The Evil Within 2: Horror so well done that you can’t look away

The Evil Within 2 is one of those games that is so horrifying I really don’t want to play it. It is over-the-top gruesome, and no parent should let their child play this mature-rated video game unless you want the kid scarred for life. The imagery is so violent and scary that I figure I’ll have nightmares if I try to play it all the way through.

But it’s so well done. Its creators use plenty of cliché tricks from the horror genre, like big butcher knives, bloody messages on walls, monsters that are assembled from human body parts, dimly lit mansions where you can’t see what’s in the dark corners, and jump scares aplenty. Oddly enough, all of that adds up to an immersive horror experience. I can’t look away.

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Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.