Review — Layers Of Fear: Inheritance

Layers Of Fear: Inheritance

We Sit Down And Review Layers Of Fear: Inheritance. We have a new bit of story DLC for a great horror game now. Here’s Our Review Of Layers Of Fear: Inheritance

Almost a year ago we were all introduced to a full version of Layers Of Fear and some of us regained a love for fear and horror. If not then, then when Bloober Team and Aspyr Media released the game on the PS4 and Xbox One earlier this year. It was fun and had some great jumps to it all but I know I was left wanting more. Now we jump up to now where Layers Of Fear: Inheritance has been released to expand more on the family’s insanity and story. We had a chance to sit down and play the new DLC for the game and here’s our full review on how well it adds or detracts from the overall franchise.

Story

It’s been some time after the events of Layers Of Fear and the mad artist’s daughter is given her inheritance; the house. She takes her trip to the house and takes us along for the ride to try and relive some of the horrors that happened to her and us all in the home. Will she succumb to the same fate as her father or will she have a kick-ass haunted house on her hands for the pain? We get to find out as we wander the estate one more time.

Hated

Sadly, one of the gripes I had about Layers Of Fear the first time has carried over to the DLC and in an even worse way. Just when it feels like the story is picking up it is over. This DLC is just as proportionately as short as the main game it is for. In fact, from start to finish it took only about a half hour to complete. This seems odd as almost all of the game’s world and mechanics were already in working order and Bloober Team could have just focused on bringing us another long story. Just not the case here at all. Even for DLC the length was just too short to fully be enjoyed.

Also, a lot of what was amazing in the main game was barely touched on in Layers Of Fear: Inheritance. That would be the insanely trippy and scary twists and jumps that happened in the game’s world. I can count on one finger how many truly inspired and startling scenes there were here and it was a huge letdown. I wanted to get more of what made Layers Of Fear amazing but none of it was truly present. Even when there were perfect times things could have gone wrong, they just didn’t and we kept walking right by. The tension and horror was more glossed over instead of embraced. That was the biggest selling point for me and I was left wanting.

Loved

While the DLC was a bit short and not as “spooky” as before, I do have to give credit on how they managed getting the younger version of the daughter mixed into Layers Of Fear: Inheritance. Instead of just using the “because that’s the game” kind of mentality about it, the younger version of the protagonist was brought in for the core of the game due to some great flashback set ups. We were able to relive a few things that we can assume the child went through before and it was a great set up for it all. If only they would have made things scarier for being a child but that didn’t detract from the transition we got to play out.

The other great thing I found in Layers Of Fear: Inheritance was the “bar raising” for the puzzles to move along in the game. Not that there weren’t some great ones in the core game before but the huge puzzles in Layers Of Fear: Inheritance kind of out shined them in difficulty and creativity on the developer’s end. They weren’t impossible but they did require attention to be paid to the narrative as well as the environment. Just when they became frustrating you could find the solution and then feel dumb for missing it the whole time. Great job there.

Overview

This one really comes down to the competitionist of the franchise on if you should pick it up or not. It does miss a lot of the great aspects that Layers Of Fear already set down and it was insanely short. But if you are one of the gamers who needs to know all of the story then it is worth the time. You can also make it a bit longer if you try to get the multiple endings but that isn’t by much. Use your judgement there on if you want to drop the few extra bucks and time. This will not be for everyone who played Layers Of Fear proper. Keep that in mind.

I give Layers Of Fear: Inheritance 7 Wheely Ducks on the Wheely Duck scale.

Layers Of Fear: Inheritance was developed by Bloober Team and published by Aspyr Media for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC on August 2^nd, 2016. A digital PS4 copy of the game was provided by the publisher for reviewing purposes.