The Evil Within

 PC
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 1960 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1,417 out of 1960
  2. Mixed: 255 out of 1960
  3. Negative: 288 out of 1960
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  1. Hack
    Nov 4, 2017
    7
    I actually played The Evil Within 2 before this one, which didn't ruin it for me but it did highlight the improvements made to the sequel, of which there were numerous.

    Overall I definitely enjoyed The Evil Within, the combat is very satisfying, it's just fun to play, it never gets old shooting off enemies heads and limbs, or setting them on fire, however the aiming definitely was a    I actually played The Evil Within 2 before this one, which didn't ruin it for me but it did highlight the improvements made to the sequel, of which there were numerous.

    Overall I definitely enjoyed The Evil Within, the combat is very satisfying, it's just fun to play, it never gets old shooting off enemies heads and limbs, or setting them on fire, however the aiming definitely was a little off, sometimes bullets seemed to just pass through enemies. There were a couple of annoyances that did hurt the gameplay though, the main one being you can only bind 4 items to hotkeys, even through the config file and it's just not enough, having to constantly go into your inventory manually and select an item or weapon was very clunky (you can bind up to 10 in the sequel which is plenty). I also didn't like the dedicated melee button, in the sequel you melee with MB1 if you're not aiming down-sights with a firearm, this felt so much more refined, the melee ability was also quite clumsy and you'd often miss the oversized crate you were trying to destroy for ammo.

    The story was decent but not great, it's also very confusing, it would have been even more so if I hadn't played the sequel first which does spoil the first game a little. The voice acting again is just OK, really nothing special at all, serviceable sums it up nicely. The audio in general was good though, from the monsters screaming as you burn them alive to the squish noise when you run over them with a vehicle. Visually I liked the style but it's not a massive looker, plus the performance is still really bad after all these years, things were improved but never fixed (you can now disable the black bars, but you'll see a 15-30fps hit depending on the area, you can also select 60fps mode whereas previously the game was locked to 30fps). I had to run the game at 900p instead of my native 1080p to hit 60fps stable in all situations which isn't ideal, but it's much better than playing with black bars at 1080p IMO. i'm using a very common build with a 3570k @ 4.3GHz, GTX 970 and 16GB DDR3 2133MHz, if you have better than this you'll be able to stick to 1080p as I wasn't far off but I can't abide dips.

    I will say there were too many one shot mechanics throughout the game, where if you go the wrong way or perform the wrong action you just die and have to start again, sometimes this is OK if it's a clear mistake you made, but many of the times I died I didn't do anything blatantly wrong so it was frustrating. Thankfully the devs removed this mechanic almost entirely from the sequel.

    Grab it when it's on sale if you're a fan of survival horror games like Resident Evil as I'm sure you'll enjoy it, and you can get it for pennies these days.    … Expand
  2. Tomle1202
    Feb 11, 2018
    6
    The Evil Within is a solid survival horror game that is, for the most part, thrilling. It just unfortunately suffers from a laughable story and a plethora of performance issues.
  3. Realgigclin
    May 7, 2016
    5
    I never played this game at launch and i just beat the game now. This game is still extremely buggy with cut scenes without audio, locked frame rate and horrible texture pop in. I had the game crash 4 times on chapter 3 at the same spot and it sent me back around 10 minutes each time. This again happened on chapter 6 but only twice, and im pretty sure it wasnt on my PC's end (GTX 970 i7I never played this game at launch and i just beat the game now. This game is still extremely buggy with cut scenes without audio, locked frame rate and horrible texture pop in. I had the game crash 4 times on chapter 3 at the same spot and it sent me back around 10 minutes each time. This again happened on chapter 6 but only twice, and im pretty sure it wasnt on my PC's end (GTX 970 i7 4790k with 8 gigs of ram).

