![]() ![]() Because I’ve religiously avoided playing horror games for my entire life, as Layers Of Fear became progressively more menacing, I could feel my soul withering away. I’ve never been one for horror – the scariest thing I’ve ever played was Shadow Of Chernobyl‘s awful laboratory level five years ago, which I quit because a save crash meant I’d have to replay the level again. Once you head down Layers Of Fear‘s rabbit hole, doors – in fact, the whole bloody house – becomes your worst enemy. As the protagonist’s house becomes more and more twisted, only two things stay the same: constantly opening doors to progress, and my abject fear of doing so. “We’ve had our fun – you can trust us, that’s it done!” It’s a silly, cheap scare (I say, in retrospect) that feels like an empty promise of safety. I got the feeling that Layers Of Fear wanted me to get used to opening stuff – in fact, it felt like it knew that I knew: within five or so minutes of starting the game, I opened a cupboard just to have a bunch of glass bottles loudly fall out. Layers Of Fear spends a long time hammering home the mundanity of opening its doors, but it’s not quite enough for you to drop your guard. As it turned out, there was no cause for concern – it was just water dripping into the sink – but the fear I felt while timidly opening the door was very much real. Unfortunately, all I saw was a dark window, and a mirror I was going to avoid looking into at all costs. Cringing, I slowly pushed the door open a sliver – just enough to try and get a glimpse of the bathroom, and make sure it was just a leaky tap that was dripping. ![]() When I steeled myself to investigate an ominous dripping noise from a nearby bathroom, I wasn’t quite brave enough to swing it open and check in. In those first minutes, I opened everything in sight – cupboards, drawers, whatever. During those milliseconds of engagement, you feel so horribly vulnerable: rather than a quick press of a button and a skittish step back, your hand needs to stay firmly on the door – and close to whatever’s on the other side of it – to move forward. Horror aside, the first thing that struck me about Layers Of Fear was the way you open doors – rather than just pressing a button, you grab onto it and glide it open. Layers Of Fear opens up in a cosy lobby, rain lashing against the windows as a fire gently crackles – it could be anything but a horror game…if you ignored the fact that the room’s warmth didn’t quite reach the far wall. Yet as I took my first steps into Layers Of Fear – Bloober Team’s psychological horror from 2016 – this still seemed like a funny idea. READ MORE: The best horror games: Essential horror games you need to play on PC, Xbox and PlayStation.Chuck a poor staff writer – unfortunately, me – into the scariest games around in the name of Halloween? Brilliant. When I pitched this column, I thought it would be hilarious. This week, Andy falls victim to Bloober Team‘s Layers Of Fear. Each week in October, feeble-hearted staff writer Andy Brown will square off against the scariest horror games imaginable. ![]()
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