The Evil Within: The Assignment (PlayStation 4) Review

The Assignment runs before and during The Evil Within and expands the story and world setup in the original game. It's eye-opening to see some of the explanations come to the fore and to have further light shone on the dark world of STEM that is the centre point of the series, along with the shadowy "Mobius" organisation that Juli works for.

It's a constant complaint of Survival Horror games that they tend to swing too much towards Action Horror. It was certainly the case with The Evil Within, with the protagonist Sebastian carting around a small army's worth of munitions and weaponry. This first DLC addresses that somewhat, acting much more like a true Survival Horror game, focusing on stealth and avoiding the terrifying amalgamations that hide in the darkness. The Assignment plays on the player's subconscious fears of the dark and the unknown, making for some truly scary moments and not just jump scares either - the type of scares that reverberate within, giving a feeling of dread when leaving cover.

The objects of dread are the Haunted enemies once again, returning from The Evil Within in all their cenobite-esque glory, although they are much fewer in quantity, mostly because the player isn't cutting a swathe through them this time. On top of the regular Haunted enemies there are two new flavours of Haunted that work fantastically with the gameplay setup here. The first acts as the primary protagonist, stalking the player across the entire story, á la Resident Evil: Nemesis. The design is dark and twisted, resembling the nurses of Silent Hill combined with the signature Keeper enemy from the regular game. Replacing the barbed wire safe over the head, however, is a spotlight that hunts for the player in the darkness. This light is also the creation of the second new type of Haunted, known as Cadavers. When the light falls on corpses, they become mutated lumps of flesh resembling tumours. Some truly grotesque design work has gone into these blind enemies that stumble around and chase after any sounds made.

It's all about avoiding these enemies as opposed to fighting them, utilising stealth and the environment to navigate through unspotted. The stealth aspects of the game are well done, Juli can utilise numerous aspects of the environment, like calling desk phones or turning on devices to distract enemies to set locations, or even just shouting or throwing bottles to draw the enemies attention. The only real downside to these encounters is the AI of the enemies. This, along with the removal of health items (health automatically recovers instead), make it often feel a little too easy. Regular checkpoints also act as a slight distraction to the horror element. A harsher result to dying and more of a challenge to escaping when spotted would have put even more emphasis on the anxiety to stay alive.

The difficulty issue is addressed in the unlockable "Kurayami" mode, just as many other games unlock a new harder difficulty for subsequent play-throughs. The Kurayami mode that The Assignment unlocks removes all other lights in the game, other than Juli's flashlight, plunging gamers into an engulfing darkness. It ups the fear factor drastically and is a superb experience! This extra mode, and a handful of collectables spread across the two chapters, expands the game's lifespan, and the collectibles are really worth taking in. They give even deeper exposition to the story and help in developing Juli's character.

The Assignment is the first of a two-part DLC examining Juli's story. The follow up, The Consequence, is due later this Spring. This is a great setup and it can only be hoped that the conclusion is just as good. Hopefully the development team sticks with the style and gameplay developed here.