    Even without the technical problems the game has horrible voice acting, and a protagonist that you want to punch. He either doesnt talk or just makes sarcastic remarks and takes nothing seriously. This game also fails to make you feel like this world was ever alive, or to make you feel bad at all for what is happening. The beginning of the game you are basically driving through an empty city, no signs of destruction yet, just a bunch of parked cars and maintained streets with NO people. This game is also not scary, a few enemies look gross but thats it, it just throws blood in your face and calls it scary. The game tries to make the villain scary, or thinks that you will be scared of him, all he has to him is a huge scar down his pale face and all he does is make a pouting face and covers his eyes. Its almost laughable because the camera zooms in on him every time it shows him making an eerie sound effect. i mean if your scared of blood, just blood everywhere from walls to floors to entire pools than im sure you'll be scared of this game

    The game has good gameplay and makes you want to search for ammo and other supply's and can be challenging at times and has some fun moments, i just cant take the world or story seriously, i mean even your character doesnt give a ****    … Expand
  4. jelikey
    Jun 26, 2018
    5
    There is no optimization, camera is awful, gameplay is boring. Main character is so weak, story is too slow and it's not original at all. At first it seems that game is interesting, but when first enemy shown, and you try to fight with him - all became so unprofessional. Because of weird camera you can't see half of the screen and you step at dangerous trap every 5 second.
  5. R_access
    Nov 27, 2014
    6
    I only have 30 minutes in, so I suppose I should give it more time, but wow is it hard to do so. Crashed immediately after starting it, terrible frame rate, poor graphic filter and more are the least of the problems, sadly. Its just a poor experience. Its a trial and error game, where immersion is broken constantly by the completely illogical progression method.

    Sadly, this isn't scary.    I only have 30 minutes in, so I suppose I should give it more time, but wow is it hard to do so. Crashed immediately after starting it, terrible frame rate, poor graphic filter and more are the least of the problems, sadly. Its just a poor experience. Its a trial and error game, where immersion is broken constantly by the completely illogical progression method.

    Sadly, this isn't scary. Its just a very slow, plodding trial and error exercise with predictable gore and frustration.

    This is no successor to resident evil, its a huge step backwards    … Expand
  6. davefu
    Dec 2, 2014
    1
    Terrible optimization issues. Just downloaded the demo on Steam, and couldn't play for more than 5 minutes. I5 2500K 4,5GHZ, Nvidia GTX 970. Clunky framerate. Even in the main menu the mouse lags. Stay away from this **** and from this horde of non optimized releases.
  7. moonlight_shado
    Aug 14, 2016
    7
    I'm having a blast with this game which is so underrated here.
    Combination of Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Tomb Raider works very well. The game is very diverse, can surprises, adrenaline jumps are amazing. Incredibly good gameplay and what i value the most: unique and entertaining storyline.
    The game can be frustrating, a bit too difficult, where to reduce the difficulty is    I'm having a blast with this game which is so underrated here.
    Combination of Silent Hill, Resident Evil and Tomb Raider works very well. The game is very diverse, can surprises, adrenaline jumps are amazing. Incredibly good gameplay and what i value the most: unique and entertaining storyline.

