Not really Layers of Fear 3 but not quite a remake either, this title really doesn’t make things any easier from a communication point of view by simply taking the name of Layers of Fear. Surfing on a certain ambiguity since the announcement of the game, Bloober Team explains that this production is based on Layers of Fear (2016) and Layers of Fear 2 (2019) “but with a surprising new story and never-before-seen content“, we are told. A sort of fusion between the two episodes, therefore, reworked in the form of a narrative “complete, definitive and unpredictable“, can we read. Another argument for the fans, the addition of a new chapter entitled The Final Note which deepens the story of the first chapter from the point of view of the painter’s wife.
The sum of All Fears
Remember that in both cases it is a question of sharing the obsessions of an artist, a painter in the first part which takes place in a Victorian mansion, and an actor in the second who takes place aboard a transatlantic liner. One thing is certain, we remain in the register of psychological horror in the first person with a penchant for narration rather than action, even if this replay will offer new game mechanics, according to Bloober. In many ways, this Layers of Fear also looks like a technical test for the Polish studio, which is trying out Unreal Engine 5 here, a technology also used on the remake of Silent Hill 2.