So I'm going to try to explain the plot of The Evil Within. Largely because I actually find the broad ideas of the game's story to be interesting, and what it does pretty shortly with the world can be pretty neat. It just manages to have such uninteresting characters that it's hard to care about any of it. Plus, it packs pretty much all of the story into the last 6 chapters or so. Because why not? I'm going to collapse for size and for spoilers. Though as a note, all of this was learned through the game, and most of it through the story rather than text. It's just so poor at presenting said story that it's not hard to miss until, again, it jams it in your face at the end.
Just to be clear
all collapsed areas contain spoilers for The Evil Within, in case anyone cares.
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Steve:
Let's start with the main character (also because his story is entirely told through text). Sebastian Blandson (or as I will refer to him, Steve, as is tradition) was a cop from Krimson City. He eventually became a detective for the same force he served on. His partner was a woman he eventually fell in love with. After seeing her get shot, he decided to reveal his feelings. She felt the same way, and they ended up getting married. He also got a new partner in Joesph, due to how the department split him and his wife apart as partners.
Eventually, Steve and his wife had a baby. They loved their daughter. Then their apartment burnt down due to an electrical fire, killing their daughter and the caretaker they had hired for her. This made Steve start drinking and his wife withdraw into herself (which honestly is reasonable). Steve's drinking was only after work, but it was enough to have his partner worried about him. So Joseph reported him for it.
Eventually, his wife begins working again. And Steve gets a new rookie to train in Juli Kidman (the woman from the game). Juli is very by-the-books and aloof. After some more time, Steve's wife approaches him with something she believed. The fire hadn't been an accident.
It's not long after this that Steve's wife goes missing. Something that the police force doesn't seem to believe at first. They say Steve's drinking drove her away. But eventually, it becomes a missing person's case. Steve is obvious a suspect for it. And it's not long after that that the events of the game begin.
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Ruvik:
Ruvik was born to a wealthy family, with a father who is VERY religious. From his childhood, Ruvik was pretty much destined to become a serial killer. He'd do stuff like cut open small animals to examine them and things like that. Basically, he was just born evil.
Then he and his sister were in the barn fire. They were trapped in a barn that a couple of peasants set on fire. Ruvik's sister sacrificed herself to save him. Though the horrible burns he suffered made him a 'monster.' It's revealed that his father was likely the one behind the fire, having hired one guy to basically killing his children for (I believe) religious reasons.
Even though he survived, Ruvik's father locked him in their giant basement and told his mother he'd died as well. This isolation and the burns caused Ruvik to go more insane. It's while he was being treated that he met Jimenez, the doctor from the game (I'll refer to him as such, as I don't know his name well). The doctor recognized Ruvik's brilliant mind and spurred him forward with his insane experiments. Ruvik's end goal was to transfer his mind to another body essentially. Hence all the experiments with brains you find throughout the mansion level. His paranoia also lead him to develop traps to prevent people from entering his lab, implying the entire trap level (including the giant circus blade) actually existed in reality.
The doctor supplied Ruvik with subjects to test on, then secretly stole and published Ruvik's research. Leslie (the albino insane kid) was the one Ruvik found to be compatible with his mind to transfer into. Eventually, Ruvik's parents stopped donating to the hospital the doctor worked for. This is because Ruvik killed them. The doctor threatened to cut off Ruvik's supply of test subjects. So Ruvik set it up to look like his parents died in a car crash and inherited everything.
Eventually, Ruvik was betrayed by the doctor. The organization that the doctor was working with helps him capture Ruvik. They used his own experiments on him, cutting him open and messing with his still living brain. Eventually, they build the machine he'd been working on. The machine with the bathtubs connected to a single device. Ruvik's brain is at the center of the device controlling everything. Hence why it's 'his world.' It's about this point the game starts.
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Story:
So this is where the interesting stuff begins. Given that he's already just a brain when the game starts, it's implied that Kidman, Joesph, the random guy who was driving the ambulance at the beginning, Steve, Leslie, and the doctor are already connected to the machine that Ruvik controls at the start. They go through all of the motions.
There's not a lot of real plot development that we see. Though to explain a few things, all of the monsters seem to be based on Ruvik's psyche. The Keeper (safe guy) is based on Ruvik's paranoia about people breaking into his safe that he kept his research in for example. The spider woman is his dead sister. Hence why she hates fire. The whole fire aspect is also likely why fire is such an effective weapon against the zombies. Speaking of, all of the 'zombies' are actually people who had previously been hooked into Ruvik's mind by the shadow organization and been killed in the real world. Being killed in the real world caused them to lose their humanity and memories. They try to eat brains instinctively in an attempt to get their memories and humanity back. So yea, zombies. As for the world, it's built mostly from Ruvik's mind more than anything. But pieces of others' minds seep through as well. Hence the kind of weird building between them all.
