The Evil Within review – now with The Consequence DLC

The Consequence DLC

The second part of The Evil Within’s three-part DLC season pass arrived in April, finishing off Julie Kidman’s story and going some way to explain the Mobius Corporation’s intentions with Leslie and the STEM device. We weren’t exactly blown away by the Assignment’s prolonged stealth sections and limited exposition, so we were worried the short turnaround between DLC releases would mean the developers wouldn’t have taken these criticisms on board.

Thankfully, the Consequence delivers – at least for the most part. There’s a lot more action than there was in the Assignment, with Kidman finally getting her hands on some weaponry, although these sections never live up to the highs of the castle battles in Chapter 6 of the main game. You still can’t increase your skills, either, meaning you have to battle a swaying aim reticule and slow reload times compared to a fully levelled-up Sebastian.

That being said, the majority of the DLC is still spent in stealth mode, sneaking past enemies rather than taking them on directly. Kidman doesn’t have any weapons for much of the opening chapter, meaning you’re once again forced to hide in air vents and lockers to avoid detection. It’s often more trouble than it’s worth to try and lose a pursuer, so we ended up putting the controller down and waiting for Kidman to die, just so we could restart from our last checkpoint.

A new light mechanic adds to the tension, temporarily replacing your flashlight with emergency glow sticks as you make your way through a series of rooms in complete darkness. It’s a great demonstration of ID Tech 5’s lighting systems, with glow sticks illuminating your surroundings as you throw them in front of you. If you hit an enemy with one, however, they will chase you down. The dead ends and bottomless pits make it rather frustrating, however, and the whole section fails to live up to the suspense we saw in the main game’s mannequin warehouse.

These new areas soon give way to more familiar locations, which is perhaps unsurprising given Kidman’s presence in the main storyline, but thankfully the developers have given us new angles and perspectives rather than merely retreading the same hallways. More annoying is the re-use of boss battles from the first DLC. The first Spotlight monster fight in particular is an almost beat-for-beat repeat, which just feels unnecessary.

Our biggest gripe, however, is quite how many plot holes remain at the end of the DLC’s two-three hour play time. The Consequence was supposed to fill in some of the gaps left at the end of the main game, and again at the cliffhanger that was the end of The Assignment, but the ‘revelations’ revealed throughout the course of the two chapters will come as no surprise to players that bothered to collect even a few of the collectible case notes as Sebastian. Kidman’s past is left in the dark, and with the third (as yet unnamed) DLC pack set to focus on the sadistic Keeper enemy, we might not ever find out.

The Consequence is more of the same, then, which may or may not be a good thing based on your opinion of The Evil Within’s story and stealth mechanics. It’s really only worth your time if you finished the first DLC, or if you’re desperate to eke out every possible bit of lore and backstory from the game – and even then only if you previously invested in the season pass.