Layers of Fear Reviews
Wonderfully mischievous visual tricks and grim environments can't stop Layers of Fear from falling flat with its hellish pacing, framerate issues and scares you can spot a mile away.
If you like jump-scares, this is for you. If you like horror titles that effectively establish an atmosphere, this is not for you
Layers of Fear is well made, but commits a potentially greater sin than a game that's simply bad. It's dull. It's dreary. It's got as much bite as a beach ball. Perhaps for those who have only the lightest experience with horror games, it could be seen as authentically and astutely terrifying. For me, it's nothing new at all, and its presentation is so railroaded it might as well have been a ghost train.
Team Bloober's horror game piles on its attempted shocks so heavily you'll grow numb to them before the adventure is half over
Layers of Fear is Scary Beautiful But Scary Boring!
Beautiful setpieces and a great atmosphere don't make up for the same old gameplay. While it doesn't need to reinvent the wheel, Layers of Fear should at least aim to do the same old thing as well as it can. It would seem that "as well as it can" is very much a "means justify the ends" approach, and the ends are stale mechanics done just well enough that they work.
A beautiful and potentially fantastic horror story squandered by cheap scares presented at a breakneck pace.
Layers of Fear does a great job of establishing its own world. Its creative utilization of both classic and original art was used to create an odd, yet intriguing theme. There is something inherently creepy, dark and strangely beautiful about this game. It definitely redefines the term "monster" for its players.
A gloriously ghoulish horror game with some trippy transformations, held back by what it borrows from other releases.
Layers of Fear isn’t trying to be anything that it isn’t. Know that you’re walking into, a horror story told in a way to let your imagination get the better of you and build an increasingly scary setting.
Layers of Fear will try over and over to scare you. You might jump, but you'll sleep just fine.
A less linear adventure, or perhaps the addition of something that could actually harm the player would have elevated Layers of Fear into something amazing. If you want a keen haunted house you can wander through at home, the game is worth picking up. If you're looking for a great horror experience, the scares in Layers of Fear won't hold your interest, even with the game's short running time.
Layers of Fear is an effective scare 'em up but the sense of dislocation and the lack of character development left me feeling as if I'd enjoyed a thematically messy series of shocks rather than a cohesive horror story. It's a collection of scary things that are tangentially related to the idea of creative blocks and familial cruelty rather than an exploration of the artist or his personality flaws. By the time the credits rolled, I knew very little about this particular painter that I couldn't have learned by reading a brief synopsis.
Layers Of Fear aims for arty horror, but its strength is simple scares
There's more to Layers of Fear than initially meets the eye, and I'm pleasantly surprised at its quality. Playing the preview version was a nice way to get my Halloween horror fill. I highly recommend it.
If you prefer something action-oriented like Resident Evil or Dead Island, this indie gem probably won't be worth the buy. For fans of Soma or The Park, however, or anyone who spent way too long going down the endless corridors of PT, it's no question that Layers Of Fear will be a must-play.