Don't turn around, ‘cause you're gonna see my heartbreaking.
Despite having a pretty lengthy catalog of games created in the past decade, developer Bloober Team made a name for themselves through their 2016 release, Layers of Fear, and a follow-up with another psychological horror game in The Observer. 2019 then saw the studio producing two titles in Layers of Fear 2 and their Game Pass release in Blair Witch, a title that I thought was actually pretty enjoyable. With Xbox having a pretty decent end of year sale, I finally jumped into Layers of Fear 2, and while the game is certainly pretty to look at, I unfortunately found it rather dull at everything else it attempted to do.
Layers of Fear 2 has you take on the role of an actor who has been invited onto a ship by a director who is known for putting his actors through an interesting process to get them prepped and ready for the role they are about to take on. The story itself can often get a bit confusing as it jumps from the story of the actor, a young boy and girl playing pirates aboard the ship, to even the lives and mental state of the staff who occupied said ship. These story beats are largely told through bits of lore you’ll pick up, but also through a ton of spoken dialogue that is fed to you through disembodied voices coaching you through various scenarios.
Much like the original Layers of Fear, the environment and storytelling is one of an artist gone mad. Where 2016’s Layers of Fear dealt with that of a painter, here the artistic swap is to that of a filmmaker, as illustrated with containers of film, movie posters, and projectors littering much of the environment. The game is also obsessed with mannequins, as they are nearly everywhere you go. The director will also attempt to get into your head and offer you up choices to go along with his direction or your own choice to refuse him, decisions that all lead up to one of several endings you’ll unlock.
As was the case with Layers of Fear and to a lesser extent, Blair Witch, Layers of Fear 2 loves to repeat a lot of its gimmicks and causes the game to lack any true sense of fear when its application of horror becomes beyond predictable. As you move around every environment, you will encounter dead ends or kneel down to read a note and when you rise up or turn around, the room has changed, offering up a new path or implementing some type of jump scare. Again, this type of mechanic can and has been used to create genuine scares in their prior games, but Layers of Fear 2 attempts to do this every few minutes, making its design boring and lacking any punch.
The core gameplay loop is moving around each environment and taking in the story that is being narrated to you, the bits of paper that further enhance the plot, or reading the narrative that is told to you through its environments, which are really well designed and highly detailed. For any of the title’s failings, the visuals are not one of them. As you push through each room, you’ll need to either solve puzzles or pull switches that force you to interact with various elements of the room to push forward, and yes, simply turning around to see a drastic change in the environment is something that nearly every room relies on. While some puzzles really make you think, others can be solved easily enough by accident or in the case of one of the first ones, has its answer literally written above you.
I think of one of my biggest problems with Layers of Fear 2 is it simply feels like a selection of weird events shoved into a game to incite some sort of feeling from you. It feels like it is throwing as much weird and bizarre events at you to see if something sticks and frankly, nothing did. With how often it relies on the same gimmicks to repeat over and over again, nothing is scary here and I never once felt a sense of fear take over me. Horror, much like comedy, is a subjective thing and affects people in different ways, so sure, there may be something here that works for you, but I simply was bored throughout the entire 7-8 hour journey, hoping something would stand out and satisfy me in some way, no matter how minor it would be.
Much of what you’ll do here is through interacting with doors, cabinets, and switches, and this is done by holding R2 and then pulling on the right analog stick to swing the door open or shut or pull out the drawer and inspect its contents. I found this method of interaction to feel clunky, as some doors would feel awkward to open as it would be a pull door as opposed to pushing it open and this would force you to back up and adust, and then opening the door from an angle. It’s certainly not the first game to do it, but here it just felt more awkward then intuitive.
As you explore the depths of the ship and the other locations you’ll visit, you’ll be chased and hunted down by a grotesque monster. While it never gets into Outlast territory, the monster can often appear out of nowhere and instantly kill you, causing you to revert back to a nearby checkpoint. While some of these scenes can create an enjoyably tense chase, there can often be some confusion on where to go, causing a quick death that never feels like it’s your fault. Granted, many of these moments are telegraphed very easily with clear indicators on the path you need to take, but a few of them feel designed solely to be a jump scare rather than creating genuine fear.
Layers of Fear 2 is a gorgeous horror game with some solid audio and level design, but everything else just fails to make the title enjoyable. I found the story to be incredibly lacking as it never felt cohesive or that easy to follow. There are some design aspects of the title I enjoyed but then had them hammered into me so often that I eventually got tired of them and just wanted the game to end. Layers of Fear 2 is certainly a well-made game from a technical point of view, but failed to offer up any sense of horror and left me drastically bored instead.
Layers of Fear 2 was purchased by the reviewer and played on an Xbox One X.
All screenshots were taken on an Xbox One X.