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...
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