of Fear offered the best method. To try out this series with new story content that combines different events with a wonderful visual experience, it wasn’t about the original flaws but about the new content provided it was a welcome attempt.