As the story goes on, we learn that Ruvik's an asshole who had a sister killed. The doctor knows their in Ruvik's mind and is trying to get out through Leslie. Leslie is the only one who's been connected to Ruvik and got out. I assume Joesph and Steve were connected to the machine due to investigating what happened to Steve's wife (making him a real "WHERE'S MY WIFE!" character. It's also implied his wife was hooked up to the machine. Though they never have anything happen with that, like Steve find his zombified wife. We also learn that the aloof, smart Kidman knows more than she's letting on. As is always the case. Ruvik is trying to escape being a brain by going into Leslie's body. And that's pretty much where we stand at the moment in the game.
So yea, those are some of the major spoilers. To explain some things about the rest of the story that we haven't go to in-stream:
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Pretty shortly, Steve is going to meet back up with Joseph and Kidman. They're going to attempt to make their way to the lighthouse/hospital through a shattered version of Krimson City. "Beacon Mental Hospital," (which is why it's a lighthouse, which I think is kind of neat), the place the game started at, is where the group is in the real world. As they try to get there, Steve is going to become infected with the same thing Joseph is infected by, though nothing really comes of it besides Kidman abandoning him. Kidman eventually tries to kill Leslie, knowing that Ruvik intends to use him to escape. You see, she's secretly working with the shadow group that put them all in at the start! But she accidentally shoots Joseph (presumably killing him) and Leslie escapes.
They eventually get to Beacon Mental Hospital. Steve has his final confrontation with Ruvik. Ruvik touches Leslie, who just kind of melts into water. Obviously, Steve wins in their fight. He wakes up and smashes Ruvik's brain. He then begins to wake up again, but Kidman is there and tells him to stay quiet. Bayonella, apparently someone from the shadow organization, walks by and asks something. Kidman says 'nobody's going anywhere.' Steve passes back out. He then wakes up again. This time, everyone is gone, besides the body of those who died in the machine. He takes the elevator to the floor of the hospital. Everyone who was dead at the beginning of the game are still dead. Police arrive on the scene and escort him out of the hospital. He sees Leslie walking away. There's a flash, and Leslie vanishes. The entire thing is left purposefully open to let the player decide if Steve is still in the machine or not.
So that's the overall story of The Evil Within. Here are my thoughts on it, again collapsed just to be safe.
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I feel the overall idea of having a world built from a variety of linked brains is an interesting concept. The idea that the main brain belongs to a serial killer in order to make it a horrifying place is also pretty neat to me. But I feel they should have gone more deep on the level design. They had a really interesting idea for a fractured mental world, and what do they do? Basic city. Basic forest area. Basic catacombs. Basic mansion. Basic dungeon. Basic blah blah blah.
I also feel that the story could have been fairly interesting. But they needed to stop being so coy and just give you the premise of the game early on. That'd allow them to explain away all the weird world things and have some fun with it. Hell, it'd explain the game glitches. They could even have intention glitches from the system messing up to make things a bit more creepy.
Of course, having non-stick characters would help too. Steve is the most emotionless character I've ever seen. But that could have played as kind of a hammy, funny thing if they had other good characters who commented on it. Instead we have the partner, the double-agent, the killer, the evil scientist who secretly knows what's going on, and the insane kid. Nothing new or interesting. On top of that, they just sound really boring.
One thing that's never addressed is about Steve's backstory. I feel if they'd presented it through gameplay, it could have been really neat. Instead, it was just kind of bland and dull.
One idea I had that I think would be really cool is if Steve "relived" some memories from every character. And in those memories, became that person. Maybe instead of just seeing the ghost of the boy and girl in the barn, you see it through the eyes of young Ruvik. Maybe instead of ignoring his backstory, you'd see all the text-explained stuff relived through Steve's eyes. The fire. His daughter's funeral. His wife's disappearance. Everything.
And of course, I feel like they should have explained more things. Who is Kidman? Who was Bayonella? Why were you and Joseph put into the machine? Oh, wait. That's going to come in the DLC most likely. Of lrrEFFing course. :/
Overall, I feel like the core gameplay of Evil Within is fun. And I feel like the story could have been good and interesting based on the concept. But they just made it the most generic, boring RE-style game I've seen in a long time. Also, I HATE the traps in the game. The trap area tilted me quite hard honestly.
And that's why I say The Evil Within is Resident Evil 4 without the charm and some major gameplay mistakes.