![]() But on the whole it works, lending the narrative and the character a weight of realism. Sometimes this breaks into banality with clumsy nonsense suited to a high-school poet. There are hints of it throughout from deranged messages on the walls to a scrawled drawing of a sad face hidden on a child's toy. The shock came from understanding how ordinary most monsters seem on the outside. But there was just a normal man staring back at me. Shortly after, I found a mirror and gazed on my own reflection, expecting to see a monstrous figure or some other scare. Later, a disembodied voice whispered "you deserve this, all of it," and it felt like I did. After a short time I found myself appalled enough by my own avatar to start mouthing questions at it: what did you do? What did you do? It's down to the player's imagination to colour in the substantial blanks with nightmares of their choice. Many of these show how commonplace your life once was, illustrating how ordinary most monsters must look from the outside. Scraps of text found throughout the house build a fragmentary backstory. Soon it becomes clear that your past contains ghastly secrets, alcoholism and insanity being two of the more palatable ones. "You realise that there is one active monster in the game, and it's the one behind the keyboard." It creates a unique and disturbing environment to explore. The visual style has clear nods to surrealist painters such as Bacon and Goya. Walls bear distorted versions of classical masterpieces. There is paint daubed liberally over the environment, smears of jarring colours running over the furniture and floors. The time period is perhaps purposefully unclear, but seems to be mid-20th century. Beyond that you must wander the sizeable halls in first-person view, working out for yourself what to do and how to do it. Your only instruction at the start is to "finish it". You play as a painter, who has returned to their house and studio to complete their masterwork. Possible Xbox One and PC release dates have yet to be confirmed.What every good horror yarn needs is a unique spin, and Layers of Fear delivers that, quite literally, through artistry. Layers of Fear will be available on February 16th for PlayStation 4. It will be interesting to see if Layers of Fear lives up to the legacy of either of those games when it releases next month, or if it will ultimately be overshadowed by similar games releasing this year, such as the P.T.-inspired Allison Road. in its presentation, but calls to mind BioShock with its focus on story. The title seems to be partially inspired by the Silent Hills playable teaser P.T. Layers of Fear looks as though it will be a solid addition to 2016's impressive lineup of horror games. ![]() The more likely scenario is that Sony secured the exclusive release date announcement, and more news about a multi-platform release is in the works. It's possible that the Xbox One and PC versions of the game will indeed enjoy a full release on February 16th as well, but that hasn't been clarified just yet. The game has been available to play on PC and Xbox One thanks to the Xbox Preview Program and Steam Early Access for quite some time, so it would be logical to assume that it would see a full release on those platforms before hitting the PS4, but that is apparently not the case. What's interesting about this announcement is that, until now, Layers of Fear was barely marketed as a PS4 release. Overall, it promises to be a "psychedelic" experience, and will challenge what players expect from a game of this nature. The room then appears to shrink, and suddenly another door materializes, allowing the painter to escape before being crushed. For example, the painter may enter a room with numerous doors that are all locked, only to turn around and discover the doors are now missing, or were perhaps never there. ![]() Like most popular entries in the horror genre as of late, the game is a first-person adventure filled with puzzles and visual tricks to keep players engaged. Described as a psychological horror game, Layers of Fear puts players in control of an anonymous painter that is slowly slipping into madness while trying to complete his greatest painting yet. This news comes courtesy of a PlayStation Blog post from Rafal Basej of Bloober, the developer behind Layers of Fear. When that was written up, Layers of Fear's release date was a complete unknown, but now Sony has spilled the beans, outing the game's release date as February 16th on the PlayStation 4. So much so, in fact, that we included it on our list of Most Anticipated Horror Games of 2016. Layers of Fear is one of the most intriguing new horror games releasing this year, and has certainly captured our attention. The PlayStation Blog reveals the release date for psychological horror game Layers of Fear, pegging the game for a February 16th release on PlayStation 4. ![]()
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