The entire endeavour has become so massively repetitive by the time you're in these final acts that all attempts to scare really do begin to fall completely flat. It also takes far too long to give you any sort of foothold on its scattershot narrative, happy to attempt - with little success - to scare you, without providing any solid reasoning or purpose to propel you onward through its ineffective bumps and jumps. However, after this initial honeymoon period, the game rather quickly capsizes, relying on the same corridor-shifting camera tricks, spooky mannequins and janky chase sequences ad nauseum.
Interactions with doors, objects and levers - your only real means of actually engaging with the world here - are nicely involving, requiring you to grab with your hand by holding in 'ZR' and then rotating a thumbstick to lift, open, twist or turn, and this level of physicality combined with a few visual sleights of hand, jump scares and ever-shifting surroundings early on give the impression that we're in for an absorbing, spooky time with this one. Layers of Fear 2 does get off to a reasonably good start, with the first of its five acts introducing players to the Titanic-esque setting in which much of the game takes place. There's certainly an interesting core premise here, with several different story strands vying for your attention as you stumble around the warped corridors of this cursed ship, however, an over-dependence on hackneyed scare tactics, several frustrating insta-kill sections and a handful of boring puzzles leave this one feeling like a bit of a drag overall. This sequel to 2016's well-received psychological horror sees players assume the role of a Hollywood actor who, having heeded the call of a mysterious director, finds himself aboard a creepy ocean liner where he slowly begins to unravel, forced to relive past traumas that see an already fragile reality begin to crumble. However, for every riveting, Rutger Hauer-flavoured cyberpunk horror there's an underwhelming Blair Witch spin-off and, unfortunately, Layers of Fear 2 is much more a case of the latter than the former. Polish developer Bloober Team has produced something of a mixed bag thus far when it comes to their horror/psychological thriller game output, with the likes of Observer and the first Layers of Fear definitely feeling like their most successful efforts to date. Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked)
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