Read our full The Evil Within review.
Survival horror fans eagerly awaiting Shinji Mikami’s final opus will have to hold out a little bit longer. The Evil Within, originally announced for an August 2014 release, has been delayed until October to get a bit more polish. The game will now hit North America on October 21, Australia on October 23, and Europe on October 24 for PlayStation and Xbox consoles as well as Windows.
Bethesda and developer Tango Gameworks also announced pre-order incentives with the Fighting Chance Pack, which will help you stave off horrible death in the game a little bit longer. Here’s what the pre-purchase gets you (all in-game items):
- Medical Kit – presumably similar to every other med kit you’ve used in a game for the last few decades
- Green Gel – used to upgrade your attributes
- Double Barrel Shotgun and Three Shells – for blowing monsters away a few times (then I guess clubbing them)
- An Incendiary Agony Bolt – for setting things on fire
- A Poison Agony Bolt – for subtler kills
That the pre-order bonuses are just a handful of ammo speaks to how scarce resources will be in this game. Mikami’s departure from the Resident Evil series after the fourth numbered entry marked a pronounced drift towards the action side of the horror genre. The Evil Within seems to be an active return to the survival horror scarcity and anxiety that kept masochists coming back for more punishment in the early Resident Evil and Silent Hill games, before the Dead Space series collapsed the genre into the cover-shooting mainstream.
Expect further details in the coming weeks at E3.
