Layers of Fear review – an ambitious rethink

We have also prepared a review in the form of a video.

The Polish studio Bloober Team has a rather controversial reputation. This stands above all for titles that could be disparagingly called walking simulators, namely the Observer, Blair Witch, or the most recent The Medium, which I personally really liked. However, these developers are perhaps best known for the 2016 horror film Layers of Fear, followed by a sequel three years later. And while part of the studio is now working on a remake of the legendary Silent Hill 2, Anshar, which also has an improved version of the Observer, has been tasked with reimagining Layers of Fear. The new game offers improved visuals, new game mechanics and content, and generally integrates previous stories.

• Platform: PC, PlayStation 5 (review), Xbox Series X|S
• Publication date: 06.15.2023
• Developer: Anshar Studios, Bloober Team
• Publisher: Team Blueber
• Genre: psychological horror
• Czech localization: No
• Multiplayer: No
• Data to download: 19 GB
• Game time: approximately 13:00
• Price: €29.99 (Steam)

Uncompromising visual effects

Since the experience of each part of the game is completely different, it is best to separate them. I will start, of course, with the first part, which tells the story of an artist living in the shadow of his former glory. We experience his struggle with himself and follow the events that forever marked his life.

The original number one still works quite well today, but given how many of these “walking simulators” have been released lately, one of the first such attempts may be difficult to adequately evaluate. That’s why I was glad that it was the first part that got the most attention.

I have to start with the visual side, which is absolutely fantastic. After Fortnite, this is the first major game to use Unreal Engine 5 and it really shows. Here, the Lumen system takes care of realistic and beautiful lighting, taking the experience to a whole new level. The various particle effects thanks to the Niagara system are also excellent. In short, in terms of this is a game of the current generation. The environmental transformations so characteristic of Layers have an impressive effect.

In terms of visuals, I can only complain about periodic bouncing of objects, leakage of light where it should not be, various bugs, glitches, and the like. Unfortunately, this is not enough, but hopefully the developers will be able to fix this in the next patches.

On the other hand, what I really have to praise is the optimization. Playing on PlayStation 5 offers two modes: performance and quality. It differs practically only in a slightly lower resolution and the use of hardware ray tracing for shadows and reflections in the mirror. None of these are very prominent, so I’d rather recommend performance mode, but I’ll go into more detail in the technical analysis. Importantly, the game runs at a steady 60fps in performance mode without any stuttering, which is a remarkable achievement given the visual quality. In addition, downloads between chapters are almost instantaneous.

Of course, horror will not work without high-quality sound, but you don’t have to worry about this either, the creators did a very good job. Only the sound of raindrops at the entrance to the painter’s house completely involved me in the game. Music also helps, but it is a pity that it is not enough. Paradoxically, you’ll like it the most in the main menu.

Complete remake

But the new layers not only improve the audio-visual side, but also significantly reworked the entire experience. For example, you’ll find new reading documents, all of which are read aloud this time, ensuring you’re really listening carefully. In addition, the improved first part brings completely new rooms and innovative puzzles that greatly diversify the gameplay. It was also nice to remove the ability to interact with almost all the cabinets and drawers, which in the original game were mostly empty anyway and it was quite unpleasant to open them. If something can be opened in the alteration, there is a good chance that you will find something interesting there. And what else you will find in the game is a whole series of decisions that will affect the ending of the whole story. Because yes, there are several of them, and this is for each part.

However, the biggest change is a brand new mechanic in the form of a lantern, which the artist will get after playing for a while. You can use it mainly to illuminate a relatively dark environment, but at the same time it offers a “concentrated” mode, in which its power is used faster, but the light beams are stronger. In this way, you can clear certain objects of darkness (where the already mentioned particle effects come into play, by the way), or defend against a certain monster that is chasing you in the game. This was generally not possible in the original first part, the player could only run. Sequences set this way seem to be a lot better, and given that they’re not very frequent and quite intense, they’ve been another nice addition to the more walkable gameplay for me.

In general, this is the number one that received a full-fledged remake, very successful and exceeded all my expectations. The same goes for the Legacy expansion, where you play as the artist’s daughter, which has also received significant improvements. In addition to all this, there was also a continuation of The Last Note about the artist’s wife, which I also really liked and fully showed her psychological struggle with herself.

In addition to The Final Note, the developers from Anshar have added another story part to the game called The Lighthouse, which tells the story of a female writer. It is this storyline that ties all the others together, in a fairly straightforward way, clearly made up after the fact and not an original part of the series, on the other hand, certainly not offensive, and the connection makes sense, especially after the adjustments in the first part. The passages for the writer are very short, but at the same time they contain some of the best moments, so even here I think the creators did a very good job.

Two lags

Unfortunately, now we come to the worst part – the second part. The latter was less well received when it was released, it deals with the actor’s story, but… well, the story is a bit more complicated. While its basic idea isn’t entirely bad, the delivery isn’t great and is absolutely confusing, leaving me feeling like I don’t even know what I just experienced. Neither the relatively sterile environment of the ship, the incredibly frustrating chase sequences that are much worse than in the first part, and the unnecessarily large number of jump scars help. At the same time, the creators here, as it were, rob themselves when they reused some ideas from the first part.

I was somewhat disappointed that the second volume did not receive the same care as the first. As for the visuals, there are improvements, especially in terms of lighting thanks to Lumen, but definitely not to the same level as in the first part, which, paradoxically, now looks much better. In addition, the design of the rooms has remained almost the same, there is no implementation of hardware ray tracing in Quality mode for reflections in the mirror (although this is probably also a design decision) or reading documents.

In terms of mechanics, however, one rather key thing has been added – a flashlight, with which you can reanimate local mannequins, of which there are really a lot in the game. It’s a great idea and brings the stereotypical gameplay to life, but I think the developers went a little overboard with this mechanic. You use it slowly on every corner, but almost all the time the same, unfortunately the developers did not experiment much with the use of a flashlight.

So, in summary: the developers were very ambitious with the first game, a complete remake and additional content is perhaps the dream of every fan of this game. Despite attempts to slightly improve the second part, the sequel has not received such care, and considering that this is no longer a good game, this is a real shame. However, I have to say that I had a very positive experience with Layers of Fear. The visual upgrade of the first part and the portion of new content is large enough to easily attract not only newcomers, but also players of the original games, thanks to a very pleasant price tag.