In preparation for playing through The Assignment I went back and recently replayed most of the original game. Several months after first playing it, it remains an intense experience. The constant sense of dread and uneasiness that permeates throughout the base game carries over into the first DLC. Here, players take the role of Detective Kidman. Where was she during most of the original game? Why did something just seem a little bit ‘off’ about her? In re-watching the opening cutscene, her curiously dismissive look regarding the emergency call to Beacon hospital makes all the more sense now after playing The Assignment.
I’ll make it a point to dance around any spoilers, but Kidman is not only the ace Krimson City PD detective she portrays in The Evil Within; there’s something more to her and her motives. These events are laid out for you in that typical The Evil Within way — you get some clarity, some obfuscation, and slowly but surely things fall into place. The story and the story-telling were two of the best aspects of the original game, and The Assignment upholds those standards nicely. Even better, in my opinion, there is practically no combat in The Assignment — Kidman carries a flashlight that is used in part for navigation, but also to open up new pathways by focusing her light (hold L2) onto these mysterious marks that are found on walls. Indeed, The Assignment is essentially entirely stealth-based, but new gameplay mechanics make this more agreeable than what Sebastian could pull off in the first adventure.
For starters, Kidman can ‘stick’ to walls, i.e., there is a deliberate cover system here in which players get into and out of by pressing Circle when prompted. ‘Wall’ can literally mean a wall, or the side of an object that’s big enough for Kidman to hide behind, like a server rack in a data center for example… Anyway, when you do this, you can slide horizontally the length of said coverage and peek around the side. From here you can toss bottles to ‘guide’ enemies or peer out with your flashlight, and you can also lure enemies by pressing Square and Kidman will yell out something like ‘over here!,’ and which point you had better have your escape plan in motion.
The new enemies in The Assignment behave fairly similarly to what you saw in the first game, oh and there is a new boss-like (i.e., insta-kill) enemy that is creepy as hell. Enemy alertness is indicated with small, well-positioned and helpful on screen prompts, and of course paying attention to the sound effects for cues is crucial, too. If you’re attacked by an enemy you will take a serious blow to your health, and it’s worth noting that there are no upgrades, brain gel, or syringes to be found. However, Kidman can fully restore her health by taking cover in a locker or otherwise being still and hiding (although in a locker health regenerates much faster). Checkpoints are mostly well placed before and after key events, and save spots, always a welcome site in this franchise right?, are positioned comfortably (look for the red sofa with a black cat — you’ll see).
So actually dealing with enemies in The Assignment turns out to be as much, if not more, fun than it was with Detective Castellanos. As combat is not an option, the enemies seem just that much more daunting, and in my opinion the combat in the original game was ultimately a negative. Starting around chapter six or so (the Church) in the base game, the flaws of the combat system really start to come to the surface and they pull the rest of the experience — the excellent atmosphere, intriguing story and characters and pacing — down with it. Having to use only stealth in The Assignment was a great design decision, but of course it has its bizarre, arbitrary quirks, too. For example, despite numerous objects laying about — hard hats, small lamps, desk phones, etc. — you can still only pickup and use empty glass bottles for throwing/breaking to create a aural diversion, and I don’t know why that is. Another example would be an encounter in the second of two chapters, which sees you squaring off against one of those nasty invisible enemies (just like those you face with Sebastian at the start of Chapter five). Fortunately, with Kidman’s (special) flashlight, you can see these enemies, but you can only kill them with a stealth kill, even though you’re wielding an axe. Kidman will not use the axe in her hand if you are not in stealth, which to me seems like a very artificial restriction. There were several re-occurring instances of these ‘artificial restrictions’ in the original game too, especially during combat, that just made the game less immersive and fun than it could have been.
However, as with the base game, The Assignment’s pros outweigh its cons. Reliving key moments from the base game from Kidman’s view were great. Ruvik is still a badass character. Getting to know more about Mobius was really interesting. The cliffhanger leading into The Consequence (forthcoming DLC #2) was well done, and I really enjoyed the nearly four hours it took me to clear through. Oh, there are new collectibles to find as well, and puzzle boxes with scraps of a hand-written letter to unlock. Random point? I wish all DLC were of this caliber.
With that, let’s head to the summary…
