The Evil Within 2

Similar to its predecessor, The Evil Within 2 is a survival horror video game. Played from a third-person perspective or a first-person perspective, the player assumes control of detective Sebastian Castellanos, who must descend into the world of Union to rescue his daughter, Lily. There are five difficulty modes, namely Casual, which producer Shinji Mikami recommends, Survival, Nightmare, which is the setting recommended for players who enjoyed the difficulty curve in the previous game, Classic, which is mostly identical to Nightmare, but limits the number of saves and removes upgrades, and Akumu, which is also mostly identical to Nightmare, but causes the player to die in a single hit from anything. In The Evil Within 2, maps are larger and there are multiple ways for players to advance in a level.

The player is also given an item known as "The Communicator", which helps to highlight the objectives, resources and enemies featured in the game's world. It also reveals Resonance points, which provides hints regarding what had happened in the world of Union. Players can explore the map area freely to complete side objectives and scout for resources, which are scarce. Players can engage in direct confrontation with enemies using weapons like guns, or use stealth to prevent themselves from being noticed or sneak behind enemies to kill them silently.

Three years after the events of the first game, Sebastian Castellanos (Marqus Bobesich / Hiroyuki Kinoshita) has left the Krimson City Police Department, haunted by his experiences at the Beacon Mental Hospital. His only child, Lily (Kiara Gamboa / Sakura Sakai), supposedly perished in their house fire, and his wife Myra (Elizabeth Saydah / Rika Fukami), unwilling to accept her daughter's death, abandoned him. This, coupled with his trauma, results in Sebastian descending into alcoholism. Drowning his sorrows in a bar, Sebastian is approached by former partner and Mobius agent Juli Kidman (Meg Saricks / Yūko Kaida), who reveals that Lily is still alive.

Sebastian is brought to a secret Mobius facility against his will, where he meets the head of the facility named the Administrator (Richard Neil / Jin Yamanoi). The Administrator explains that Lily is being used as the Core for a new STEM system to simulate an idyllic American town called Union. However, Mobius lost contact with Lily and their agents inside Union, and they have lost control over the simulation. Sebastian reluctantly agrees to help and is plugged into STEM.

Development for The Evil Within 2 began in March 2015, after the team at Tango Gameworks wrapped up the development of the downloadable content for the first game. Director Shinji Mikami stepped down and became game producer and supervised the game's development. Mikami said the development period was quite a bit shorter than it had been for its predecessor. The director role was assigned to John Johanas, described by Mikami as a person with "a lot of talent".

The story of the game was penned by Syoji Ishimine and Trent Haaga. One of their focuses was to make the game's story easier for players to comprehend and understand, a response to the criticism of the first game where the game's plot gets too complicated by the end. Shifting realities, a feature in the first game, also returns in the sequel but according to Johanas, "there's a bit more logic to when and how it happens".

The Evil Within 2 received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator website Metacritic.

Ray Porreca's score of 7/10 on Destructoid said it was "Solid and definitely has an audience. There could be some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun."