Resident Evil Within 2 is an interesting sequel in many ways. In one way, it is interesting because while being a true follow up to the first game, it feels like a different game series at times. Not in a bad way mind you, but still it was apparent that the game had a new director.
Nevertheless, it´s one of my favourite Zombie shooters and here´s why:
Story:
Alcoholic supercop gets plugged into Junji Ito´s Sword Art Online.
Interestingly, the games horror this time comes not from what you don´t know, but rather from what you know. Evil Within 1 relied heavily on the whole setting still being a mystery. You never knew what would happen next because Murphys Law was in full effect.
This time, Evil Within 2 drops the mystery act and gets right to the point. You know you´re inside what is basically the Matrix if the director was David Cronenberg instead. Or whoever directed The Cell.
But that´s where the horror comes from. You know that something is going to happen, just now how exactly. The plot is a bit tamer this time, the oppressive world inside a killers mind has been switched for a cozy midwestern small town which makes sense in context, but the game corrupts this setting more and more over time.
But surprisingly, it never reaches the levels of grotesque horror as the first game. This time, the story is not about raw survival but instead a more emotional one about dealing with trauma. Not gonna lie, this was the only horror game with an ending that brought tears to my eyes.
The setting is actually genius and explains so much as to what was even going on in the first game. A small town meant as a safe heaven gets turned upside down by its creators not understanding their own mistakes. I like it! Good stuff.
Gameplay:
Okay so Evil Within 2 took more inspiration from The Last of Us, rather than Silent Hill. Chase scenes with horror movie mascots are more rare, the levels itself don´t try to kill you any more and the overall gameplay loop is built around more open areas with optional quests. I like this semi open world approach a lot for giving the player more freedom.
Also, you are encouraged to loot everything you can find because the games crafting system now lets you craft your own ammo. You don´t become Rambo (atleast not early on), but you will be in situations where you are glad you crafted that extra shotgun shell. Enemies are still shambling unpredictably, are fast and hit like a martial arts champion about to make Andrew Tate their b*tch.
Aim carefully and if necessary, use stealth. It is way more viable now and even has its own upgrades like higher speed when crouching.
The upgrade system has been upgraded as well. You now need scrap metal for weapons and green gel for stat upgrades as it should be. Weapons can be upgraded into Ace Combat superweapons, but only if you use high quality weapon parts to unlock the higher upgrades. I mean... makes sense.
The weapon roster is also so much better!
You now have multiple weapons per cathegory.
For example: you have your standard 1911, then a glock with laser sight and even later on a revolver. They all have their own unique traits and i recommend getting them as soon as possible. The crossbow returns and mostly unchanged because you cannot improve what was already perfect.
Oh and halfway through you get an actual ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ assault rifle when the game gets into its action half.
Don´t frown, Resident Evil does this all the time.
Now to the Elephant in the room... or rather, the Tyranid Dreadnought in the room:
The game runs on a new engine based on the id Tech 5 engine which means the game and its physics are bound to 60fps. That wouldn´t be a problem if they ran stable but instead, i got a stuttery mess which almost made me put off this game for good!
Thank god i found a fix, so here you go:
Unlock the Framerate in-game and then close it.
Use your control panel (AMD or Nvidia) to limit the game to 72fps.
Somehow, this fixed it for me and even gave me some more frames. It runs like a PS3 game now but after a while you´ll get used to it. It´s a slow paced horror game, it´s not a big deal afterwards.
So yeah, one of the zombie games i praise very highly and would put even above some Resident Evil games. Just some.
I would like for Tango to make a sequel but sadly they left the rights to this at Bethesda.
Translation: The series ends here. Well... it was a good run and since Tango works for Krafton now, maybe we get a sequel to Callisto Protocol made by people who actually know how Resident Evil clones should play.
Unironically 10/10
