Let’s start with a top tip, and another example of ridiculous gaming logic: Ladies, when you are in a horrific alternate world trying to avoid attracting the attention of numerous creatures who are wearing their intestines as delightful necklaces, perhaps it’s a good idea to ditch the high heels as your constant clattering sounds like a a stampede of horses.
Footwear grump aside, The Assignment is an excellent addition to The Evil Within mythology and expands the story of the partner of main game hero Sebastian, Juli “Kid” Kidman. She manages to be missing for a huge part of the original story and the DLC explains where she was and also resolves some of the unanswered questions from the main game. Set in an alternate world, Juli is on a mission to discover the plans of the Mobius corporation.
While The Evil Within borrowed from horror games, most notably Silent Hill and Resident Evil, and Sebastian was kitted out with an arsenal of weapons, The Assignment leaves Juli defenceless for most part and borrows from another Japanese classic, Metal Gear Solid. Stealth is the order of the day, throwing bottles to distract enemies, hiding in cupboards and sneaking past revolting creatures when their backs are turned.
Juli also has a flashlight and as this is set somewhere else you can use the torch to reveal hidden doors, enemies, and solve light based puzzles. Much like the original game, stepping through one of these doors might transport you to a completely different area rather then the room you were trying to reach, and the screen glitches like an old detuned television, sometimes changing the layout of rooms to confuse you.
One area where The Assignment improves over the original game is that it is genuinely terrifying. Being unarmed for most part of the game leaves you feeling vulnerable and there are awful lot of things going bump in the night, or more precisely, screaming like a banshee and trying to break doors down. The game also features one of the scariest creatures I have even seen.
Imagine the legs of Claudia Schiffer (in high heels of course), tentacles and a massive searchlight for a head and you would be close. At one point this horrific creature stalks you around a bank of computer servers and one false step results in her chest opening like a massive rib-crusted mouth and you being eaten, it is truly repulsive.
Horror clichés are still rife – a long haired women pops in the periphery of your vision, laughs and vanishes before you can get a good look at one point – but with the excellent sound design and gruesome graphics it really doesn’t matter that you’ve seen all this before.
The puzzles are also rather straightforward, with the solutions signposted nearby, but the game enjoys terrifying the crap out of you just when you think you are safe. Equally there are fairly lengthy sections when nothing happens at all, but you creep through these all the same, never knowing when a nightmare will crawl from an air vent.
The Assignment is a great piece of DLC, it retains the murky horror from the original game but ramps up the tension by leaving you defenceless. It is expertly woven in to the story of The Evil Within (and hints of sequels to come) and introduces some truly scary foes. Clocking in around three and half hours, this simply does a great job of scaring you, what more could you want from a horror game?
Youles
Sounds great. I need to finish Dying Light and GTA Heists first, then I’m going to start The Evil Within, it’s been sat in my backlog since last year! Already downloaded this DLC ready.
Ace-Michie
Got the DLC from day one. I have to admit, I never normally go for DLC but The Evil Within was such a great game, it left me wanting more. This does not disappoint, the main game was already amazing, but the DLC gives a nice fresh way of playing the game,namely because it is so terrifying. It also fills in some of the plot gaps from the game’s main story, which I assume the next pieces of DLC will also do. For me there is very little to criticise about it, the graphics are stunning on the PS4, the gameplay builds on the main campaign’s while factoring in stealth and the story seems to get better as more is unveiled. The only criticism I have to make, it at times the controls can feel a little bit clunky, particularly when navigating cover. This same issue is also in the main game and can be a bit frustrating at times, when irresponsive controls can get you killed. Apart from that though, I would happily give the DLC a 9/10.
Oh and before I forget, Jennifer Carpenter does an amazing job voicing Kidman; brings the character to life very well, further adding depth to Kidman and her story!
Tuffcub
Yup agree with all of that. The cover mechanic is still as much as a pain as it was in the main game.
Also: 2 nightmares thanks to Caludia Schiffer beast. That thing is HORRIBLE.
Ace-Michie
Yeah! Easily one of the creepiest enemies I have ever seen. Looks like a more feminine and demented version of Bioshocks Song Bird.
JR.
I’m finding it really difficult to get through The Evil Within main game so I doubt this will be for me. Currently at chapter 10 but I have little desire to carry on. It’s a shame because, when it’s good, it’s very good but when it’s bad, it’s infuriating.
I mostly enjoyed the parts which are straight up lifted out of RE4 (the village/hospital/graveyard) but I really hate the boss fights/chase sequences/drab environments. I’m not keen on hallucinations/dream sequences in games either (why does every game have to have this now?) and there seem to be a lot of them in The Evil Within. I understand it makes sense from a story perspective, but damn is it boring to have to walk slowly down a corridor whilst the screen twists and swirls.
I will finish it but I’m really not feeling it right now.