[Sammelthread] The Evil Within (Psycho Break)

[kuppy]

---

Developer:	Tango Gameworks
Publisher:	Bethesda Softworks
Director:	Shinji Mikami
Producer:	Masato Kimura
Artist:	Naoki Katakai
Release:	2014
Genre:	Survival Horror, Third-Person Shooter
Platforms:	PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One

---

Shinji Mikami, the father of survival horror, is back to direct The Evil Within – a game embodying the meaning of pure survival horror. Highly-crafted environments, horrifying anxiety, and an intricate story weave together to create an immersive world that will bring players to the height of tension. Best known as the father of the survival horror genre and creator of the Resident Evil series, Mikami is a 20-year veteran of the industry who has developed numerous award-winning titles.

We're incredibly proud to announce The Evil Within. My team and I are committed to creating an exciting new franchise, providing fans the perfect blend of horror and action.

The gameplay you see in the survival-horror genre has changed with the times, and I think right now it leads more towards action than it did before. So we're trying to avoid that. To be honest, it's hard to make survival horror work as a game. Should you emphasize the entertainment aspect and focus on the fun of killing enemies? Or should you try to aim for more of a creeping sort of terror? It's hard to strike a balance, but with this game, we're trying to place our weight primarily on the horror aspects.

Being a completely original project, it's a difficult process, but a really gratifying one. I love dealing with the problems that crop up every day, and I'm working hard on the story, too. Previously, I always put more weight on the game aspect when working on stories. I'd take a pretty simple approach to building a scenario — maybe there'd be a character who got involved in the story, but really, he's only there so he can give you an item you need; that kind of approach. With this game, the game and the story are much more closely weaved together. The gameplay isn't prioritized above the story here, and we're trying to make this the the best sort of survival-horror entertainment it can be. I'd like to have it so the player can't skip past the storytelling event scenes, so I'm thinking of ways to deeply weave the story into the game so it doesn't affect the tempo.

---

Debut Teaser
Survival Horror Returns
Gameplay Demo
TGS 2013 Gameplay Trailer

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, Sebastian has to fight his way through a world of death and its close friend 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.

​

• A Return to Pure Survival Horror: From the father of the survival horror genre, Shinji Mikami. He appears once again as the director of this game, one which makes your blood run cold, but heats you right back up. Players must survive on limited resources, experiencing that supreme match of action and horror, that indescribable terror. To survive in an afflicted world, your anxiety and nerves will be pushed to the edge.
• Brutal Traps and Enemies with Puzzles: While struggling to survive, you’ll have to face indescribable terror, cruel traps, and sly mechanisms. Players can die in a trap all too easily, however, at times they can turn them against enemies.
• In an Unstable World, Not All Horrors are in Plain Sight: The player is driven into a corner as the world distorts and warps according to mysterious and evil horrors. The scenery: hallways, walls, doors, rooms, buildings, and even nature, all transforming in real time based on the player’s actions. And the threats keep coming from all directions.
• A Supernova of Horror: By setting one foot in this world weaved from lush backdrops, characters with personality, and a polished story, players will be sucked in, willing or unwilling, tension and anxiety rapidly mounting. When that fear is smashed and conquered, you can experience the bliss that can only be found in The Evil Within.

Previews

Eurogamer - Polygon - Kotaku - OXM - Videogamer - CVG - Venturebeat - VG247 - ShackNews - NowGamer - GameZone - Destructoid

Shinji Mikami is returning to where he began, at the roots of survival horror.

Mikami is a master at directing environments that can feel as threatening as the creatures that inhabit them, and The Evil Within looks set to continue this trend. The environs themselves are flat out dirty: claustrophobic little murder boxes with odd dimensions and changing rules of space (one corridor elongates as you head towards the door, another changes appearance entirely). Producer Jason Bergman stated that there will be times when you have five enemies to face and only two bullets: during the demonstration he was overwhelmed more than once.

The overall design structure of the The Evil Within reminded me a lot of Resident Evil 4's. Mix in the nightmarish creatures that would be right at home in the Silent Hill series with the set pieces from the Saw franchise and you have yourself a nightmarish cocktail of pure terror.

The screen turns black, and some time has passed. Sebastian regains consciousness, finding himself hung upside down by his legs like a piece of meat in a butcher shop. There are several other corpses hanging all around you in this room, and as you struggle to understand your surroundings you can hear a chopping sound followed by the pathetic, low screams of a man who knows it's all over.

The evil beast pursues you. You hide in a locker. For some reason, despite the big blood trail you’re leaving behind you, the beast walks by as you look in fear out of the vent slits of the locker. He moves on to the next room, and you sneak out. You still don’t have a real weapon that will work against this giant. And you have no idea what is going on. That lack of context makes The Evil Within feel scarier. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do, other than escape and survive. The story unfolds slowly.

