DLC #187 - The Evil Within - The Assignment

In my Platinum Difficulty write-up of the Evil Within, I eluded to my feelings on a story that didn't provide much clarity, and more specifically, the roles of certain secondary characters and their relation to the overarching plot.

One of these characters was Detective Juli Kidman, and to take a direct extract from the Platinum Difficulty Review - "Leslie is a patient at the hospital, and possibly of interest to Ruvik as a direct vessel back into a human form, but Kidman, who is a colleague of Sebastian, also takes an interest in Leslie for reasons I couldn't really fathom."

It was my hope that the DLC would provide answers to these questions that remained, so I suppose the burning question is - Does it?

Sort of, and given the fact this is part 1 of a 2 part DLC offering, I have to give the benefit of the doubt for now.

The Assignment focuses on the role and back story of Detective Juli Kidman, who it turns out is also an undercover agent for a sinister organisation called Mobius, tasking her with the capture of Leslie Withers for the benefit of their own research. Some of the lore you discover within the episode suggests that Kidman isn't necessarily a fully willing participant, and is being held to this task against her will. The suggestion is that the assignment to capture Leslie for Mobius is possibly a trade-off to keep her out of trouble for an unknown misdemeanour with the law.

The setting looks to be mainly within an underground research facility. Deformed enemies - with characteristics akin to the by-product of experimentation and laboratory-esque environments point heavily to this, but it's also interwoven with segments from the main story that show Sebastian and Joseph in parallel movements to Kidman, frequently merging their paths throughout the episode. It's a little confusing how it's all linked together at some points but at least there's a bit of clarity on Kidman's role to the overall story and her motivation for Leslie.

The gameplay is also significantly different to the action-centric nature of the main game. Kidman is a stealth-based character, and does not possess the ability of a firearm. Instead, you'll have to rely on pure stealth to bypass enemies, and the best you get in your arsenal is a flashlight that helps guide the way. It also has a special "focus" ability, which allows you to shine the light intensely on certain surfaces to reveal hidden rooms, secret passages and solve environmental puzzles.

I didn't expect such a drastic change of pace, but I was fully engaged and the added vulnerability of Kidman's stealth-only approach definitely feels like more of a true survival horror experience.

There are also 10 new trophies to unlock, which are nowhere near the lofty heights of the main game in terms of difficulty or challenge.

Completing the episode's 2 chapters once on any difficulty, which will take you around 3-4 hours, can score you as many as 9 of the 10 trophies on offer here.

There are 6 progression-based trophies in total - 2 awarded for beating each chapter and a further 4 for completing a series of chapter-specific tasks, exactly the same as seen within the main game's trophy list. Some of these contained within the main game are fairly cryptic, whereas these tasks here are a bit more obvious in their exact requirements. By that I mean I didn't need to reference a guide for any of them, and it was extremely clear at which point within the Chapter you could obtain a particular trophy.

There are 3 trophies awarded for respectively collecting all 3 Personal Documents, 8 Research Notes and 8 Letter Scraps - The Letter Scraps also need to be arranged into the correct positions on a blank template in order to piece together the letter to reveal the secret behind the note. Most of the collectibles are just found scattered around the environment, but the Letter Scraps are locked up behind Seeker boxes which are tied to a puzzle. Beat the puzzle to unlock the box and obtain the Letter Scrap. It's a clever twist on collectibles, that can often be a dull exercise, especially after having just collected 151 of them in the main list.

The final trophy can only be obtained on a second playthrough of the episode once you unlock Kurayami mode.

The initial sinking feeling in my gut was that this was some sort of variation on AKUMU from the main game, but that thankfully doesn't turn out to be true. In Kurayami mode, the environment is plunged into total darkness, with no natural light sources to assist your progress, thus amplifying the importance of the flashlight.

