Hell yeah, there's a sequel boys! As someone who's played both Evil Within games when they came out and thoroughly enjoyed them, you'd imagine that I had stars light up in my eyes when I saw the campaigns based on them hit the workshop. And in true, well, "me" fashion, I started gushing over each and every little detail I saw on my run through to the point where I now want to share my thoughts with random strangers on the internet.

Starting off, we get a map based off of the Intro sequence when Seb first reenters Stem, and it does a very good job of recreating the set pieces within as the intentionally straight-forward halls guide the group to, what was both a mix of shock, joy and then immediate anxiety, the Chase scene with the Guardian.
And yes, she does still kill you instantly if she catches you as I unfortunately found out when I ran forward after breaking the glass at the start of the run, despite being just as scripted as the in the game, it still got the blood pumping hearing her running after us down the halls, especially since Special Infected can still end up spawning in the halls to slow you down. I'm not sure if she eventually busts down the wall to continue the chase in the final hall like she does in the original game, but I wasn't willing to risk a heart attack to find out.

4/5: The first maps of a Campaign in general tend to rarely be bad from my experience, after all, first impressions mean a lot, and this campaign certainly gets off on the right foot.

Welcome to the (first) Hub Area you explore in Evil Within 2 and I have to say, the attention to detail regarding the areas you're able to visit in spite of the narrowed down map is frankly spot on, the Rooftop with the Sniper Rifle, the Warehouse, the side-room next to it with the crafting bench. Heck, even the APC and the Crates off to the side near the grocery store are set up the exact same way you'd find them in-game to the point where I honestly expected to see the Warden Crossbow or whatever equivalent weapon L4D could muster on them as well.

I do have a few complaints here though. Firstly is that in spite of significantly narrowing down the amount of space you have to run through compared to the original game, it still wasn't very clear where you're supposed to go, but once you do find it it's more or less smooth sailing and like I said, compared to just HOW MUCH of the map there was in the original game, shortening that down to what we have in this map instead was a really good call, I don't need a repeat of a Silent Hill campaign's giant maps here. Second, the hold-out event before the safe room does a very poor job of conveying when the door opens, and since it's an endless horde or at least a VERY long one. That can lead to scenarios where the group is mowing down zombie after zombie wondering when the door is going to open until someone runs out of patience, physically checks, and notices that, oh, it opened? When did that happen?

3/5: A bit of dip in quality here compared to the intro, mainly due to a lack of clear direction as to where to go, and in the case of the finale, when you're able to make a break for the safe room. But it still holds a strong faithfulness to the game it's based on with plenty of goodies to be found off the beaten path and avoids being tedious thanks to it's deceptively short length once you do know where to go.

Strap yourselves in folks, this one is a long haul, with not 1, but 2 boss fights! Going back to the general design of the first map, we're back in relatively closed in halls with a clearly defined path forward, this time starting in Union Town Hall with the same set-pieces you find in the original game, eventually leading up to what I thought was going to be a fight against Obscura. Instead we get a Lament wielding a Shotgun, needless to say, I definitely wasn't willing to risk finding out if it had it's Instant Death grab here as well. But it goes down fast enough if the team focuses fire on it.
Afterwards, the level loops back around to a previous area, but a formerly locked door is now open, and it leads to an elevator that takes you to the art gallery proper along with a side room filled with Health Kits and Guns to get you ready and armed for the next encounter... after you do some platforming in the hall where, in the original game, you have to sneak past the spotlight of Stefano's giant Eye monster, thankfully, no stealth segments here and not long after you're heading into the fight with the man proper which is rather simple all things considered, at least until the eye comes back for phase 2 to shoot lasers at you. Once it's done though, it's a very short walk to the safe room.

3.5/5: The sheer length of the map means any wipe-outs could potentially lead to a pretty long run back if it happens near the end of the map, but the straight-forward design of the bosses means that fighting your way through them again won't have you pulling your hair out and they still manage to be fun regardless.

Hoo boy... this one really hits different if you've played the original game. As the name suggests, this map is based around a VERY frightening enemy, the Anima, I'm not exaggerating when I say that I physically shouted "Oh my god no!" When I walked through that door and saw the house layout where that fateful first encounter happens. Then the group picks up the book... and my anxiety spiked when the room turned blue and then the cutscene of her appearing happened, welcome to "Boss Fight" 3, a very tense game of cat and mouse where the group has to navigate through all Three of Anima's encounters from Evil Within 2, all while infected are getting in your way and the Soul Stealing ghost lady is wandering about in the areas you HAVE to go through in order to... get a key to go through a door, look through a mirror to see which door is the right one to go through or just flat-out reach the end of a room where objects are going ape-s*** and making it hard to get around her.

I was legitimately experiencing the same feeling of dread that I felt when I did those encounters in the original game and that REALLY says a lot about how closely the creator managed to recreate the whole thing.

5/5: Would gladly risk a Heart Attack again.

And now we enter endgame. Of all the maps, this one is far and away the shortest, there's only one thing to do, climb the giant hill of snow up to Sebastian's old house and fight the final boss in a no holds barred shoot-out complete with 4 phases. Nothing more to say, just unload every last bullet you can into the guy until it finally stops moving and then take your victory lap back down the hill to the mirror, and your escape. A short and sweet end to the campaign, but god help you if you got this far with the bots.

3.5/5 (With Humans): The lack of anything else happening apart from the boss itself keeps this from being better in my eyes.

2/5 (With Bots): Needless to say, it takes AGES to bring the guy down when you're the only one doing the work, and you're going to be cutting that final phase pretty damn close as a result.



Overall: 4/5 (Provided it's with human players).
Just like the campaign based on the first game, this is a very faithful recreation of the Evil Within duology that manages to recreate the world as best it can in the Left 4 Dead format while still being fun to play, just try to bring along at least 1 other person though, it'll save you a lot of time and headaches once the bosses make the scene.