But just when we think we're safe, we hear a chainsaw revving up. We feel the same dread as we did when Dr. Salvador first appeared in Resident Evil 4. The butcher has heard us, and he appears suddenly in the doorway, swinging at us. The chainsaw carves a gash in Sebastian's leg, and we have to limp to a door ahead to escape.

Spoiler

Spoiler

---

Erwartungen
Gameplay sah sehr gut aus und Previews bestätigen den Eindruck, bin sehr gespannt. Mikami.
Schlaft gut..

 

[JinRoh3181]

Sieht wirklich gut aus. Einige Bilder haben Ähnlichkeit mit Condemned: Criminal Origins bzw. Condemned 2: Bloodshot. Nun das könnte wirklich mal wieder was in die Richtung geben/werden. Bin gespannt.

 

[Trolling Stone]

Hoffentlich mit viel Survival und weniger Action.

 

[kuppy]

TGS 2013 Gameplay Trailer



Oh baby..


OXM Interview

How has the horror game landscape changed since your last horror game? Are you still taking the same approach as you did in the past?
The first [Resident Evil] has a good balance as a horror, but as they've done sequels, they've become more and more action-oriented games. So now I want to go back to the original concept of survival horror, and make it really scary.

Since The Evil Within is a new franchise, no one knows the universe, right? It's the first time for people to experience this universe, so it's easier for us to make things more scary. If it's a sequel, people understand the universe and less things are new to them.

Are you purposefully not going after the Call of Duty market, then?
Yes, exactly.

Are you using the same tactics, or are there now different tricks you can use to mess with people's heads?
The core thing of making things scary is the atmosphere - what the player would feel. I add scary creatures, or a scary situation and scary tricks, gimmicks, but the centre is the atmosphere.

The new Kinect sensor can detect facial expressions and heartbeats. Is that something you could use?
If the new Kinect sensor is accurate enough to capture people's facial expressions, then we could be able to utilise it. That's something I'd maybe like to use at some point.

Are you going to be using the Xbox One's new triggers in any way?
That's a new way to physically touch the player. I don't have a specific idea for that at the moment, but I should be able to utilise it. Fingers are very, very sensitive, so it's a good feature.

How important is it to start the game in the real world?
Very important. It's one of the attractive things in the game - you don't really understand whether it's real or not. It's like that movie, The Ring, with the surface and the black side. You don't know if you're in the real world or not. I wouldn't want to say.

How do resources work in the game?
We have traditional firearms in the game, but nothing fancy, because it's traditional. And our moves are quite limited, as you said. As an accent, we have traps that you could place - multiple type of traps, too - or in the game, you see traps, you disarm them.

How do you use the traps? Are they just for those siege moments?
You could use the traps pretty much any time. It's a play option. You either use the firearm to play the game or you use traps to beat creatures. Or you can use sneaking to just avoid creatures, so more tactical and strategic. You can sneak through most of the game. Sneak, set a trap and hide.

Do you ever let the player feel safe?
We have areas that are really dangerous, where you feel danger, and there are other areas that you don't feel that so much, so you can relax.

Do you think it's possible to do an open-world horror game or is it essential that you guide the player's path?
It's possible, but it's a very difficult kind of approach from a technical perspective and from a creative perspective. Also, Tango Gameworks is a new studio, so we didn't take that approach this time. I would like to do it some day.

What elements does the protagonist need to have?
He has to be realistic, and he is able to fight against something. But he is not strong.

And he won't be alone - we've seen other characters already.
Yes, but you have to be alone to be scared. So most of the time you're alone - those characters just come and go. When you are by yourself, that's when you get scared, right? But on the other hand, to develop a story, you need other characters.

What's the secret to creating properly scary characters?
You have to love scary stuff. And watch a lot of movies.

You haven't really talked about the graphics in promotional materials. Is that intentional? Do you think visuals aren't important when creating horror?
Yes. We don't need flashy for horror games. In horror you have to be more, kind of - not so flashy. But then the player may get tired of that, so towards the end of the game, we will have some shiny, flashy scenes for them.

Resident Evil 4 is still the high water mark for survival horror, even after all these years. What's it like having to compete with yourself?
The important thing we are trying to achieve with The Evil Within is the fear. How scary the game is. In that sense I think I can actually beat my past games. But I don't think I would be able to beat every aspect of them.

We've seen titles like Dark Souls using online connectivity to enable other players to influence your game world - often to far better effect than pre-programmed scares. Have you considered anything like that?
Yeah, maybe in DLC. I guess we can't really get into details.

Do you think you'll be able to reach entirely new gamers with this, or just existing horror fans?
It's possible, but in order to achieve that, the game has to be really, really scary.

 

[sasuke_91]

Das Spiel sieht nach einem richtig guten Horror-Game aus. Ich freu mich schon drauf
Einige der Stellen erinnern mich an die älteren Silent Hill-Teile. Das bedeutet in der Regel Albträume

Gruß Sasuke

 

[Trolling Stone]

Release-Termin ist der 29. August.

http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/the-evil-within/news/the_evil_within,48164,3032719.html

 

[Trolling Stone]

War wohl eine Fehlinformation.

