The Evil Within is a survival horror game being developed by Tango Gameworks, with Shinji Mikami attached as Director. For those who don't know he is the mastermind behind Resident Evil 4 and Vanquish. In fact, he has said that this will be his final directorial work.
The plot is as follows, "When Detective Sebastian and his partner rush to the scene of a gruesome mass murder, a mysterious, powerful force is lying in wait for them. Witnessing the killing of fellow police officers one after another, Sebastian is then attacked and loses consciousness. Waking up in a land where monsters are wandering about, he has to fight his way through a world of death and his close friend's madness in order to understand what's going on. Sebastian has to face his fears in order to survive on a journey to discover what lies in the shadows of that mysterious force."
Mikami states that the game aims to be a "pure form of survival horror." He is making his way back to his survival shooter roots. He also states that instead of focusing on a more action oriented experience, he wants it to be more horror oriented with "a creeping sense of terror."
The game looks to set a "subtle, anxious, shapeless, unknowable sort of fear..." Players don't immediately understand why there is a human butcher in the basement of the asylum, they don't know who or what brutally murdered its inhabitants, and the producer of Tango Gameworks, Kimura, says that this lack of understanding is what feeds some of that fear. The game will take place in different locations and not just an asylum, like a ruined city to create an unique universe of horror. It also shares a lot of the same themes and tone as Amnesia, which you must learn to survive without weapons at hand.
What do you guys think about Mikami going back to his survival horror roots? He seemed to be doing just fine with Vanquish, which was pitch-perfect, but nobody played it. He also was the main combat designer on Shadows of the Damned, which had disappointing sales numbers, but I still enjoyed. Let us know in the comments below.
