Pre-order bonuses were recently announced for early bird customers with their eye on Bethesda's upcoming The Evil Within. And along with that announcement came a new trailer of reaction shots from playtesters to show just how terrifying the game is. But there was something verrrrrrry familiar about it...
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First, let's examine that brief piece of footage of "actual playtest reactions."
Ok, short and sweet. They're scared, so the game is scary. Good. Great. Wonderful. Now, let's go back a few years, say five or six. The first Dead Space was out from developer Visceral, and a second was on the way. Despite great sales, the Resident Evil series was languishing, and Dead Space was looking like a worthy competitor for the survival horror crown. Then the third game came out, and promptly flushed that possibility right down the toilet. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
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Dead Space 2 was looking promising enough on its own. Add in that its nearest competitor in Resident Evil 5 was facing criticisms of racism and featured a showdown with a boulder, and Dead Space 2 was sitting pretty.
Then publisher EA went and decided it had to make it even edgier, and introduced a bizarre ad campaign consisting of forcing moms to sit through a few minutes of the game. Because if the kids know mom doesn't like it, obviously it's gold. Remember this?
Granted, it's not a direct rip-off. We're seeing these sort of "reaction" advertisement campaigns more and more, especially for horror flicks claiming to be the scariest thing ever, notably the Paranormal Activity series.
As Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami is behind the title, many are looking to The Evil Within as Mikami's triumphant return to a genre he hasn't touched since 2005's Resident Evil 4, and there's a lot of hype that it will teach imitators about how to do a "proper" horror title.
I can only hope that the game itself is considerably more unique that any other "survival horror" titles out, especially lately, but if the game's advertising is any indication, then it'll unfortunately ring a bit too familiar. We should find out more at this year's E3.
The Evil Within is set to release this October for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
