Layers of Fear

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A painter's mansion that changes every time you turn around.

Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation, Xbox
Price: Paid
Rated: Mostly Positive on Steam (79% of 1,752 reviews)
Length: about 10 to 12 hours for every chapter
Players: 1
Made by: Bloober Team, Anshar Studios
Released: 2023

What frightens An artist's Victorian mansion rebuilds itself behind your back: doors open onto rooms that were not there, paintings bleed and melt, and a ghostly figure stalks you through his madness, followed by an ocean liner where an unseen director turns an actor's role into a nightmare.
Content: jumpscares, blood, alcoholism, domestic violence themes.

Layers of Fear (2023) is Bloober Team's remake of its first-person psychological horror series in Unreal Engine 5. It brings together Layers of Fear, Layers of Fear 2 and their DLC with new chapters: you walk through a painter's shifting mansion and an actor's haunted ocean liner as reality bends around you.

About Layers of Fear

Layers of Fear first came out in 2016 and made Bloober Team's name in horror; this 2023 release, built with Anshar Studios in Unreal Engine 5, remakes it together with the 2019 sequel and every expansion, and adds new chapters that tie the stories together through a writer staying in an abandoned lighthouse. It is available on PC and Mac through Steam and on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

The heart of it is the Painter's story. You walk through his Victorian mansion looking for the pieces of his masterpiece, and the house refuses to stay still: a corridor behind you becomes a wall, a room repeats with something wrong, furniture floats, paintings drip and stare. Notes, toys and memories tell what happened to his wife and daughter. The Inheritance and The Final Note chapters return to the house from the daughter's and the wife's side.

Layers of Fear 2 moves the fear to an ocean liner, where an actor takes direction from an unseen voice (Tony Todd) and the ship turns into film sets and nightmares. The new version adds a lantern that can burn away some threats, and a few chases where you must flee.

It is a walking-and-exploring horror game more than a game of challenge: most of the fear is in what the rooms do when you are not looking and in the slow unfolding of the family's tragedy. It suits players who like story-heavy psychological horror such as SOMA or Observer.

How to play Layers of Fear

Explore the mansion in first person, opening drawers, doors and cupboards and reading notes.
Keep moving forward; rooms change behind you, so look around and take new paths as they appear.
Solve the small puzzles you find, such as codes and objects, to collect the pieces of the painting.
Use your lantern to light the way and drive back some threats, and run when something chases you.

Screenshots

Layers of Fear key art: a torn, blood-red canvas with a ripped gap through which a painted face's eye stares out

Layers of Fear screenshot: a tall rain-streaked window lit by two candles, with the dark silhouette of a figure standing behind the glass

Layers of Fear screenshot: a portrait of a dark-haired woman on an easel in a dark room hung with chains

Layers of Fear screenshot: a decaying room overgrown with dark growths around a gramophone on a table, lit by a single lamp

Tips

Read the letters and look at the drawings; they carry the story and some puzzle answers.
Turn around often; many of the scares and the way forward appear behind you.
Your choices in small moments decide which ending you get.

Questions

What is included in Layers of Fear (2023)?

Remade versions of Layers of Fear and Layers of Fear 2, the Inheritance and The Final Note DLC, and new chapters, The Final Prologue and The Lighthouse Chapter.

Is Layers of Fear scary?

It relies on unsettling changes to the rooms, eerie sound and some jumpscares more than combat. There is no fighting, only a few chases.