Welcome to The Attic, let’s paint another picture…

Last week, I posted a review of the fantastic horror game Layers of Fear. Now, after having finished the first DLC release, Inheritance, I wanted to let you all know how it is. Since the price is set at $4.99 USD on Steam, I didn’t feel the need to wait for the Halloween sale, which is good because I was dying for more. The story now is centered around the daughter of the artist and his wife. After inheriting the property and the contents within, she returns to the home she was taken from as a child. Because it’s a horror game, she enters the home at night, and alone. You don’t get too much of an introduction, as they just sort of plop you back into the house. While the DLC is short, I still enjoyed it. There are, however, major pros and cons to this, so I’ll just break it down for you as such.

Pros:

I loved returning to the house as the artist’s daughter. I loved exploring the decrepit shell of a home with nothing but a flashlight in hand. It was darker and creepier than in the base game, and I enjoyed seeing how they aged the house. Being able to watch her father’s (and mother’s) struggles with mental illness and depression through her eyes was very interesting. As you explore, you basically get to pick up “trigger” items that bring up old memories of her as a child, and what she endured with them was pretty terrible. These memories that you get to explore are from a much lower perspective as it’s from the viewpoint of a young child, so everything around you becomes very oppressive and domineering which was a nice touch.

Cons:

This childish take on the Layers of Fear universe wasn’t nearly as scary to me. It felt whimsical at times, and reminded me so much of the dreamlike, almost Burtonesque, Among the Sleep. At times I felt like I had played this game before. I never found Among the Sleep to be scary at all, and while I still enjoyed playing it, I didn’t like feeling the need to compare the two. While Inheritance is creepy and has its unnerving moments, it most definitely does not live up to the terror I felt while playing Layers of Fear. There wasn’t a single jumpscare, and they never really built up any tension either. So it was lacking on both scare factor fronts.

What I enjoyed most about Inheritance was exploring the house as the daughter when she was grown up. I love creepy old houses in horror games and as soon as I was dropped into the DLC my heart lept for joy, as I assumed the whole game would be like that. I understand why they wanted to implement a flashback method, but I wish they had been shorter, and not controllable. Of course these decisions you make in terms of how many items you collect determines which of the three endings you will get, just like in Layers of Fear itself. But in neither do I really care to reload just to collect everything, because the endings are so short and regardless of what you do, a lot of these awful things still happen.

Overall, I do recommend playing it if you loved Layers of Fear like I did, but maybe wait for the Halloween sale, as I’m sure the price will drop to 25-50% off. Just don’t get your hopes too high like I did.

Stay scared,
Dark Princess