Going into the Bethesda booth I knew I was going to see Wolfenstein the New Order and Elder Scrolls Online but I didn’t know I would be getting a theater experience demo of The Evil Within, a new game from Resident Evil creator Shinji Mikami, seeks to take survival horror back to its roots and away from the increased action focus we’ve been seeing lately.

Shinji Mikami himself was on hand to introduce the game before the live gameplay demo and as a huge Resident Evil fan I was pretty excited to be in the same room with him. That this is the first game he has directed since RE4 and is reportedly his last game to direct makes this all the more special.

The plot details are pretty murky at this point but the basics put the playing in the shoes of Detective Sebastian Casteanos who is called in to investigate a massive murder at a mental hospital. Upon arriving at the scene, Sebastian finds that things are not as they seem as, despite the enormous amount of police cars, the place is completely deserted. Sebastian, his partner and a third character go in to investigate. Shortly after finding an downed officer in a scene eerily similar to the beginning of Resident Evil 2, Sebastian finds himself investigating alone and shortly after THAT he finds himself unconscious.

When he wakes up, Sebastian is hanging upside down from a rope tied to the ceiling surrounded by similarly hanging corpses. A large man who looks an awful lot like Leatherface shows up to carve a slab of meat off of one of the bodies and takes it to a butcher table to work on. Sebastian sees a knife sticking out of the gut of one of the bodies and has to swing over to retrieve it. With that he cuts himself down and begins a tense cat and mouse chase through the hospital with Sebastian limping along as best he can while his attacker chases him with a chainsaw.

The scene was very intense and visceral with a grainy filter on the ‘lens’ that makes the whole thing look like a 70’s horror film. Sebastian has to move with stealth, use the shadows and avoid Saw style traps as he evades the killer and sound is a really important component here because it informs the player where his pursuer is when he can’t see him. There is no radar or map indicating where the killer is so the player needs to pay attention to sound and shadows to know when danger is lurking.

Sadly for my audience, the graphics card melted in the middle of the presentation and we were not able to see what combat looked like but the material we were shown looked very strong. The overall presentation looked a lot like Resident Evil 4 but with an emphasis on resource management and stealth. That could be because we didn’t see combat but in general it looks like the thrust of the game is much more on the horror than the action.

The particular brand of horror seemed to be based much more on dread and danger than jump scares so expect more tension derived from not having any bullets or heath and knowing something is around than having zombie dogs jumping through a window. This is a welcome change as the genre has really gotten away from fear and much more into straight action. That is fine for action fans but I want a game more like Silent Hill 2 and that is what this one seems to be offering.

As for the enemies in the game, we didn’t see much but it looked like there were a variety of monsters to fight including what looks like a lethal murdering ghost to some classic zombie type enemies. The trailer shown shows some pretty messed up looking monsters that look not unlike Dead Space’s Necromorphs. It is a pretty safe bet that there is a pretty wide variety of nasties to fight.

From the perspective of someone who has played a ton of survival horror games in the past, this looks really promising. The tone feels just right and the graphics have a ton of detail while maintaining the look of a gritty horror film. The sound, aside from being useful for locating enemies, also helps to build the tension by subtly ratcheting up heart beat noises and a building musical score. All of these elements worked in tandem in the demo to make for a perfect horror atmosphere and feel. If everything continues down this path, this is going to be pretty awesome and will be a must buy for me. It is still pretty early so plenty of things can change between now and release but this looks pretty good to my eyes.

The Evil Within is slated for release in 2014 for PS3, Xbox 360, Windows, PS4 and Xbox One.