Layers Of Fear PSVR

Layers upon Layers in Virtual Reality

Layers of Fear! A classic in the Bloober team franchise! A classic game from The Bloober Team, the original in 2D was a beginning to the new psychological thriller games that started outpouring. Working from the ultimate bad boy ”Resident Evil”, Layers of Fear has an amusing way of separating itself from the basic jump scares of today.

Before we dive right into the game and how it was moved onto a PSVR port, lets talk about this story. The story has not been touched or changed when ported to the PSVR, which is a fear most of us would normally have. The game set in the 1920s United States, the unnamed protagonist returns home from a court hearing. After briefly exploring his empty house, he goes to his workshop to start working on his “magnum opus”.
After he adds the first layer, he starts having hallucinations about his past encounters. The man was an ambitious young painter who used his pianist wife as a model for his painting. Soon his wife became pregnant, after she gave birth he decided to spend more time working on his paintings. Noticing that he had been separating himself from his new family, he bought the family a dog. This dog was just the beginning of his psychosis, the constant barking and whining triggering something within the father.
His talent started to slowly decay and his vision for the painting became twisted, gory and horrific works for simple jobs, including a set for Little Red Riding Hood. After being neglected, his wife decided to burn his paintings, including his most cherished work, “The Lady In Black”. His wife had taken all she could, and left in the night with her daughter in tow. Where she was hiding from her husband caught fire, where she ended up horribly disfigured, but their daughter survived.

After the fire, he took his wife, now a wheelchair user, and daughter back home so he could take care of them. After regaining her ability to walk, the wife was neglected even more because her husband thought she lacked “beauty”. After he had another drunken outburst, his wife committed suicide.
In the present day, it is revealed that he went insane and possibly took six body parts of his wife to work on his painting: her skin as the canvas, her blood as the overlay, her bone marrow as the undercoating, a brush made from her hair, her finger for the smearing and her eye as the spectator. The character is shown using these items, but considering the cyclical nature of one of the endings and the general ambiguous nature of what is shown throughout the story, it’s possible that this isn’t meant to be taken literally.

There are three different endings featured in the game, each depending on the player’s actions during the course of the game.

As for the actual game play of Layers of Fear in the PSVR, it’s a good VR game. It’s a little choppy, but what VR games on the PS aren’t? The choppy behavior of the game, did not impede on enjoying the game, and the bonus, you can feel the madness. The add-ons that they did with the PSVR is amazing, and integrated very well despite some cosmetic flaws. There are times when lightning strikes, that bogs the system down a little bit, but nothing like other VR games I’ve played. Especially porting a Horror Game over to the PSVR, Horror games are one of the few games that really excel in the VR environment. The visual aspect of Layers of Fear in VR was amazing, everything was vibrant and was brought to life within the system. It wasn’t just looking at flat pictures formed from a 2D game, they actually interpreted everything properly.
And honestly, that’s the scariest part.
This game was absolutely terrifying when it first came out, and the PSVR does just what it originally did. Brought the Scare to you, now with PSVR, the Scare is truly right in front of you.
Don’t panic too much, trying to find your way out of the door-less room.
Just let the madness soothe you.

Thanks for reading! Buh-Bye!