    The game can be frustrating, a bit too difficult, where to reduce the difficulty is associated with starting the whole chapter again, but... in the other hand game is challenging, which is rare in todays vid. games. Optimization leaves much to be desired, graphically it is very good, but it should work much, much smoother. But if someone can turn a blind eye to these failings, will have a good time.    … Expand
  8. Blackcesar
    May 26, 2016
    7
    Evil within is a nice game. The story is a little bit convoluted, still it tries not to be the typical horror-slasher-splatter game and that's remarkable this days. The settings does everything here, is a mix of Silent hill with Residen evil 4 mechanics, and it works. You are going from fields to manor, from Butcher's shop
    to sewers so get ready for a lot of different environment, even    Evil within is a nice game. The story is a little bit convoluted, still it tries not to be the typical horror-slasher-splatter game and that's remarkable this days. The settings does everything here, is a mix of Silent hill with Residen evil 4 mechanics, and it works. You are going from fields to manor, from Butcher's shop
    to sewers so get ready for a lot of different environment, even some scenes are during daylight. Longevity is around 8 to10 hours for the first playthrough so not bad at all considering the genre, adding several dlc and second playthrough with new weapons can increase to 20 hours minimum, Big problem here is the pc porting from the consoles. It is just bad, with a 970 60 fps on medium settings is not always possible, even after patches. Now they are not updating the game anymore so it will stay like this forever. My advice is to find it online at a really cheap price (I was able to find it for 6-7 euros) and that's a bargain for this game.
    Be careful because there are several jump scares and in general will keep you at the edge of your seat, but that's the point of the game!    … Expand
  9. CandarianGaming
    Apr 27, 2016
    7
    Solid survival horror game but there are some quite difficult moments which may put off some players. However I definitely recommend the dlc packs as it offers some great stealth gameplay.
  10. SpankFinatra
    Mar 4, 2021
    6
    This game is for fans of the survival horror genre. I'm giving it a strong 6. I had a good time with this game, but it has quite a few flaws with the story and a couple sections that are just annoying to play but not to the point where it ruins the experience. If you liked the gameplay of old school Resident Evil, then you'll have fun with this title.

    P.S - I'm only giving it a 6    This game is for fans of the survival horror genre. I'm giving it a strong 6. I had a good time with this game, but it has quite a few flaws with the story and a couple sections that are just annoying to play but not to the point where it ruins the experience. If you liked the gameplay of old school Resident Evil, then you'll have fun with this title.