The combat technique is very simple - If you follow the episode up again straight away, you'll have a very fresh recollection of everything you've just played through, and this makes it significantly easier to navigate the environment - Even in pitch black darkness. I actually finished Kurayami mode over an hour quicker than my initial playthrough, and this is attributed to the above. There's not even an increase in difficulty, enemy awareness or damage you receive from hits. It actually feels more like a gimmicky add-on to pad a bit of replayability more than anything else, leading to an easy completion somewhere within the region of 5-6 total hours.

Let's see if the final part answers our questions...

Platinum #134 - The Evil Within

Platinum Difficulty Rating - 9/10

When it comes to Survival Horror, it's a good job the Evil Within is really good.

If a game is going to demand that you play through it 5/6 times to earn it's Platinum trophy, it has to back itself to be good enough to warrant this.

I would actually go as far to suggest that I think it's my favourite game within the whole genre. It's immersive, scary, violent and unnerving, and these are a critical blend of elements that some games just don't always get right.

You control Sebastian Castellanos, a detective who is called to a disturbance at Beacon Mental hospital - A facility for the psychologically ill. Upon arrival, numerous people are dead, seemingly at the hands of suspicious forces, when a few key developments quickly unfold that seem to point to a very unordinary situation.

Whilst attempting to escape from the hospital, a huge, unnatural earthquake occurs and causes the ambulance Sebastian and his colleagues are fleeing in to crash. It's apparent something Evil is engulfing Krimson City, and Sebastian is left to help prevent this evil from spreading throughout the city and beyond.

Even after having played through this game a number of times, the plot is still fairly confusing. Without wanting to give too much away, the main evil stems from a character called Ruvik, who you uncover flashbacks of from his mistreated youth as you progress the story - horribly burnt alive in a barn fire, and then hidden away by his father to conceal his disfigurement from the rest of the world. The motive seems to be very much revenge-driven, but the links to Sebastian aren't really made that clear. He could just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was called to investigate the story, but he seems to actively pursue Ruvik fairly aggressively for someone who just happened to respond to the wrong call.

There are other questions I felt were left unanswered, mainly around the roles of other key characters, such as Leslie, Dr. Jiminez and Kidman. Leslie is a patient at the hospital, and possibly of interest to Ruvik as a direct vessel back into a human form, but Kidman, who is a colleague of Sebastian, also takes an interest in Leslie for reasons I couldn't really fathom. I think Dr. Jiminez's role is just purely protectorate of Leslie, but he mentions his own research alot, so there could also be ulterior motives at play for which Leslie is a key component of.

It's possible the story-driven DLC answers a few of these questions further, and there's alot of generally crazy things happening throughout the game which make you question whether it's all just pure fiction being played out in Sebastian's constantly deteriorating mental state. This could be deliberate as the game playing up to it's Survival Horror billing.

I wouldn't go as far to say it's a weak point of the game, and there is always an intriguing mystery to drawing your own conclusions - but there were just a few too many blanks for me, and I don't like finishing stories to games where there feels like more questions than answers.

There are 42 trophies on offer here in total, including the Platinum, spanning across the Single Player experience. There are no additional or Multiplayer modes, meaning you're left to purely battle through the story in conjunction with the entire list.

The "Master of Horror" trophy, awarded for Completing the game on Nightmare difficulty, is the standard offering amongst a list that requires you to beat the game under multiple conditions. Nightmare difficulty will have to be unlocked by beating the game just once any difficulty level and a standard playthrough of the story will take around 20 hours in total. It's really important to accumulate gel wherever you can, as well as any hidden keys for storage lockers - This will be made clearer for another trophy regarding the upgrade of weapons and abilities.

I really like the way the game plays. Combat is punchy and engaging, the weapons are varied and fun to use and the creative design of the enemies is excellent, particularly the multitude of bosses you'll face across the course of the game. The music composition also deserves a mention, capturing the mood perfectly with a piano score, which always turns up at certain points of the game in an ominious fashion.

