Over the past couple of years, I've noticed a curious trend. Polish development studio Bloober Team, once considered a promising up-and-comer in the independent horror scene, suddenly became the gaming bogeyman for a lot of people. I'm not saying Bloober has never had detractors (certainly, games like Layers of Fear 2 and Blair Witch had won no favors with some), but it wasn't until their 2021 release, The Medium, that people started to turn on them, only exacerbated by the announcement that they would be remaking the survival horror classic Silent Hill 2. Seeing as Team Silent's seminal masterpiece is one of the most impactful pieces of art I've ever experienced, I figured I should give this controversial developer a chance by playing their entire horror gameography, seeing as I already own the vast majority of their titles through giveaways over the years. In any case, Layers of Fear might not have been what put Bloober on the map (that would be the universally reviled Basement Crawl) but rather the first Bloober game to achieve a positive reputation and high sales, at least at the time of release. Consider this the beginning of my Blooberthon.

Layers of Fear was, in particular, inspired by Kojima Productions' P.T., a playable teaser for the loosely related, albeit tragically canceled Silent Hills. Bloober Team, then, takes what made P.T. a nightmarish hit and attempts to stretch it out throughout a four-hour game. Unfortunately, Layers of Fear is not nearly as close to being as scary or memorable as Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro's teaser. The game is, in essence, an interactive haunted house where reality bends and no room remains the same. An intriguing concept, for sure, though one that struggles to maintain any interest beyond the first half-hour. The vast majority of the time, there are no enemies, no fail states, and frankly no scares. The only gameplay elements you engage with are minor, fairly easy puzzles that aren't exactly headscratchers nor very clever. In fairness, this doesn't inherently damn the project. I am not against "walking simulators" by any means, in fact, one of the more memorable horror games I've played is a walking sim where you're not in any danger most of the time. Even if Layers of Fear doesn't offer engaging mechanics, that doesn't mean it can't be an interesting or immersive experience. The fundamental problem is that I do not believe the game to have any engaging hook. The reality-warping house is engrossing...for an entire thirty minutes, after which the game keeps reusing the same tricks over and over with little to no variance. There are only so many times a room you entered can suddenly lock, for a piano to fly across the room and slam into the wall, or for something to change when you turn around before it completely loses its luster. It almost felt a bit comical when I realized I was far more impressed by the satirical The Stanley Parable's implementation of similar mechanics than in the serious horror game. Essentially, Layers of Fear, despite its short runtime, becomes very dull very fast. The game's entire approach to horror is just trying to repeatedly shock you with carney-game quarter-tricks that simply do not work. The sole interesting mechanic the game offers is how you approach the game's only enemy: a monstrous manifestation of the protagonist's wife. Whether you choose to flee from her or confront (therefore, embrace) her helps determine which ending you receive, which is a fairly poignant way of portraying the main character coming to accept his wife despite their intense struggles together.

I had to cut a lot of this review out due to Valve's word limit, but this game is bad.

Layers of Fear is a game I remember hearing a lot of buzz around. At release, I remember my high school English teacher telling the class how she didn't really like video games, but she had been playing Layers of Fear with her husband because she found the story interesting. Needless to say, Bloober Team's first foray into horror made waves, and for years I was under the outsider's impression that Layers of Fear was a modern classic. However, with the game's semi-recent critical re-evaluation after Bloober's descent into controversy, I went in expecting it to be terrible. While the game isn't nearly as awful as some have made it out to be, it is a game that fundamentally offers very little. A repetitive gameplay loop with very few tricks up its sleeve, a story so poorly written it is hard to take remotely seriously, and an embarrassingly amateur perspective on horror prevent an intriguing concept from being anything worthwhile. However, the game's visuals can very often be striking, especially for an independent game of its era (missed opportunities notwithstanding) and the original score does a lot of heavy lifting where other elements fall flat. While I know the game has its fans, I find it remarkably difficult to recommend Layers of Fear. It's hard to hate, seeing as it's a fledgling developer's first attempt at horror, but it's remarkably difficult to like.

one of my all time faves

Decided to play this game after finishing Silent Hill 2.
It turned out to be a pretty boring walking simulator with almost no gameplay. The story didn’t really intrigue me either. Personally, I found it boring, but I don’t want to leave a bad review since the game seems to be well-made. Plus, I don’t even remember how I got it. Probably for free.