    P.S - I'm only giving it a 6 because the story is pretty weak, and while it's fun the game doesn't do too much to innovate. My critical score is a 6 but my personal enjoyment boosts it to a 7 for sure.    … Expand
  11. Mobile
    Jul 24, 2018
    7
    ENG RU
    It is a pity that the game is designed for consoles, and in the form in which appears on the PC (control, camera, fov, lock fps, soap textures, performance), the game is strong in its genre, many times I was more pleasant and interesting to play than in RE4, beautiful level design, some locations is admired and offended, from the fact that if originally sharpened under the PC would    ENG RU
    It is a pity that the game is designed for consoles, and in the form in which appears on the PC (control, camera, fov, lock fps, soap textures, performance), the game is strong in its genre, many times I was more pleasant and interesting to play than in RE4, beautiful level design, some locations is admired and offended, from the fact that if originally sharpened under the PC would be even juicier and better, and only a curved port, which could be worse.Now about the game as a whole, exactly to 7 episodes, and this is exactly half of the game everything was interesting and feed and gameplay, opponents and ways to eliminate them and bypass, but then everything starts to repeat, the enemies become more, and no longer want to crawl for a long time and wait until the enemy turns his back or lure bottles, you want to either run or go into battle in the open, do not risk anything, not on the same Akum play. In General, you could do less episodes, about 12, especially because some were too short or do not understand what is needed, it would have kept the freshness and no sagging. The main character liked the charisma and appearance. the main villain of the rules, but the ending is not very much, I thought it would be something original, and even so it was clear what was happening.
    Жаль что игра предназначена для консолей, а в том виде в котором предстает на PC (управление, камера, fov, лок фпс, мыльные текстуры, производительность), игра сильна в своем жанре, во много раз мне было приятней и интересней играть, нежели в RE4, красивый левел дизайн, некоторые локации вызывает восхищение и обиду, от того что если бы изначально заточена под PC было бы еще сочней и лучше, а так лишь кривой порт, который мог быть и хуже.Теперь о самой игре в целом, ровно до 7 эпизода, а это ровно половина игры все было интересно и подача и геймплей, противники и способы их устранения и обходы, но потом все начинает повторятся, врагов становится больше, и больше не хочется долго ползать и выжидать пока противник повернется спиной или приманивать бутылками, хочется либо пробежать либо идти в бой в открытую, ничем не рискуем, не на Акуме же играем. В целом можно было сделать поменьше эпизодов, около 12, тем более, что некоторые были короткие или вообще не пойми для чего нужны, так бы сохранили свежесть и отсутствие проседание. Главный герой понравился харизмой и внешним видом. главный злодей норм, но вот концовка не очень понравилась, думал будет что нибудь оригинальней, а то и так было понятно что к чему.    … Expand
  12. Heller78
    Jan 8, 2018
    2
    PLEASE STOP MAKING GAMES LIKE THIS... YOU ARE WASTING YOUR MONEY FOR "PRODUCTION" OF THIS GAME AND ALSO OUR MONEY AND TIME... there is such good but few horror moments WASTED with so meaningless loot boxes and action sequences that you want to kill yourself... i get it its like res4 but filled with buggy controls, dumb action, amazingly poor melee attacks, poor characters development andPLEASE STOP MAKING GAMES LIKE THIS... YOU ARE WASTING YOUR MONEY FOR "PRODUCTION" OF THIS GAME AND ALSO OUR MONEY AND TIME... there is such good but few horror moments WASTED with so meaningless loot boxes and action sequences that you want to kill yourself... i get it its like res4 but filled with buggy controls, dumb action, amazingly poor melee attacks, poor characters development and out of space bomb traps and gameplay mechanics... PLEASE IF YOU HAVE ANY TALENT LEFT FOR MAKING SOMETHING UNIQUE OR AT LEAST SOMETHING MEMORABLE STOP (STOP). yes, STOP MAKING DUMB **** ACTION **** SEQUENCES WHERE YOU KILL 200 ZOMBIES WHOSE AI IS DUMBER THAN THIS JAPANESE FOLLOWER ( I DONT KNOW HIS NAME AND I DONT CARE )... you have such talent for horror dont waste it on the sequel..… Expand
  13. KARF4GEN
    May 10, 2018
    7
    Продукт полный самоцитирования и "роялей в кустах", с надуманной сложностью и вырвиглазной гаммой.
    Для ценителей предыдущих работ пойдет, на новичка может вызвать отторжение. Миками нужно или выдать что-то новое или уйти из бизнеса.    Продукт полный самоцитирования и "роялей в кустах", с надуманной сложностью и вырвиглазной гаммой.
    Для ценителей предыдущих работ пойдет, на новичка может вызвать отторжение. Миками нужно или выдать что-то новое или уйти из бизнеса.
  14. Antares8001
    Dec 15, 2018
    4
    When developers confuse oldschool with outdated, nostalgia quickly starts to turn into necrophilia which then results in a game like this.

    Here we have a survival horror game that apparently also wants to be a 3rd person shooter, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing in it of itself, however unfortunately the scariest thing about it are not any of the monsters but rather the    When developers confuse oldschool with outdated, nostalgia quickly starts to turn into necrophilia which then results in a game like this.

    Here we have a survival horror game that apparently also wants to be a 3rd person shooter, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing in it of itself, however unfortunately the scariest thing about it are not any of the monsters but rather the horrendously clunky controls, outdated graphics and gameplay mechanics.
    Alright then then, it is rather unimpressive on a technical level and the controls aren't amazing, which again wouldn't be the end of the world, as there have been plenty of games with clunky or outright bad controls that have become genre defining because the story made up for it. Unfortunately the Evil Within is not one of those games. Instead the poor graphics and clunky controls are accompanied by writing that feels like they hired an elementary schooler, embarrassingly dull characters that fail to make you relate, much less care about them at every turn possible, twists that M. Night Shyamalan would roll his eyes at and last but not least game design straight out of 2001. The overarching plot can best be described as pseudo-intellectual pretentious garbage that has been done better a hundred times over. And it actually manages to get even more nonsensical with every twist.

    Well to point out some good things the game has some creative visceral monster designs thrown in between the generic "definitely not zombies" and diverse similarly creative set-pieces. However it never manages to properly utilize any of them for the reasons stated above. Even the most creatively designed foe starts to become annoying rather than scary pretty quickly and even the most awe inspiring set-piece will make you sigh once you realize that you actually have to navigate through it.

