Gameplay is divided between stealth or sneaking elements and action, including gunplay. The demo we were shown has the protagonist, a detective, visiting a crime scene at an asylum. He’s joined by two other NPCs. Upon arriving on site, they see that the first response team has disappeared –their vehicles are outside, but there is no blood, no bullet casings, and just no sign of them at all. Upon entering the building, they see the bloodbath that is — bodies strewn about in grisly fashion. A security station reveals a glimpse of what happened: you see three officers in a hallway shooting at something out of the camera view. Suddenly a shadowy figure teleports in front of each officer, one at a time in rapid succession, and cuts them severely, killing them. This entity then looks up at the camera before disappearing.
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As your character turns around, he’s knocked out and awakens, upside down, blood dripping from his hand and arm. Around him are other, already-dead bodies, hanging upside down and a horrible butcher chopping away at a body. You manage to steal a knife that was left stuck in one of the dead bodies to cut yourself down. Now it’s time to escape, as you’re unarmed and the butcher is far too big to try and kill yourself. The sneaking gameplay seemed quite nice and really intense. You could sense the tension from some in the audience and it definitely kept you engaged. I liked that this sneaking/stealth sequence with the butcher was actually several minutes long. It wasn’t just a case of stealing the keys and then walking out a door.
We were also shown a video from one of the action portions of the game. Here, the protagonist used a revolver to fire at slow moving zombies. I’m sure it’s still being worked on, but the combat gameplay was not as impressive as the stealth scene.
The Evil Within was a game I knew next to nothing about coming into E3, but having seen it in action, it definitely has my interest piqued. Without having seen everything yet, I would put it in my personal top three or five of this show, so far.
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