GameZone's Lance Liebl writes, "Survival horror games are tough to make, mostly because it's tough to scare gamers. The first two Dead Space games managed to pull of some genuine scares, but the third was almost completely void of horror. I can't remember the last time I was scared during a Resident Evil game. For me, and probably for a lot of other people, gore doesn't scare me. Jump scares might startle me for a second, but they don't scare me. What scares me is creepy imagery -- horrifying movement from disfigured creatures and imagery so unsettling that it's the stuff nightmares are made of. And The Evil Within looks to have an abundance of both. "
The Outerhaven writes: While I hold Bethesda's The Evil Within series as some of the best Survival Horror games available, it's clear that Bethesda has no intention of revisiting the series. While Capcom is still working on its Resident Evil series, I look back at the now-dead survival horror series from Bethesda, wondering why the series was left wide open, and yet still not revisited.
An OK horror series left behind. It had some great ideas, but it never knew how to play to its strengths. Instead, it came out like just another RE4 clone.
I would love for a third entry to come out, but it needs to learn to lean in on the psychological aspect and move away from the generic "pew pew" ideology at the center of the gameplay loop. It doesn't need to abandon it; it just needs to put it into better context, is all.
Also, try a first-person perspective instead. Too many 3rd-person games with nothing to offer but an avatar taking precious screen space. At least make it an actual option and not that janky-ass mess the second game pretended to have.
Tango Gameworks was working on new The Evil Within content & had a 6 months old prototype of Hi-Fi Rush 2 in the works prior to closure.
...they didn't close, they changed owners. As far as i know HFR2 is still in the works.
Hifi 2 is still in development. The devs themselves said what they wanted to do with the sequel.
The Evil Within Anniversary Edition?
Good God. We were robbed.
I would imagine they would have improved the graphics and animations to bring them more in line with the second game. Wishful thinking but it would have been really cool if they redid the voice lines from the first game aswell with the same actors from the second, I felt they had more personality in the sequel. The only person I thought gave it a bit more than the others was Jennifer Carpenter as Kidman but the sequels voice actress did a great job aswell.
Microsoft is going to do f*** all with the IP and we'll never see a second Ruvik and Seb showdown.
I hope Krafton goes back and gets it after Hi-Fi Rush 2 if it was only because they didn't want the initial purchase to get complicated.
I wasn't really making a point at what game was overall better, just the voices were so flat in the first one and it would be nice if the animations and the like would be improved upon.
I really got to get around to playing the first one, I really liked the second game.
It hurts so bad knowing that there might have been new content for Evil Within..love those games
What a stupid, short sided move by Microsoft. Comparatively it would have been cheap for them to hang onto their only Japanese studio, with actually good games that people want to play. I struggle to understand how Phil Spencer is still employed. At this point it is Kathleen Kennedy levels of failure.
Well said about him being Microsoft's version of Kathleen Kennedy.
All he has been doing is to destroy Xbox and it is unbelievable he falls upwards.
The Evil Within, Ghostwire: Tokyo and Hi-Fi Rush studio has closed its doors.
Ninja theory. Others will follow as well. The smaller studios MS owns should all be worried. Maybe MS will try and release some of their games day and date on ps5 to save some of these studios.
I can see Ninja Theory. At least Tango made a game that was reviewed well. Ninja Theory spent a lot of years to release a tech demo that didn’t do well at all.
I get it that Hellblade 2 is a boring game, but I hope they are not the next to be closed.
@repssahj
Ninja Theory is likely on the chopping block too. They released Bleeding Edge which bombed, took 4 years to release Hellbalde 2 which doesn’t seem to be doing well, and still have Project Mara in limbo. They’re high on the chopping block.
MS was likely expecting their God of War / Uncharted quality game from NT based on Heavenly Sword, Enslaved, DmC, and to an extent Hellblade 1, but NT hasn’t delivered since Hellblade 1 which was 7 years ago.
3 trillion MS is worth, yet they do this, well Phil the shit bag did. No studio needed to be let go, when you are worth this much.
Sad, but I see characters and posters of either less than average or barely average games.
Have to disagree here duder, with respect. Evil Within was a good game and the sequel was fantastic, as was HiFi Rush. I'd concede Ghostwire was pretty average but regardless, shuttering a studio which just put out MS best game in donkeys years was complete shithousery on XBox' part.
Microsoft paid 8B to buy Zenimax then fired well over 1000 people from Zenimax between the time they closed the deal and they announced these shut downs.
People talk about the 1900 they fired most recently, but that was only one wave of three sets of layoffs from their gaming division so far this generation totalling around 5000 people this generation. Not counting the dozen plus studios they canned last gen including Lionhead the original Fable developers.
By every real metric HiFi was an average game. I don't see an Evil within poster in the thumb, which is a shame, because if they threw their weight behind that IP, they might have still been around.
I don't understand how you can say it was average in every metric when it garnered the reviews it did?
I haven't seen any gameplay yet but I really do hope so!
The screenshots make me want to poop my pants. As does the trailer. Lookin good so far!
The Evil Within WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!! !!!!!!!!
Thank god it looks like survival horror will make a much needed return
the live action kinda takes me back to 'jill sandwich' or even 'master of unlocking.' Then came in Silent Hill.
Update: Honestly, I only played Siren this generation. I didn't even bother touching the other horror games, so I've saved up 'some' just for this game.