Environments are atmospheric, eerie and they always make you feel on edge. The game isn't big on jump scares, but I think that's a testament to the game that it doesn't need a load of cheap jump scares to make you feel like you're always wary of what's around the next corner. It's a really well-rounded game, and a credit to the Survival Horror genre.

I've briefly touched on it already, but the trophy list will require you to beat the game in a variety of different ways, and some roadmaps I've seen state you can earn every trophy within a minimum requirement of 3 playthroughs. I am a little bit sceptical of this, and I personally ended up playing through the game 5 times on my route towards the Platinum trophy.

There's a Speedrun required, a playthrough on the game's hardest difficulty and a run without purchasing any upgrades using gel - All of this on top of a bunch of collectibles, some of which can only be collected in New Game+, as well as gathering a huge of amount of upgrade gel in order to max out all weapons and abilities. I just don't see how you can have all this done in just 3 playthroughs, especially when you also account for the fact that you have to beat the game once just to unlock Nightmare and Akumu difficulty.

With an average completion time of around 20 hours per run, this builds up to being a dizzying cumulative total. Granted, the speedrun requires you to beat the game within just 5 hours, but my Akumu run was 30 hours, so it still averages out.

The "You Asked For It" trophy, awarded for Finishing the game on (AKUMU) mode, is by the far the biggest challenge in this entire list, and the high difficulty rating is largely in part to the existence of this trophy.

As mentioned, AKUMU mode will need to be unlocked first by beating the game once on Survivor difficulty, and it's definitely for the best that you obtain an understanding of the game before tackling AKUMU mode.

Enemies are faster and tougher, everything kills you in a single hit - this proves to problematic in a multitude of instances - and you cannot play AKUMU mode within New Game+, which means you'll have to start afresh with no access to upgraded abilities or weapons. Even though there's no limit to the amount times you can die, it really heightens the sense of Survival Horror when you're attempting to earn this trophy knowing you're in genuine jeopardy with each step you take.

Well concealed bear traps, projectiles, tripwires, gunfire, bombs and even being grappled from close range - When you can die this easily, it's no wonder I finished this mode with a whopping total of 641 deaths and an exact completion time of 29 hours, 41 minutes and 1 second - That's almost 10 hours over the average playtime of a regular playthrough.

Outside of the annoyingly flukey, there's also the downright tough to swallow. Boss fights come at you thick and fast in the Evil Within, and without the ability to carry over your upgrades and weapons, these are difficult fights to get past in some instances. Chapter 6 goes down in Evil Within folklore thanks to it's holdout segments where you're desperately fighting off hordes whilst Joseph unlocks a door in 2 consecutive rooms and Chapter 12 had me stuck for half a day as I tried to get round the machine gunner segment just after you retrieve the medicine from the ambulance.

It's not a permadeath mode though, and checkpoints aren't impacted by the challenge, meaning they stay at exactly the same points as they do under normal circumstances, which is a comforting safety blanket. However, strategy is an extremely important factor because you'll have limited upgrade potential, so it's critical to choose carefully on your upgrades.

For instance, due to the one-hit nature of AKUMU mode, it's pointless spending upgrade gel on your HP or Syringe effectiveness. Instead, you'll want to plug it into your stamina, as you'll no doubt need to be able to outrun your enemies on a handful of occasions throughout the game. I also found the Shotgun and Shock Bolts critical to upgrade, as they're both very effective at dealing with larger groups of enemies that can overwhelm you if you don't have that crowd control option.

It is also worth upgrading the Revolver early too, just to have something else outside of the Shotgun that packs a punch and can help you deal with isolated fights, such as those with larger enemies and bosses. The Sniper Rifle is also a good option, but this is acquired very late on in the game, making it much less viable in comparison.

Despite there being a clear element of strategy, determination is required in equal measure. To be expected to beat a challenge that extends the game by around 10 hours compared to normal average completion time and over 600 deaths is not a normal requirement. It's challenging, frustrating and the specific parts I mentioned above had me give in and come back fresh for another go once I'd slept it off.

