Tango Gameworks’ game had calm segments for a good reason.

John Johanas, who was the director of The Evil Within 2 (while Shinji Mikami reverted to just the producer post after directing the first game) told The Telegraph why they designed the game as such: „The “too scary” thing is a hard line to draw, because when you’re making something, you never think it’s too scary. I think if something is so scary that the person stops playing, that’s not necessarily a bad thing! But the goal this time was a little different in its agenda to the first game, where it had what you would now classify as ‘non-stop tension and terror,’ there was never any relief from the oppressive environment that we put you in.

We felt like it was a bit of a negative, a good horror game has an ebb and flow, things level out, and you have a moment to take a breather, and then you can dive back into these scenarios that we’ve provided for you. This time we tried to focus a little bit on pulling back, we wanted some places not to be not scary, but to lower the tension and find a better balance than the last game.

So it was a little bit tricky because we focus our energy on the scary parts, and then we say “Okay, with this part, let’s not make it dark, let’s make this light, and have some of these elements like just drinking coffee”, and things like that, just ways to cool off between tense moments.”

Johanas’ explanation is clear – they didn’t want us to be constantly in fear. This change is just one of much more in The Evil Within 2…

Source: The Telegraph