True Fear: Forsaken Souls Part 2

About True Fear: Forsaken Souls Part 2

True Fear: Forsaken Souls Part 2 is a first-person point-and-click horror adventure by Goblinz, published by The Digital Lounge. It came out on PC and Mac in November 2018, on Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in November 2019, and on Xbox One and Series X|S in June 2022, with iPhone and Android versions as well. It continues straight from Part 1 and is the middle of a trilogy, so the first game is the place to start.

Holly Stonehouse has followed the clues from her family's old house to the Dark Falls Asylum, and again someone was there before her, waiting. Was her mother mad, or did the other sister really exist? Did her mother take her own life, how could Dahlia come back after the fire, and what is the thing Holly saw at Heather's house that has followed her ever since? This time Holly is no longer only watching: the asylum comes alive at night.

You move from painted scene to scene, searching for items, reading notes and photographs, and solving more than 40 puzzles, from rotating rings on a bronze grate to boards of light beams. Many objects belong to long chains: a tool found in one building opens something in another. A map lets you travel quickly across the large grounds, and Holly's diary gathers hundreds of notes. A red-eyed doll in the corner gives hints and lets you skip a puzzle you are stuck on. There are over 10 minutes of cutscenes, 14 hidden figurines to find and bonus material to unlock.

Against Part 1 it is longer, with about twice the puzzles and a bigger, open map instead of one house. HowLongToBeat puts the main story at about 8 hours; the makers speak of around 12 on average. One critic on Metacritic noted that it ends on an abrupt cliffhanger that leads into Part 3.

The fear is slow and steady: iron gates in the night fog, empty rotundas and offices, family portraits that do not add up, a masked face in the dark and a story about madness and loss. It is not built around chases or fights, and its rating is Teen for blood and violence, so it suits players who want a long, atmospheric horror mystery to solve at their own pace.

Free demos are on Steam, PlayStation and Xbox, and the phone versions let you play the opening, over an hour, before one purchase unlocks the rest.

How to play True Fear: Forsaken Souls Part 2

1. Play Part 1 first, or try the free demo, then get Part 2 on Steam, GOG, the Epic Games Store, a console store or your phone's store.
2. Click around each scene to search it, pick up items and read notes.
3. Use and combine items from your inventory on the things around you.
4. Solve the puzzles; the doll in the corner gives a hint, or lets you skip a puzzle you cannot crack.
5. Use the map to travel between areas and the diary to keep track of the clues.

Tips

• Read every note and photograph; the diary keeps them, and they often hold codes and hints.
• Items often belong to another part of the grounds, so revisit old scenes after picking up something new.
• Look for the 14 hidden character figurines as you go; they help you retrace what happened.
• Save the skip button for puzzles that truly stop you; working them out is most of the game.

Questions