The Evil Within 2 feels like a more well-rounded game

I thought The Evil Within 2had a strong first showing at E3. The imagery in the reveal trailer woke me the hell up (remember, Bethesda's presser was on a Sunday night), and I'm always down for contorted monstrosities in my spooky video games. "I need to keep better tabs on this," I remember thinking.

In the time since, we've seen a lot more of the sequel, whether it was that now-removed leaked footage, a photographer serial killer, and crafting systems. More recently, there was "the gruesome, giggling guardian," an uncomfortably fleshy, stitched-together pile of bodies with a buzzsaw hand.

I played through this early story sequence at PAX. It was... all right! Too scripted to be even remotely scary, but tense, all the same. The sound and creature design did most of the heavy lifting.