    If this game came out in the early 2000s it might have competed with the Resident Evil series but the standards for horror and survival game design have significantly increased since and what would have been good back then is simply unacceptable nowadays. Overall this game leaves the impression that someone set out to create a supercut of the early Resident Evil games, without thinking the whole thing through. It adopts pretty much all of their weaknesses without improving or adding anything new. We're left with a game that feels like little more than a Shinji Mikami wankfest, that has no business being released in 2014    … Expand
  15. SilverOrlov
    Sep 26, 2019
    7
    A very good story and atmosphere were unforgivable broken by porting the game on PC with a lot of bugs and unimaginably crooked angles in important moments of the game. And also, it's "jelly slowness" of main hero, even after stamina upgrades. But the most disgusting on my opinion is the system of "no return". There was a lot of times when I was incredibly frustrated when I had to forgetA very good story and atmosphere were unforgivable broken by porting the game on PC with a lot of bugs and unimaginably crooked angles in important moments of the game. And also, it's "jelly slowness" of main hero, even after stamina upgrades. But the most disgusting on my opinion is the system of "no return". There was a lot of times when I was incredibly frustrated when I had to forget about keys in statues only because of some accidents that started a cut-scene and throw me in the next location. This game normally operates with an atmosphere of horror like in Silent hill, and dead action like in Resident evil, in it's own way... but the the terrible implementation of the product on a PC kills all its positive qualities. So, unfortunately, I can’t put it above a mediocre rating.… Expand
  16. gameking
    Jan 10, 2020
    7
    The game is reminiscent of resident evil and silent hill.The atmosphere is successful but the graphics are really bad. It feels like an old game.Story is not bad and game-play time is very good.But this game is very hard. You need too much think and this will be bad sometimes. If you miss silent hill and resident evil style games, it's perfect for you.
  17. Nameless2131
    Feb 6, 2020
    6
    6/10 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  18. Lazzakz
    Aug 21, 2023
    4
    Have not played the sequel, but I hear it's a great improvement from this one. Some great ideas here and there, but nothing worth the whole playthrough.

    DECENT 4
  19. vova22379
    Apr 29, 2023
    2
    ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
  20. Nick7000
    Jun 2, 2023
    10
    Один из лучших хорроров, который я видел. Играл, роняя кал каждые пять минут.
  21. AgentLvi
    Jun 18, 2023
    8
    Great game. The story is decent. The scoring is great, visual is really amazing, the voice & sound is also amazing
  22. Christian_TV
    Apr 15, 2023
    7
    A quite fun game,nothing else. The plot is pretty confusing and monotonus,the graphics are ok.The game on Pc is really bad optimized (i play on a 3080 ti).
  23. applecookie
    Dec 11, 2022
    7
    You can't see it, but you can hear the zombie sound

    There is a great deal of fear from spatial and psychological pressure with nothing
  24. imalynxcat
    Aug 30, 2023
    4
    Optimizasyonu çok kötü, Bölüm tasarımları kötü, atmosferi ilgi çekici olsa da oynarken eğlenemedim.
  25. CJCJCJCJCJ
    May 20, 2023
    0
    This game feels like some dated trash from 2003, gameplay sucks and makes no sense, story is garbage, characters are annoying, VA is trash, enemies are either OP as **** or trash mobs dead in 2 hits, game is trash burn in hell devs for making me buy this garbage ass game
  26. Young_Fawn
    Jun 21, 2023
    6
    Overall having done one playthrough and saw the game to the end, I'd give the game a 6/10.

    Now a 6/10 doesn't mean that I disliked the game, not at all, I did enjoy it but there were a few niggling issues which did get me frustrated time and again which I'll get to. Firstly, the style of the game is great, the monster design is cool, the set pieces are lovely to look at even in 2022.    Overall having done one playthrough and saw the game to the end, I'd give the game a 6/10.

