Bringing their full series together into a single title, allowing players to uncover each layer within the broken family and those connected to them, is Bloober Team and Anshar Studios. Their latest self-titled game Layers of Fear (2023) has brought together the original games, the DLC, and added more to the game to give the point-of-view of all members of this talented family. It’s amazing to see them all played out back-to-back and get a comparison of each individual experience while seeing how they are all connected to each other.

Story

The story depends on which tale you wish to dive into. However, the main focus of this game’s story falls on the shoulders of the Writer. You can go to the Chapters section of the menu and experience the story of the father through the Painter’s story (original Layers of Fear game), the Daughter’s story (the DLC for the original game), the story of the wife through the Musician’s story (all-new experience), and the Actor’s story (Layers of Fear 2’s game).

When you simply hit Start Game, it loads up the Writer’s entrance into the lighthouse. This is where their story begins and you get to find glimpses of why she is there in the first place. Once she sits down the first time to write, this will segway the game into the Painter’s story. Each time progress is made through the series, a section containing the Writer will take place and progress her events. Slowly, it will unfold her ties into the overarching story which intertwines the tale of all the other characters. Upon completion of the Painter’s story, there is a change where you can now pick which of the three stories you want to write next - the Daughter, the Musician, or the Actor.

The way they tie the stories together with this new character that is clearly outside of the initial family of characters is very interesting. It definitely does a great job bringing this whole series together into one bigger picture. Without getting into any spoilers, I will simply add that the team very well might not be done with this series just yet…

Gameplay

The first thing I noticed when I loaded up the game was that the game immediately offers you to start a New Game or go into the Chapters. Curious as to how far into the chapters I could go right away, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this is where they put the full Layers of Fear collection! Here they have all four of the main family’s story, separated by their talent (aside from the Daughter’s who is just listed as Daughter or Inheritance, depending on how you view it).

After playing through the Musician’s story, which is the all-new experience for the Wife’s point-of-view in the overall lore, I tried to load up a different story. This is where I found that loading up any other part of any story in the Chapters section of the game will overwrite the current save of the current Chapter I was in. This means, unless you are at the start of the next chapter and can start it up right there, you will want to complete the section of the game you have loaded up before going into any other Chapter of the game. However, this does not affect the Story Mode of the game as that gets its own save file. This is where they separate the remade titles and the new tale to experience. It is worth loading up the Story Mode before the Chapters though as you will be playing through all titles in the series for the main campaign.

Before moving on from the Chapters section, it is worth noting that they have each chapter locked ahead of the first chapter in each different family member’s experience. They also have the endings locked until you have achieved them. This makes it easy to see how far into the game you have gone so far and which endings you have unlocked for each tale as well. While the Painter and the Actor tales have multiple chapters, you will find the Daughter and the Musician only have one chapter and their different endings listed. Keep in mind, the chapter is quite long and does feel like a multi-part chapter - which I wish they broke up a bit so they could be saved and started at different parts of the experience.

Now, let’s focus on the main part of the game - the Writer’s experience. This whole experience actually plays out very similar to the game, but it does have outside characters directly involved in the story. Instead of everything taking place in her head, it is actually happening - most of the time. You’ll get to actually meet “The Muse,” a previously unknown key character, and there will be phone calls between different characters at different parts of the events. This section shows that they know how to deliver a similar experience without changing the reality around you as they do in other stories.

Of course, this is still a Layers of Fear game, so the majority of the game feels like a puzzle-exploration walking simulator with horror moments and heavy lore. You’ll be walking around the house as things unnaturally change and bring the character through so many different perspectives and broken areas. The break in reality and how it directly connects to the character’s mental state is a large part of the overall experience this series delivers and they, once again, did a great job bringing this experience.

Remember, if you ever get confused about what to do, look around for any writing or simply look at a wall and turn around because there is a chance your reality changed while your back was turned. Depending on who’s story you are going through, the clues and the way to progress through their journey are different. What is consistent, though, is the way this game typically uses lighting to help guide you, so you can usually trust the lit up - or differently lit up - pathway.

There is a light amount of fighting in the game, such as using a flashlight to fight against a ghost (or perhaps a broken projection of the wife). While you have the flashlight, it does have a time limit before the bulb pops making the light turn off for a few seconds before it fixes itself again. You’ll need to turn the light off every so often to refresh the bulb’s time limit. By using the flashlight’s intensity to fight back against the enemy, this time limit drains a lot faster, so keep that meter full for your own sake. Interestingly enough, this meter is not set up the same way for each character and it honestly feels like an intentional artistic choice.

Audio and Visual

Bringing this game to the Unreal Engine 5’s power has really scaled up the overall experience this series can provide. The details they are able to provide, all the way down to the handwriting style on notes representing the sanity level of the writer and changing according to who it is that wrote the note that you found, have been escalated and pronunciated. There are a lot of impressive visuals in this series and now they have been able to elevate the visuals to deliver this broken-reality experience the series is known for. While this game was visually impressive before, they have been able to make the visual aspects of this game even more impressive than ever!

The same goes for the audio work as the voice work throughout the game is incredibly well done. Plus, the silence that fills the moments when you are lost really delivers the feeling of depth and loneliness that these characters are experiencing, bringing this feeling to the player as well. When there is music in the game, it is typically to bring a tone to a moment or exaggerate the intensity of a scene. However, most of the game will be in silence with ambiance and light scares happening throughout the different journeys along with the voice work behind each note that is found - and there are quite a few of them as they really dive into the lore in this ultimate experience.

Replayability

It is literally the entire Layers of Fear experience with every game, every DLC, and every perspective included in the game, along with their different endings for each game. If this game doesn’t have replayability by default, it has it because of its ultimate lore experience and multiple ending opportunities.

What It Could Have Done Better

When implementing the Chapters section of the game, I would have liked to see more sections of the game to load up in. Maybe not so much for the Painter’s story, but both the Daughter’s and Mother’s stories only have one start-up point with no mid-play checkpoint and there were definite moments in their stories that a checkpoint could have been added. I’ve always pushed that giving players options is only going to improve a game and here I am again pointing out that the game could have been better with more options.

While I like the style they used to introduce the Writer, I would have enjoyed the chance to just play through her story without any of the other games. I get that she is technically writing the story of that family, but even so, she seems to have a lot going on in between tales, and experiencing them without interruption would be interesting.

Verdict

Layers of Fear (2023) is an intriguing re-approach to the series! Not only did they improve the previously launched titles to make them more interesting and provide a deeper immersive experience, but they added enough to the games that even the replaying of the original titles felt like a semi-new playthrough. What makes this remake stand out is that they added some clear content that doesn’t just provide more time in-game for players, but expands and solidifies the lore behind the whole series. Truly a unique take on remaking a game series that I hope to see implemented by other teams in the future!

Layers of Fear (2023) is available now on PC via Steam and Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.