Maybe that Silent Hill 2 remake is in good hands after all? - Layers of Fear Quick Review

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PLAY IT OR SKIP IT?

Play it, especially if you’re like me and haven’t touched the Layers of Fear series up to this point. Like a lot of horror-heads, I was extremely worried when I heard the news that the long-rumored Silent Hill 2 remake would be developed by Bloober Team, a Polish developer of smaller indie horror games. It didn’t help that the only Bloober Team game I’d played up to that point was the studio’s 2019 Blair Witch adaptation, which was very mediocre.

2016’s Layers of Fear is what really earned Bloober Team some fans, though, and if you’ve missed out on it until now, this new release sharing the same name is the ideal time to jump in. No, it’s not a remake or a rerelease. Rather, 2023’s Layers of Fear is a culmination and reimagining of the whole series, with the first game, its DLC add-on, its sequel, and two new stories all bundled up in a single package that ties everything together. And what a deliciously terrifying package it is.

TIME PLAYED

So far I’ve played six hours of Layers of Fear, which was enough time to take me through the entire reimagining of the first game and the “Inheritance” DLC, as well as two parts of the new “Writer” story that serves as a frame narrative binding everything together. I’m definitely going to stick through this one to the end.

WHAT’S AWESOME

• Dark story. Part of the reason I’m more sold on Bloober Team handling the Silent Hill 2 remake now is that Layers of Fear tells an extremely grim psychological tale that would feel totally at home in the Silent Hill universe. In particular, this game is all about artistic obsession and the lengths that some creative people will go to in order to make the perfect piece of art, novel, musical piece, or performance. More succinctly, it’s about watching the half-dozen main characters in the game completely lose their minds, families, livelihoods, and everything else they care about as they pursue true genius.

• Mind-bending level design. With clear inspiration from Konami’s abandoned Silent Hill teaser, P.T., Layers of Fear didn’t just mess with my head through its plot but also through unpredictable environments that would shift, change, and warp whenever I had my back turned—and sometimes even when I didn’t! Some players might feel like the game overuses its trick of funneling players into a dead end and then completely changing the layout of the level behind them, but I never got bored with it. It felt like wandering around a virtual version of the Navidson residence from House of Leaves.

• Small but fun puzzle breaks. Most of Layers of Fear can be summed up as what some games might call a “walking simulator.” I spent a lot of time in the game just moving between rooms, exploring, and picking up items to learn new tidbits of story, without much in the way of mechanics. However, the game also threw a few simple puzzles at me from time to time, and these were always an enjoyable break from the norm. The puzzles never felt particularly challenging, which meant they didn’t distract from what the game does best, but they were a welcome change of pace.

• Chase sequences. In what I’m told is one of the few additions to Layers of Fear, the artist’s portion of the story gave me access to a weapon of sorts: a small lantern with limited charge. At a few points throughout the game, I found myself pursued by a terrifying woman seemingly made of ink, and I was able to use the lantern to briefly stop her as I tried to get past. These chase sequences were exhilarating and struck the perfect balance between total helplessness and just handing the hero an arsenal of weapons. I got caught and jump-scared by this ghostly figure more than a few times, but I appreciated that I had a means of fighting back.

WHAT SUCKS

• No manual saves. Layers of Fear only saved the game for me via an auto-save system, and it was never totally clear when it was actually saving. On a couple of occasions, I would quit playing the game after entering a new area, certain that it must have auto-saved, even thinking I’d seen the auto-save icon in the corner of the screen, but when I started back up, I’d lost ten to fifteen minutes of progress.

It’s a relatively minor issue in the grand scheme of things, but it sticks out more because the rest of the game seems so slickly designed. The checkpoints around deaths in the game were frequent and dependable, and there’s even a nice chapter select screen to help players who are trying to get every ending for each of the game’s stories. With that option given, why not allow manual saves?

💬 Are you ready to explore the haunted halls (and minds) of Layers of Fear, or is this one too spooky for you? Share your thoughts below!