    Now a 6/10 doesn't mean that I disliked the game, not at all, I did enjoy it but there were a few niggling issues which did get me frustrated time and again which I'll get to.

    Firstly, the style of the game is great, the monster design is cool, the set pieces are lovely to look at even in 2022. For those who bought the game on release and were forced to play at 30fps Letterbox mode, you can now completely turn that off and by god does it make a difference; you'd never tell this game was made in 2014 by how it looks, at least on PC.

    The protagonist is, well he's your standard brown hair, brown eyed American protagonist; although we do get some glimpses into his past as a detective and also his personal life which does give him some depth and it is delivered through passive storytelling rather than just simply having it explained to you.

    The Director, if I recall correctly, is the guy who did the original Resident Evil and also Resident Evil 4, and if you've played RE4 before going into this, you will definitely feel it's influence bleed through; you could even debate that it's some kind of spiritual sequel to RE4 the way this game plays. However the story isn't as good as something like RE4, the Story is... I don't want to say forgettable but it certainly didn't leave a lasting impression upon completion.

    It is a survival horror in the sense that ammunition isn't abundant, stealth killing and using traps to conserve ammo is a must and frankly you need to know when to fight and when to run; for me that's what made the game enjoyable, counting up your odds and making a decision.

    The game itself also seems like the closest we'll get to a new Silent Hill with how some of the set pieces and monsters are, so if you, like me, are waiting to see if/when Konami decide to release something like that, The Evil Within is a good filler.

    There are a few things however I did dislike and grew frustrated at.
    Firstly, the insta-death mechanics. I don't mind an instant death, if anything I find them quite humorous at how I've been punished for what might seem like an obvious error; but there's just... Too many of them at certain places and there's times where there's too many in quick succession and unfortunately sometimes if you die, you're going back a little bit. It did get a little frustrating just being one-shot over and over again from a wire I clearly didn't trigger. Or random spikes just gutting from seemingly nowhere. Like I said, it's not bad to have one-shot mechanics, but when it's so sudden, so random and almost all the time in some chapters, it becomes less fun.

    There are also times, now this might seem like an arbitrary criticism but it's something I couldn't help but notice, where something is about to happen, like a chase, in an in-game cutscene; then without warning, the camera is in a different place than you'd expect and you have full control of Sebastian again and before you can react (Because why would you expect to have to move during what you think is a cut-scene) you are dead. I got caught out by this almost every time and if you don't start moving the second you get control. Boom, instant death.

    Overall, I did enjoy the game and was willing to overcome some of the little things that annoyed me, the game is not bad by any means and will likely hold your attention to the end, you can complete it anywhere between 8-12 hours I reckon, I got 11 for my playthrough. I wouldn't go back and play it again for my own fun, only if a friend wanted to see a playthrough. But it's definitely an enjoyable experience and a strong entry into the Survival Horror Genre.    … Expand
  27. DoomDoc_
    Aug 11, 2023
    9
    ----------------------------------
    I am giving this game 9/10.
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Awards & Rankings

22
#22 Most Discussed PC Game of 2014
38
#38 Most Shared PC Game of 2014

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
68

Mixed or average reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 18
  3. Negative: 1 out of 18
  1. CD-Action
    Jan 9, 2015
    50
    It seems the developers were not entirely sure what they wanted to achieve and got caught between traditional and innovative approach, properly employing neither. [13/2014, p.56]
  2. PC PowerPlay
    Nov 30, 2014
    70
    Borrowing heavily from past survival horror games, The Evil Within still manages to create fear in its players despite some clunkiness. [Dec 2014, p.58]
  3. Pelit (Finland)
    Nov 15, 2014
    82
    As the Japanese survival horror genre goes, The Evil Within feels a bit old fashion but in a good way. It certainly has the potential of becoming a cult classic. [Nov 2014]
See all critic reviews »