Review: Layers of Fear 2 (Switch) – An Unthinkable Ship

Strangely enough, the Switch version of Layers of Fear 2 was announced alongside the other platforms that the game had launched on over two years ago. So here we are both two years not only after this port was announced but as well as two years after the game itself launched on other platforms. Was it worth the wait?

Layers of Fear 2 is a first-person psychological-horror game that is, as the name implies, a sequel to the original Layers of Fear from 2016. Personally, I didn’t care much for the first game. It’s a game that was clearly made to capitalize on the then recently canceled Silent Hills and its critically-praised playable teaser P.T. The end result is a game that often times finds itself a lot more unintentionally hilarious than actually scary. However, the prospect of a sequel or follow-up certainly had me intrigued. As there’s a quite common thread with horror game sequels often times being a huge step up in quality over their original games.

This new Switch release is not the first time I’ve played Layers of Fear 2 as I had in fact played the game on the Xbox One X about 6 months after the game had initially released and honestly enjoyed it quite a bit. So with the Switch version, I was not only interested in playing the game again to see if it holds up but also manage to compare and contrast the overall quality between two very different pieces of hardware.

I guess let’s start with that second point. How does Layers 2 on Switch stand up visually? On other platforms like the Xbox One X, Layers of Fear 2 is an incredibly gorgeous-looking game. So much so that I was beginning to worry that it could potentially be one of those “impossible port” types of games. But on initially booting up the game for the Switch I was immediately impressed how the game actually managed to look, while not identical, extremely close to the presentation found on much more powerful hardware. Of course, there are some more obvious downgrades like lower-resolution textures and shadows. At first glance, it seemed like the lighting took a bit of a hit although not so much that the game’s look is ruined. The biggest change visually seems to be with reflections with most of the shiny windows and mirrors that adorn the walls of the game’s various environments now have a fairly ugly muddy texture covering them. Although it was still nice to see the wooden floor on the outsides of the ship were still fairly shiny. In short, Layers 2 on Switch is still very much so an extremely good-looking game and I think if you hadn’t played or seen the game before you wouldn’t really recognize any of the visual changes.

In regards to performance, the game is locked to 30FPS by default but with an option in the settings menu to uncap the framerate to “No Limit”. These same options are in the other console versions of the game. Generally, the same keeps up with the 30FPS target pretty well although I would advise not advise ever switching to the “No Limit” mode. The framerate fluctuates way too often and causes even simple tasks like turning to feel and handle extremely awkwardly. It’s bizarre they even left the option in this version of the game.

And with that, we come to the most important topic of this review, the game itself. To keep this review spoiler-free I won’t get into the plot much but the bare essentials are that you’re a Hollywood actor who’s been called onto a steamliner cruise ship to play the lead role in a new movie. The gameplay is of course your pretty average post-Amnesia: The Dark Descent style of first-person walker horror. Although just like the original Layers, lots of inspiration was taken from the “gameplay” of P.T. So expect lots of walking through seemingly unnerving areas, solving a “”puzzle”” or two, and then being chased by a spooky monster for a couple of minutes. It’s a fairly predictable formula at this point and it seems like certain elements like solving puzzles are a lot more toned down when compared to the first game.

Now to be fair, this is pretty much standard fare in regards to these first-person horror walker games. Games like Outlast and even other games by Layers of Fear developer BlooberTeam like The Blair Witch and >observer_. These games are definitely leaning more towards being experiences as opposed to full-fledged games. But having now played Layers 2 a second time, I can say that the magic definitely does wear off. I can essentially speedrun the game now knowing the answers to the extremely simple puzzles and which rooms/doors to take and/or avoid. The only thing left for me to really experience is the fact the game has three different endings depending on what amounts to 1 or 2 choices made throughout the whole game. And even then you can just watch those endings on YouTube.

That being said, I still like the experience Layers 2 presents to the player. I genuinely think the people at BlooberTeam might genuinely be some of the most talented people in the industry. From the texture work to the modeling to the scripting and animations. Oh and the SOUND. This game deserves to be played with a good set of headphones on, it is incredible. The overall atmosphere and presentation of this game is top-notch and I love it. This company has lots of incredibly talented audio and visual people working on these games, but my God I do wish they would put all this talent into something with a bit more substance. I’m not saying they have to take the Resident Evil route and make all their horror games big bang shooter games. But these games could definitely use something more than “oh I saw a number now I just input it into this lock and that’s it, that’s the puzzle”.

So do I recommend Layers of Fear 2? The answer is a big maybe. I would definitely not recommend it at the $30 price point the game is being initially sold for (although owners of the first game and other Bloober Switch releases do receive a discount). And I would also not recommend it if you’re not a fan of the first-person horror walker genre as this game seems to revel in some of the more maligned tropes of the genre.

However, if you like your horror experience games and the game hits a much lower price, then yes. Absolutely. You’ll have a blast.

Thank you to BlooberTeam and Evolve PR for supplying us with the game to cover.