Layers of Fear is a horror game set in the mind of a mad painter

Layers of fear topo

An artist is seeking to finish his masterpiece, and your sanity is the required sacrifice. The premise Layers of Fear has echoes of Bioshock's Sander Cohen to it, but the 19th.century environments and colourful psychedelic twists promise something quite different.

Inspired by "the masterpiece paintings from past centuries" Layers of Fear will apparently offer "deep insight into the madness that entwines a human being", which I think means it'll be quite scary and a bit weird, but hopefully in interesting ways that mess with the environment. Supposedly "each turn of the camera may change the look of your surroundings".

It's out soon, on August 27, and is made by Bloober Team, who previously created another first person creep-'em-out called Scopophobia, named after an anxiety disorder "characterised by a morbid fear of being seen or stared at by others." Sounds promising. Here are the first screenshots of Layers Of Fear.

Layers Of Fear 01 Painter

Layers Of Fear 06 Kitchen

Layers Of Fear 13 Destroyed

Layers Of Fear 09 Walls

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.