It's rare to see individual trophies swing the difficulty rating of a game so drastically on their own, but I am of the belief that AKUMU mode does just this.

The other bespoke run-throughs aren't really notable. Beating the game without using any upgrade gel was something I was able to tandem with beating the game on Nightmare difficulty and Speedrunning the game by beating it in less than 5 hours was also fairly trouble-free. It helps significantly that you can run this on Casual difficulty in New Game+ though, thus making light work of practically every enemy you encounter. I'm not really a fan of speedrun trophies. I feel like they detract from the experience, but it was still beneficial for the purpose of collecting the outstanding upgrade gel required. Speaking of which, there is an overarching task that is worth mentioning that ties all of this together.

The "Unstoppable Arsenal" trophy, awarded for Completely upgrading all weapons, requires you to collect enough upgrade gel to maximise every weapon in the game, and this is a seismic task. Gel is gathered from fallen enemies, found within the natural environment and can also be obtained from hidden keys, which are used to open lockers within the Hospital safe area, though it is not always a guarantee that a locker will grant gel - It can contain other items such as ammunition and bolts.

To put this task into context, upgrading each of the 5 primary weapons, including the Agony Crossbow, requires 738,000 upgrade gel. Further to this, there are separate trophies awarded for upgrading all of Sebastian's abilities and his stock capacity, and when you add this on top, the total amount of gel required is a whopping 952,300.

When I mentioned at the top of this piece that it's important to gather as much gel as possible as early as you can, this is the reason why. The benefit of multiple playthroughs really comes to the fore, as you can accumulate this across your various playthroughs of the game - Even the playthrough for not spending any gel, because you can still accumulate it and spend it on a later run instead. You won't be able to do this for AKUMU though.

This is just a pure grind, though you do have the option to use Chapter Select and farm gel from certain hotspots within the game, which may make it easier, but with the amount of required playthroughs, you shouldn't need to do this. 

It is a little bit annoying how much gel is required to fully upgrade everything. Each component of a weapon has 5 levels you can upgrade, whether this be ammo capacity, reload time, fire rate etc. and my main gripe is how sudden the jump is for some of these. For example, the 1st level of Damage for the Magnum costs 8,000 gel, the 4th level of Damage costs 18,000 gel, and the 5th level then costs 35,000 gel, so the increments in scaling are very random and the jumps are unnecessarily large - It stinks of longevity padding and there's no logical reasoning for why it takes so long to upgrade everything to maximum level. It was one of the last trophies I'd obtained, right before I completed my final run of the whole game.

Outside of this, the remainder of the trophies are fairly standard. There are 18 trophies awarded for natural story progression and chapter specific tasks, which is close to half of the entire list. Stackable difficulty, weapon-related and kill accumulation trophies also make up the rest.

Collectibles are also present here too (When are they not?), but they're not too bad. There's a fairly high volume at 151 in total, and some of them are only available in New Game+, which is something to make note of because it can be easy to miss a few if you're unsure as to when you can obtain them.

Without AKUMU mode, The Evil Within probably comes in at around 6/10. I do genuinely believe that the presence of such a challenge makes that much of a difference to the difficulty presented by the list. The amount of additional playthroughs also makes it somewhat grindy, and whilst I did really enjoy this game, having to beat it 5 times in total is the primary reason it's taken so long to earn this Platinum trophy. 

Combining all runs of the game probably amasses to somewhere in the region of 80-100 hours, which is a lot of time for a game that contains just one game mode. The colossal grind for maxing out all abilities and upgrades effectively goes hand in hand with the required number of playthroughs, which also matters, but the rating is mostly a show of respect for one of the toughest modes of any game I've played.

Notable Trophies -

Master of Horror - Complete the game on Nightmare difficulty.
You Asked For It - Finish the game on AKUMU mode.
Unstoppable Arsenal - Completely upgrade all weapons.

Hardest Trophy -

You Asked For It

Finish the game on AKUMU mode