Layers of Fear 2 Reviews
From developer Bloober Team and publisher Gun Media, Layers of Fear 2 is a truly terrifying game and a significant improvement over the original in many ways.
A slick psychological horror plagued by poor pacing and infuriating instakills
In expanding on its predecessor, Layers of Fear 2 sinks into a state of deep confusion.
Layers of Fear 2 is a stirring horror adventure with incredible writing that consistently subverts expectations.
Surprising moments succeed at sending occasional shivers down your spine, but the game doesn't bring you deep enough into its world to inspire fear
Layers of Fear 2 swaps the mind of a tortured painter for one of a tortured actor, setting sail for the high seas in a sequel that disappoints.
Fans of the original Layers of Fear or any psychological horror game will truly enjoy Layers of Fear 2.
It’s a pity that the game fails to take advantage of these analogies and delve into their immense potential. Instead, it’s too fixated on traditional jump scares to embrace the twisted, palpitating gut of its story about a flawed protagonist and his struggles with inner demons.
Layers of Fear 2 is a rather disappointing follow-up to 2016's interesting and effective psychological horror effort. There's a decent premise here, a strong setting and an opportunity to tell an interesting tale, but it feels wasted for the most part. Despite looking and sounding great, predicable scares, repetitive gameplay, disappointing puzzles and a story that just never makes a decent connection result in a game that's pretty hard to recommend overall.
Layers of Fear 2 starts off scary but runs out of ideas quickly. It tells an interesting story but is marred by out of place action sections.
Credit must go to Bloober Team for setting a different course for its sequel; it's just a shame that it didn't bring the chills and scares that littered the last outing.
Bloober Team has done tremendous work in creating rich horror narratives that are as compelling as they are scary.
Layers of Fear 2 is like a big, strange and greedy DLC of the first chapter. Despite the extreme "more of the same" feeling, in some ways here the expressionist atmosphere is even more disturbing than the painter adventure. On the other hand, however, the story is too much fragmented, answers are not sufficiently clear and the game needs more than opening doors and trivial environmental puzzles.
Review in Italian | Read full review
If I could, I would score Layers of Fear 2 somewhere between Null and Infinity, but I can't, and as everyone is going to have a different view on Layers of Fear 2 the score is pretty much irrelevant. If you know your films and consider yourself reasonably intelligent then I would recommend at least taking a look at Layers of Fear 2. I *think* I enjoyed it, but I honestly couldn't promise that you or anyone else would. What an odd curio of a game.
I can’t recommend Layers of Fear 2 unless you just absolutely love the genre and have played everything else out there.
I'd still recommend Layers of Fear 2 to fans who enjoyed the original game's atmosphere enough to want to see it realized on a grander scale, but don't feel like you need to rush to play it at launch.
Layers of Fear 2 excels in many aspects of psychological horror, but it also undermines itself. While it creates many layers of fear, there’s little connective tissue between them to make the narrative coherent enough to engage with.
Layers of Fear 2 has excellent atmosphere and cleverly done scares, but its story falls apart towards the end, the puzzle gameplay is average overall, and the imagery often doesn't tie into the narrative's themes.
Despite its name, Layers of Fear 2's main problem is that there isn't anything going on under the surface
Layers of Fear 2 is a surreal journey packed with fear and existential dread. Everything from the environment to the music, Layers of Fear 2 is an experience that is frightful, thought-provoking, and disorienting (in a good way). Granted, it doesn’t always hit every note; however, the decision to port it over to the Nintendo Switch is certainly a most welcome one.