Review | Layers of Fear (2023)
ohhh scary
Layers of Fear is a reimagining of the original 2016 release and its sequel. With expanded stories and the DLC from the first game, it’s the first full Unreal Engine 5 game I’ve ever played. It looks fantastic and looks a lot like the originals. There were some serious issues in my pre-release build, along with some seriously creepy scares. Has it earned its existence? Let’s dig deeper (although without spoilers, of course).
A new version / new image
Layers of Fear (2023) contains the first game, its two DLCs, and the sequel. In the first title you play as “The Painter”. An angsty drunk who has put his life and his family aside in his quest to perfect his craft. You spend your time walking around your house while your mind deteriorates. The main source of scares is psychological, although many jump scares are used to decent effect. The Painter’s story took me about 4 hours to complete with each of its DLC clocking in at only around an hour. Layers of Fear 2 follows the actor, whose story is a bit longer at 5 hours to complete. The biggest change here is the addition of the writer.
You start the game as a woman living alone in a lighthouse, sent there by your agency to finish your next book. Like the painter and the actor, you are beset by the dark forces and drawn to you in various ways to help you hone your craft. This is the biggest addition to the game, outside of its move to Unreal Engine 5, which we’ll cover in the graphics section. The writer has her own issues with family and work, and interludes from her added context to what previously seemed like two loosely connected games. I hadn’t played the titles until now and looking at how they originally went, I think the Bloober Team has done a great job trying to put their “layer verses” together.
You can choose to jump to any of the stories of the five characters in the main menu. I chose to go in order of release, with the two DLCs from the first game providing additional context to its story that helped develop each of the characters significantly. I don’t think anything was changed in those games outside of the full graphical overhaul each received. The original voice acting, music, and sound effects appear to have been reused. Those graphics, running on Unreal Engine 5, are a huge improvement.
UE5 exists
Layers of Fear overhauls all graphics in each version. Two display modes are offered: a raytracing-enabled quality mode that’s stuck at 30fps, and a 60fps-specific performance mode. Since this isn’t a twitch shooter, I ended up sticking with quality mode all the time, as texture and lighting quality were greatly improved over performance.
I’m not sure how much the move to Unreal Engine 5 helped or what exact version they’re using. Graphically the game looks good and occasionally great. The house and ship locations are top-tier AA, while the particle effects and fire are convincing. Nothing here feels more “next-gen” than a high PC setting for a recent game. The god rays through the windows have an odd glow to a quality that is greatly exacerbated in performance mode. If Bloober was looking to update their tools and learn UE5, they’ve been successful. The game looks good and runs well in both modes.
Controls, story, sound and bugs
Layers of Fear is a very dark game, and to combat it you get a flashlight that works on an overheat system. Using the left trigger will keep your flashlight up and pressing the right trigger will activate it to dispel the “stuff” you encounter. Clicking on the left stick toggles the race, which is also on the right bumper. In Layers of Fear 2, your character knows to crouch by pressing Y, unlike the Painter.
The game is primarily a walk and open simulator. The main gameplay loops are walking through areas and trying to figure out your way to the next one. That can be finding a key, answering a phone, looking at a piece of paper, etc. You will mostly be grabbing things with the right trigger and then using the right stick to manipulate them. The only “combat” is when the lamp is used in the first game. The sequel removes it and instead focuses on the story with moderate success. I found myself more intrigued by the overarching narrative in 2 and really appreciated not having the forced “combat” sections of the original.
The music is rarely used but well done. The jump scare stings and “you’re in danger” music get repetitive by the end of the first game, but this is less of an issue in the DLCs and sequel. The voice acting is mostly lackluster and as far as I can tell, unchanged. The writer has been intercut into the original games and the actress does well to convey the ever-changing emotions of her character.
Most of the bugs I found in my preview build were related to audio. Most of the sound effects during The Writer segments were not played. Hitting a phone or throwing a painting was completely silent, making me wonder if my headphones had died. Some graphical bugs related to the use of game physics in some scary segments gave me a bit of a headache. Massive screen shake occurred a few times when I interacted with an object from too far away or to the side. Other than that it was a smooth experience with no crashes or save issues.
wrapping things
Layers of Fear (2023) is a solid compilation of two decent horror titles. It’s a massive graphical update that uses a new narrative to tie them together in a satisfying way. Launching at $30 MSRP if you haven’t played the games before and love to get scared then this one is worth checking out.
| PROS | CONS |
|---|---|
| UE5 looks great | bad voice acting |
| Going For Creepy Over Jumpscares | Aaudio errors |
| New narrative works well | – |
| AVAILABLE IN | xbox series | playstation 5 | Steam |
| POSTED | June 15, 2023 |
| PRICE | $29.99 |
| DEVELOPER | Team Bloober / Anshar Studios |
| PUBLISHER | Team Bloober SA |
