So iv'e been waiting years for The Evil Within's sequel and last week i finally got it, now whilst i knew i would never be completely happy with the game given my affinity for The Evil Within 1 i went in with high hopes and was completely rewarded, the reason the title is "A masterclass in how to make sequels" is because it changes the the game for the better, it adapts to what fans wanted and the new additions add to the game, while there are some minor flaws here and there these are largely my own personal "beefs" with the game I had already envisioned in my head.

Keep in mind that i tried to read as little as possible about the game to begin with so that everything would be fresh, so lets breakdown the entire game bit by bit and guide you through the world of The Evil Within 2.

Story line.

The Evil Within 2 picks up a while after the events of Beacon Mental Hospital as our hero Sebastian Castellanos is drinking his life away again after the events of Beacon when he's approached by a familiar face, Juli Kidman, the young "rookie" he took under his wing in the first game who was secretly working for and against the shadowy organization known as Mobius and informs you that not only is your daughter, Lily, not dead, but either is your wife, they're both alive in the STEM world of Union.

However the STEM world Union has become unstable and contact with the core(Lily) has been lost and the world is breaking apart at the seams, literally, you're brought to the Mobius facility that houses STEM and given a choice to rescue your daughter, as Sebastians life has hit rock bottom after Beacon he decides to venture into the STEM world one more time however he quickly realizes that this isn't like Ruviks world, there seems to be no one in control of the world and chaos has taken hold as individuals vie for control of the core to amass power.

The story centers largely around Sebastian as he tries to make his way in a world where nothing obeys any laws of anything, monsters patrol the streets and the few survivors left are often insane from the ordeals they've gone through, however unlike the first one you're in there all alone with no direction and no help until you come across certain people as the game progresses but even then it's truly just Sebastian against the world and the world itself is trying to kill him.

Direction and Plots

The Evil Within 2 is centered around the plot of the first one however this time as it's not being controlled by one individual it's pure chaos, this works in some ways but in other ways it sought of detracts from the world TEW 1 created, a nightmare land with Ruvik as it's god who has literally designed the world from the ground up and is seeking revenge for the people who put him there, as such this gives the overall tone of TEW 1 that there is a malevolent force actively working against you and throwing you around to terrify and ultimately kill you and that gives you a sense of direction in the game.

However as TEW 2 doesn't have a central "villian" of sorts it feels more disconnected to the world you're in the world of TEW 1 was largely the same given it was controlled and given the aesthetics of ruvik's child hood it was easy to be immersed in on that front, TEW 2 doesn't do a great job it does however introduce something more inviting in the sense of this is meant to be a sequel that has the right amounts of Part 1 mixed with Part 2 and after 8 or 9 hours it did this for me.

It creates an openish world that you quickly understand is decaying and puts that idea in your mind and it's really really cool, just imagine your home town as it is, now split it into 8's and throw certain parts into the sky in all directions and then try to walk around it, that's what TEW 2 does extremely well, it's confusing and disorientating to the player since it's confusing and disorientating to the characters in the game and lets you be immersed from stage to stage, however it does fall victim to itself in the sense that it uses the same mode for most places.

Overall however TEW 2 does a great job of immersing you into the story, if you're looking to be directly thrown into The Evil Within 1 Pt 2, you won't get that from this, you will however get a fresh experience based on a world that is falling apart and the fact that Sebastian has already gone through this once, it also allows you to experience what happened after Beacon in the form of side quests that you should really do to get even more immersed in the story.

Pure story wise though the game does a fantastic job of telling its own story of Union and the Mobius corporation and how much they've screwed with Sebastian for the past 5 or so years, it's great to see a story line that while not a direct sequel of the first game, ties up loose ends and explains to you things that happened in Sebastians life that were confusing or unexplained like the disappearance of his wife and the apparent death of his daughter, for this alone it makes it an awesome, fresh game to play and enjoy.

Game play

The Evil Within 2 is largely the same as The Evil Within in terms of game play, there have been some modifications that work well but over all it's still largely the same game, the biggest thing that has changed is the enemy count and management, i played on Nightmare difficulty the hardest one there is and there are a lot of times you just don't have ammo to fight and some times you're going to be forced into a fight with no ammo so stealth becomes your only option to fight the set pieces of the levels do a great job of offering you paths to achieve this but also require real time strategy to manage multiple enemies path's and where they go.

They have also added some new systems into the game such as crafting, weapon upgrading and a more involved character upgrade system, lets break the down below.

• Crafting
  
  Crafting is essential in the game, during TEW 1 you relied entirely on the ammo you found from enemies and stashes, in TEW 2 you'll find full ammo very rarely instead you'll be finding crafting supplies, these supplies can craft anything in the game but on higher difficulties are pretty god damn rare and as such it can turn into dark souls sometimes and you will have triage on the fly as to what you need, there is however another portion to crafting.

You'll find weapon scrap used to upgrade weapons as a separate system and you're going to need a lot of them, you'll ideally want to upgrade the weapons you find are the best for your play style, as I played rather conservatively and took the stealth approach wherever i could i decided to fully upgrade my pistol and shotgun for easier kills to get back into stealth, however the game offers your more than just quick kills that i won't spoil, but suffice it say check. everything. every nook and cranny and every box, you're going to need it.

