Layers of Fear (2023) Reviews
Despite my personal enjoyment of the new horror title and its previous games, objectively, Layers of Fear’s superficial gameplay will likely scare off players who want more than a story-driven walking simulator.
Layers of Fear (2023) is, in my opinion, the true story Blooper Team wanted to tell when they released the first opus in 2016. With the power of the Unreal Engine 5, they were able to deliver their vision of psychological horror without compromise. The game has a few flaws and can be repetitive in places, but that's not enough in my opinion to overshadow the enormous qualities it possesses. Having played all the games in the series, Layers of Fear (2023) is Blooper Team's magnum opus.
Review in French | Read full review
The 2023 Layers of Fear is definitely the best way to experience the Layers of Fear games, but they were never particularly good to begin with. While Layers of Fear is what put Bloober Team on the map, the studio has put out significantly better games since then, like sci-fi horror game Observer, the Blair Witch game, and the Silent Hill-inspired The Medium. Horror fans should consider checking those out before taking a chance with Layers of Fear.
Layers of Fear is, without a doubt, a worthwhile experience for those who are curious to enter the franchise and haven't had the opportunity yet, since the package includes the two main games, DLCs and extras, making it a great attraction. However, it is necessary to emphasize, for those who already know the experience, that you will not find anything substantially new, having in the graphic improvement its greatest strength, keeping the rhythm, puzzles and gameplay loop intact and not correcting the mistakes of the franchise's past.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Layers of Fear on the PS5 is the best-looking, best-sounding, and best-performing console version of the game yet. Playing with headphones is a must for the biggest scares, though many of the thrills are psychological rather than jump-based. Packed full of four different stories all interwoven to varying degrees, there is also a good deal of content to play through. Combined with multiple endings, Layers of Fear represents a great value for fans of horror games.
It certainly feels like the type of game built for people who love YouTubers that play horror games, as it is easily accessible and not a very difficult game to get through. It is a game built to get a reaction from the audience and not much else. Layers of Fear (2023) just doesn’t seem to scratch that itch that many will be looking for when searching for a game to play. It does do many things right in the sense that it does feel like a scary game, but it certainly isn’t for everybody.
A very special compilation, collecting the remakes of the two main stories of Layers of Fear, along with the DLCs of the first chapter (one of which previously unreleased) and a new adventure that acts as a glue to the whole. The Unreal Engine 5 gives us genuinely terrifying settings and atmospheres, and the "package" guarantees hours of thrills but also manages to arouse other emotions than simple fear.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Layers of Fear shows no sign of creativity or ambition and it delivers a familiar walking simulator experience in horror genre. That being said, if you're a fan of psychological horror games, you're going to love its atmosphere and story.
Review in Persian | Read full review
Thanks to the right changes, the atmosphere remains fresh and as fearsome as in 2016. Even with its imperfections, it will hook fans of the most abstract horror.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
At its core, Layers of Fear is a rather generic survival horror experience. Most of your adventure will be exploring locations for clues or solving rather basic puzzles. Eventually, you meet hostile forces; they’re more annoying than scary. For these reasons, it’s probably worth it if you love the genre, but you might want to look into something else for everyone else.
Layers of Fear’s ambition was to bring the whole series into one cohesive package, with some additional content. In concept, the premise was interesting. Unfortunately, as horror titles, they really don’t stand up at all, being completely devoid of any scare factor. Bloober Team just doesn’t make the most of some of the more unique and interesting concepts that pop up throughout.
Whereas something like Faust satirizes the tortured artist, conveying that creative people aren’t necessarily special people, that they can be as bad as anyone, Layers of Fear seems to say that art is uncontrollable. It’s a hungry, magical force, and if a wife, or a sister, or a daughter are caught and bloodied in its insatiable mouth then, well. So be it. I find that difficult to accept. I think it’s damaging, too, to contextualize art as something dangerous and wild, however reverentially Layers of Fear phrases it. Art isn’t the boogeyman. It’s not the problem—people are, usually. Blaming a monster, like the Rat Queen, feels too easy to me. That’s a narrative issue I’ve had with Layers of Fear since the beginning, and the new Writer and Musician stories have unfortunately made it snowball.
They say an artist's work is never truly done, but with Layers of Fear, Bloober Team and Anshar Studios have completed the Master Opus started back in 2016. With superb UE5 powered visuals, improved writing and some new gameplay mechanics, these journeys into the darkest recesses of the human mind have never been so immersive, although some issues prevent Layers of Fear from being an absolute masterpiece.
Layers of Fear (2023) is Bloober Team’s magnum opus and a must-play for atmospheric horror fans who have yet to play the originals in the series.
Layers of Fear is an atmospheric tour through the shattered psyches of some seriously tortured artists, but predictable shock tactics fail to provide more than a handful of genuine scares, let alone layers of them.
Layers of Fear (2023) starts out strong with the story of The Artist, and loses itself amidst its own ambition during the story of The Actor. Bloober Team’s once meaningful exploration of a character’s descent into madness quickly becomes redundant amidst a sea of film references and blurred storytelling. Layers of Fear is certainly a cohesive remake that brings the original games together, and there’s no denying that it looks great, but its second act feels incredibly lost when contrasted against such a strong start. Layers of Fear (2023) is one major case of whiplash, that’s for sure, but it does showcase Bloober Team's potential to do good if it can nail down the focal points of the stories it tells.
Layers of Fear 2023 stylishly combines Bloober Team's flagship games into one beautifully terrifying definitive edition. The reimagined and drop dead gorgeous visuals built entirely from the ground up alone are reason enough to revisit these titles, but the added cherries on top are the brand new chapters that wrap all the narratives together. It's a must play for anyone into psychedelic and psychological horror experiences, but may come off a little underwhelming for anyone looking for something truly scary.
The updated version of Layers of Fear is incredibly impressive. In addition to offering high-quality remakes of the entire series, this version goes a step forward and creates new material with the explicit purpose of bringing all pre-existing content of the series under one umbrella. The exceptional visual overhaul, fascinating transforming environments, and great sound design ensure this horror series has done a phenomenal job of making sure it continues to be an experience worth having.
Bloober Team's horror series is reimagined from the ground up, but the foundation still feels shaky.
There's no better way to play this series than the PS5 release of Layers of Fear, combining both stories under one cohesive umbrella. It also shows fantastic early potential in Unreal Engine 5, showcasing exactly what it can offer the rest of the gaming industry.