Ever since I was a kid, I have always wanted to play Layers of Fear as it was a game I often watched my favorite youtubers play and found it intriguing. This game is multiplatform and the price for it is 20$. I am not only a fan of horror but also a fan of artistry and seeing the stories behind art pieces this game has always had my attention. And so, I decided to buy it, I played it and finished it, gaining one of the three endings one can get.
As I started to play it, I realized that maybe playing this at 1 in the morning was a bit of a bad idea, but my ADHD and curiosity brain said nope! It’ll be totally fine! I mean honestly I did not struggle to sleep after playing it which was nice but the psychological horror that this game brings to the front is very well done.
In Layers of Fear you are thrown into the game as a man who is entering an old Victorian home. As you play through the first couple minutes, you soon find out you are the man who owns this home and had lived in it with his daughter and wife, who no longer are around him. However, as this is a game about an artist, you also find out the man you are playing as is a painter. Obsessive over his work, falling into drinking, falling into some bad paths.. Throughout the game you can make choices, find different papers, notes, and drawings that can affect your ending. I ended up with the neutral ending, where the man finishes the painting, he spends all game trying to finish but…only to find it is a portrait of his wife who he is no longer with, this is titled the ‘Loop Ending’.
This game has many different areas to explore and is all very dimly lit, making it hard to find the things that will change the ending so do not be surprised if you were to end up with a neutral ending on your first run as well. His family is mentioned all throughout the game, every single room, as you go through the seemingly endless maze that the home soon turns into, as the man goes through a deep psychosis episode. This game is filled with a good number of scares, it has some jump scares, but the story in the middle of it is a strong one.
The story line consists of going through this man’s psychosis episode, getting very blurred and cut-up parts of his life through scenes, letters, and drawings from his daughter. Trying to key in on the idea of this man was so obsessed with his art he lost himself to it. Going through the story you look for 6 main key items to put together his ‘masterpiece’. However, these key items are not what you would think they’d be. For example…one of the pieces is just a piece of flesh…another an eyeball. This leads the player into trying to figure out how far this man went…just to get a ‘masterpiece’ he may or may not end up liking depending on the ending you get.
The character development for the main guy you play severely depends on the ending you get. If you go with the neutral ending you’re stuck with the same man you started with, someone who has learned no lesson. If you get the family ending, everything you’ve gone through the man will actually change and become a better person, the game ending with the man going and rejoining his family and realizing how messed up he had been acting. However, if you get the other ending where he ends up just painting a portrait of himself, he doesn’t really learn a lesson, he just is the same guy but now with an inflated ego boost.
Honestly my opinion on this game is semi-high. As someone who grew up with it, it has always intrigued me and I’m glad I got to play it. I’m not super focused on replaying it to get another ending, but for a first run through sort of game it really has a good story to it and has some good scares. All in all for most people this is probably a one run through game maybe once a year, however for the completionists out there, you’d probably find yourself going back to it. I liked my playthrough of this, and honestly I’ll probably go back to play the other endings at some point but it isn’t something I’m going to be super proactive about. I love psychological horror games and just horror games in general, but this is one that I really am glad I got to finally experience.
While this game is a horror game, so there is obviously going to be some gore, this game mainly focuses on the psychological aspects of horror. Making you think while you’re going through it… This isn’t a game where you play as this perfect protagonist who saves the day. You’re playing as a man who depending on the ending you get…either saves his family, gets him over his obsession with the painting,, or just traps him in a loop that will never end, never being able to get to his final masterpiece. Who will you choose? The selfish man, the repetitive man, or the man who realizes his mistakes and sees the true beauty, not in his art, but in saving his family?
