For anyone into the horror genre of gaming, a new title from the creator of "Resident Evil" is coming later this year. It looks to push boundaries with its sense of dread and scare players in all sorts of ways. The game is called "The Evil Within" or "Psychobreak" in Japan.
It is being published by Bethesda Software, but developed by Shinji Mikami's studio Tango Gameworks. Mikami was instrumental in the "Resident Evil" series of survival-horror titles and from the looks of it, the game will share some similarities in gameplay.
Various creatures of epic proportions will be making their presence in this game in a similar way that "Resident Evil" had walking spiders and zombie dogs chasing gamers. For instance, you may be chased by a woman with eight limbs running at you like a spider. The human-like creatures can also be compared to zombies or are outright zombies in the game just like in "Resident Evil."
However, the aim of this title seem to be to push more boundaries than the RE games and make players more aware of their enemies humanity, or struggle, so to speak. The game tries to make players somewhat uncomfortable and this can be said to add to immersion or realism.
"'The Evil Within' clearly aims to push boundaries of taste and what's "acceptable" in games," says PC World's Hayden Dingman, with his hands on a preview version of the game. "With every zombie (or whatever these are) you kill there's a chance it struggles back to life. To prevent that unfortunate occurrence, you have to light them on fire while they're down. And they scream. And it's really messed up."
One thing that may or may not turn off gamers is that the game is said to play like it was released in 2005 in the way it handles checkpoints and forces players to replay what they already passed if they die. It also focuses on solving puzzles and locking mechanisms like many previous survival-horror games of previous generations. In fact, it can be compared to "Resident Evil 4" pretty closely in gameplay.
"More than anything, 'The Evil Within' feels old-fashioned," Dingman says. "It feels like 'Resident Evil 4.' And at that revelation I expect some of you will cheer. And I expect some of you -- a lot of you -- will have fond recollections of 'Resident Evil 4'."
Although this can be seen as a shortcoming of the title, for many RE fans and those with nostalgia and longing for the genre (due to not many survival-horror making their appearance on the latest consoles yet), it can be a cheer.
Look for "The Evil Within" to hit store shelves on Oct. 21, 2014 . It will be available on the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC and PS4.