• Character Upgrade
  
  Like the first one you're going to upgrade your character through green and red gel, as long as you're scavenging pretty hardcore you can take most of the talents but I would focus mainly on your play style first, as I was playing stealthy i decided to upgrade my stealth first and slowly dripped gel into other points such as combat and health regeneration, but you can go whatever you want depending on what you want to do in the game if you aren't entirely assured of your skills i'd probably take health and the melee tree to help you out in getting out of tough situations.

In conclusion the upgrade system is largely the same as before with a few tweaks that i won't spoil for you as this is supposed to be a review not a spoiler.

Graphics and Set Pieces.

The Evil Within 2 is a great looking game it does an effective job of blending the world of Union together with the insanity of a broken STEM machine, the entire game is a set piece that moves randomly and shifts in strange ways to reveal even more awesome looking areas, remember this is a world that is breaking apart so everything is collapsing, destroyed streets, massive sink holes, areas of nothingness that are filled with dark space and cramped closed quarters areas that give you the illusion of stability but quickly remind you, you're stuck on a rock that is collapsing on all sides.

Aesthetically the game is very pleasing but may be a bit jarring to die hard fans of TEW 1 as it's a completely different time and area it's not blood soaked hallways with skeletons and exposed bricks filled with traps and all sorts of nightmarish chicanery, it's just a town, however that is where the creepy vibe comes from it's a deserted town filled with monsters and apparitions and a sense of longing dread as it used to be home to hundreds of people and now there's only piles of corpses, blood stains and rampaging monsters running around the streets.

The set pieces however are great as it is a destroyed world outside of reality things don't make sense and it's not uncommon to see a mountain flying around in the sky or a giant spoilers tendrils attached to pieces of the world holding it together the longer the game progresses the more you'll see this as the world continues to degrade and break up and by the end it's almost a barren wasteland as if someone dumped a destroyed town on the moon.

Overall it's very enjoyable to look at and the set pieces while not grand in scope are very effective to remind you of how small you are in this world and how big of a task you have to complete to find your daughter and stop the Mobius corporation.

Some downsides

As with all games there's downsides and as with all sequels there's also some downsides however TEW 2's downsides are largely from either personal bias or simply from bad development control so i'm going to break down some of the downsides be advised there is a spoiler in here so you may want to skip it.

• The AI can be dumb as hell
  
  One thing that annoyed me is the AI it's either dumb as hell or some sort of god damn xray vision machine, the AI will some times run completely away from you in the middle of a fight for no apparent reason and sometimes they'll run from the other side of the town to reach you as you hide behind a stack of boxes, and as such it can cause some pretty weird moments, the most prevalent being the next talking point.

• Wonky Gun Play
  The gun play in TEW 2 doesn't punish you for being good but it sure as hell doesn't help you either, numerous times during my play through i somehow missed point blank shots on enemies this is largely down to the fact that the monsters can be rather jittery and as the AI can do some stupid things you can line up a shot only for the monster to run to a different area for no apparent reason, it's not game breaking but on higher difficulties, literally every shot counts and you may have to reload a save point just to conserve ammo from these.

• Where's Ruvik?
  
  The Evil Within ended on a huge cliffhanger, Ruvik is alive and back in the living world, however this seems to be largely ignored in the game even by Sebastian who is obsessed with finding out what happened at Beacon and saw Ruvik leave Beacon in the body of Leslie, there is also a boss in the game that uses Beacon as a way to toy with Sebastian and you will fight familiar enemies but Ruvik is completely absent from the game.

This may be a set up to The Evil Within 3 down the road but it feels like a missed opportunity, Ruvik is responsible for STEM and largely for Mobius destroying Sebastians life, however even after learning all of this he still doesn't seem to want to hunt down Ruvik, but like I said this is more than likely a set up to The Evil Within 3, but as a huge fan it's kind of a let down not to see Ruvik stalking the hallways.

Critical Review.

Overall this is how sequels should be made, they take the first part of the story and infuse it with the second part, they also increase the quality of game play and give you new and interesting ways to enjoy them, thankfully they listened to the fan base and removed some annoying things like Sebastian only being able to run for 4 seconds at a time or accidentally wasting bullets breaking crates by left clicking and pinning you into corners for no apparent reason.

Story wise this is an incredibly immersive game and i was hit by post game depression for the first time since i finished The Witcher 3, it's a great story that further increases the lore base of The Evil Within and the ending is how all endings should be, not just a boss fight and that's it, it's an extending explanation of what's happening and allowing the characters in the game to reflect on what's happened and try and deal with it, but then again i'm a sucker for great endings.

In summation, The Evil Within 2 is a purchase now game simply because it's an amazing story line coupled with great game play and enjoyable lore and will ultimately be a great game in the trilogy that i'm sure will be released.

Thanks for taking the time to read my review of The Evil Within 2, if you've enjoyed this please feel free to up-vote or resteem, if you have comments or questions drop them below and i'll get back to you as soon as possible, thanks!