— Contributed by Erika Anderson

Like most gamers, I’m a big fan of horror-survival video games, especially those with FPS elements like the Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil series. And yet, there will be times when you’ll want to try something different — something like a psychological horror video game that deals with the dark parts of the human psyche. This is what Layers of Fear have to offer!

Layers of Fear is a psychological horror game from Bloober Team. It is the first in the series followed by Layers of Fear: Inheritance, Layers of Fear: Legacy, and Layers of Fear 2. It was released in 2016 for Linux, Mac OS, Microsoft Windows gaming PC, and PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles.

In Layers of Fear, you play as a painter who is trying to finish his masterpiece. To do this, the player must explore through his Victorian mansion that seems to be constantly changing and showing ghastly visions, revealing disturbing secrets about his past.

Gameplay

To complete the masterpiece, you must solve the puzzles by searching the environment for visual clues. The Victorian-era house where you navigate can appear normal at first, but it can change as you further explore each of its rooms. These changes can provide clues that you can use for the puzzles. 

Layers of Fear has six chapters, in which you must find six important items to complete the masterpiece. Players must also look at particular objects scattered in the house to uncover important pieces in the painter’s history. Aside from the six objects, there is also a letter that you must slowly piece together. This letter contains details about the masterpiece, including its origins and the mystery behind the six objects.

Storyline

Layers of Fear is set in the United States during the 1920s. It starts with the unnamed protagonist returning from home after a court hearing. After briefly exploring his house, he goes to his workshop, where he starts working on his magnum opus.

Over time, the game will reveal the protagonist’s past story. He is a young, ambitious painter who used his beautiful wife as the model for his painting. After her wife gave birth, he decided to spend more time working on his paintings. This left his wife lonely, taking care of their daughter alone. Sometime later, he started to have drinking problems due to constant stress, and his talent started to slowly decay.

His paintings started to change, turning gory and horrific, which started to scare her wife. She then decided to burn his paintings, including her favorite art piece, “The Lady In Black.” In a drunken fit, he beat her, which drove her to leave with their child. After some time, he learned that her wife was critically injured in a fire. She survived but ended up horribly disfigured.

The painter took her wife and daughter back home so he could take care of them. However, his drinking problems worsened, and he neglected his wife even more because of her lack of beauty. After another drunken outburst, his wife committed suicide by slitting her wrists in the bathroom. All this worsened his condition and slowly made him insane. It was also implied that he probably took six body parts of his wife to complete his masterpiece. 

Review

At first, I thought that Layers of Fear was your usual horror game. All I need to do is solve all the puzzles, find all the objects, and complete his painting to stop the ghastly hallucinations. However, I wasn’t ready when the painter’s horrific past started to unfold each time I found one of the six objects.

Although the jump scares, gory paintings, and his wife’s ghost is truthfully scary. The most horrific core in this game is knowing who the real monster is, and that is none other than the protagonist himself. Yes, sometimes the scariest monsters aren’t the ones that hid under your bed but the ones hiding inside your head. 

Layers of Fear is a true masterpiece that captures the elements of a true psychological horror video game. Another thing to love about Layers of Fear is its series of puzzles to get you through the story. What makes it challenging to solve these puzzles is the ever-changing environment in the game caused by the protagonist’s twisted mind. However, these changes add to the story, which allows you to guess the painter’s past. Don’t get me wrong, but I really thought he murdered his wife and daughter at first. However, the thing with the body-parts as his painting instruments was way horrifying than my guess.

So what’s the verdict? Out of 5 stars, I’ll give Layers of Fear 4. What I loved about the game is its storyline. Layers of Fear also delivers an engaging atmosphere, excellent visual design, and definitely a good storyline that would be loved by horror fans.

Download it on Steam:  https://store.steampowered.com/app/391720/Layers_of_Fear