THE EVIL WITHIN II

Developer Tango Gameworks Publisher Bethesda Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release October 13

Was this sequel commissioned after a Bethesda exec spotted that there was a Friday the 13th in October this year, and felt the opportunity was too good to miss? Whatever the reasoning, creator Shinji Mikami is being given the chance to address the failings of the promising, but flawed original The Evil Within, as protagonist Sebastian Castellanos returns to the madness to save Lily, the daughter he thought he had lost in a house fire. The chief addition is a series of open, freely explorable environments designed to balance out the tight, linear areas that powered the first game, and will return here. There’s also a device that lets Castellanos move between Union, the horrific mystical city conjured by Lily’s subconscious, and the real world. Hopefully Mikami and co have paid equal attention to remedying the original’s performance problems, which often made for a very different kind of horror show to the one its creator intended.