Der Termin war für den 21. Oktober angesetzt und wurde jetzt auf den 14. vorgezogen.

Quelle

Laut amazon ist es immer noch der 21..

 

[eraser]

Lädt bei mir gerade runter auf die Xbox One. 35GB Daten... (poste ich das nun in den o2-Drosselthread? )

Bin sehr gespannt. Laut ersten Berichten soll es genial und doch schwer sein. Auf dem PC kann das Bildformat wohl geändert werden, auf den Konsolen gibt es wohl oben und unten einen schwarzen Balken, der nicht ausgeblendet werden kann.

 

[Hector]

In allen PC-Tests die ich gelesen habe, war das Bildformat nicht änderbar. Viel mehr stört der 30fps Lock.... (der durch Konsolencommands umgehbar ist...)
Ich werde das Ding wohl mit ner Freundin auf ihrem Kanal streamen, damit sie nicht so allein ist...Händchen halten ^^ Ende des Monats, denke ich.

 

[eraser]

Die ersten beiden Stunden waren recht ernüchternd. Die Story haut mich nicht weg. Das Gameplay ebenso wenig. Die Kamera ist immer wieder mal besch.... positioniert und man ist bisher nur am abhauen und durchschleichen. Exakt das, was ich nicht leiden kann. Ich hoff das wird noch besser. Gott sei Dank für "nur" 45 Euro aus dem US-Store für die Konsole.

 

[Hector]

Du weißt, dass das ein Survival Horrorgame ist? Natürlich ist man da am schleichen und abhauen
Wenn das genau das ist, was du nicht leiden kannst, hast du einen klaren Fehlkauf hingelegt *denk*

...oder wir haben beide eine andere Definition des Genres...

 

[eraser]

Resident Evil, The Suffering uswusf. beschränken sich nicht nur auf abhauen. Vor allem, da TEW vom Macher von Resident Evil ist, habe ich anderes erwartet.

 

[Hector]

Hm...dann bin ich ja mal gespannt. Ich werde berichten, wenn ich es gespielt habe.

 

[Trolling Stone]

Bei Resident Evil 2 war es tatsächlich so, dass man alles killen konnte, es aber weitaus vorteilhafter war, so viele Kreaturen wie möglich zu umgehen/umrennen. Bei Teil 1 konnte man es nur nicht ganz so gut, weil man den Zombies schlechter entfliehen konnte und man schon an 2 Zombies, wenn sie einen erwischen, krepieren konnte.

 

[Tetr4]

Ich bin mal gespannt.

Ich werd es dann auf PSIII spielen, auch wenn ich dabei voller Neid auf die PC-Jünger blicken werde, denen sich ein regelrechtes Grafikfeuerwerk offenbaren wird ...

 

[eraser]

Nach Umstellung meines Spielstils wurd's nun um 100% besser. Man darf keinesfalls denken dass man hier auch nur in irgendeiner Art und Weise eine Chance hat zügig durchzukommen. Das Spiel ist zugepflastert von Fallen und derb unfairen Stellen die man - wenn man sie nicht vorher auskundschaftet oder sich vorbereitet - einem sofort ein sehr schnelles Ende bereiten. Man liest ja bereits im Netz dass der Schwierigkeitsgrad sehr knackig ist hier. Das kann man wohl so unterschreiben. Sollte es einen Erfolg dafür geben das Spiel durchzuzocken ohne zu verrecken, werde ich ihn nicht erhalten. Ich bin sicher schon 25x krepiert.
Zugegeben - nach umsichtigerer Spielweise wesentlich weniger bzw. kaum mehr.

Gänsehaut habe ich immer wieder mal, allerdings geht das bei mir auch recht fix. Es sind imho etwas viele Zombies, so geht der Schrecken etwas verloren.. allerdings wird das ganze dadurch nochmal schwerer. Ein falscher Schritt, ein knarzen, klimpern oder sonswas und das wars.

Die Grafik und das Gameplay sind trotzdem nicht das wahre und werfen einem ebenfalls oft einen Stock zwischen die Beine. Das Blut wirkt ziemlich Comic-mässig und die Gegner sehr plastisch. Teilweise so sehr, dass man denkt man kämpft gegen frisch polierte Schaufensterpuppen. Ist eine Waffe leer, wird auf die nächste leere (sic!) Waffe gewechselt. Da hilft es auch nichts, wenn man schnell neue Bolzen baut und dann nicht mehr die Armbrust in der Hand hält. Die Kamera verhagelt einem sehr oft die Sicht.

Ich bin nun wieder etwas guter Dinge und der anfänglich sehr negative Eindruck hat sich in ein "geht schon" gewandelt. Vielleicht wird es ja doch noch.. ich berichte weiter.