A little less than three years ago, Bloober Team’s Project Méliès scared players to the bone with Layers of Fear, a story about a painter going mad, seeing monsters and bizarre flesh coming from the wall. It was a gothic, narrative-heavy game taking heavy inspiration from painters such as Rubens and Bruegel, with a mystery for players to figure out where the madness was coming from. They had to discover if it was real, fake, or a metaphor.
It was well received by those who’d gotten early access, and even more so by those who played it during its full release. But whether a good or bad time was had, it left an impression in the horror game genre.
And just when it might have started to leave everyone’s mind, Project Méliès came back with a new spine-tingling video, revealing Layers of Fear 2:
For a reveal trailer, it’s just as expected. It shows off a couple of locations of where the game might take place, and a few scares. Perhaps it’s an upcoming monster with the body coming out of the screen with Tony Todd’s (Candyman) deep voice narrating and questioning the main character’s existence.
This time? The protagonist is an actor who, by Todd’s narration, is having an existential crisis. The timeline could be based around 1900-1915 given the look of the film reel towards the end, keeping the story based in a type of historical period much like the first game based in Victorian time. This could also tie in with Project Méliès’s namesake, George Méliès (A Trip to the Moon, The Impossible Voyage), who was a prominent filmmaker during the years mentioned above. As Layers of Fear gained inspiration from specific artists, it’s possible that there could be filmmaker inspiration for Layers of Fear 2.
There isn’t much about this game currently as these are only speculations from the reveal trailer, and a little digging to maybe find a deeper meaning layered beneath the surface. But it’s clear that keeping an eye on Layers of Fear 2’s twitter account might be worth it.
No release date or estimate has been given as of so far.