So far, Bethesda has released very few details about the upcoming two-part story-driven downloadable content expansion for The Evil Within, the new survival-horror video game. The game launched last October and sold fairly well. Per VG Chartz, the game has sold close to two million copies globally. Overall, The Evil Within was a solid game, but the story and characters were disappointing. The ending was a head scratcher, with many loose ends left untied. Motivations and plot points were incredibly vague. The two-part, story-driven expansion has the opportunity to clarify some of these details.
Bethesda Softworks has confirmed that the story-driven downloadable content will allow players to take up the role of Juli Kidman. It will be a DLC expansion presented in two parts. The Juli Kidman segments will have new enemies, new areas and apparently reveal secret motives and agendas. At the start of the game, Kidman is posing as a junior detective for the Krimson City Police Department, working under veteran detectives Joseph Oda and the game’s main protagonist, Sebastian Castellanos. Over the course of the game, it is clear that Kidman has her own agenda. Her detective persona is merely just a cover. Kidman is actually some sort of agent for an unknown and/or clandestine organization. Kidman’s organization appears to be the party responsible for putting the brain of the game’s chief antagonist, Ruvik, into a jar. One can assume the organization was responsible for hooking up Sebastian, Joseph and Leslie Withers to the STEM project. The reason why the organization did this is not clear. Toward the end of the game, Kidman begins to stalk Leslie in order to “kill” him. Due to Leslie Wither’s unique mental abilities, Ruvik wants to use Withers’ mind in order to escape his mental prison. One suspects that Kidman wanted to kill Leslie Withers in order to prevent Ruvik’s escape.
If Kidman’s mission was to kill Leslie and prevent Ruvik’s escape, why did she wait so long to capture and kill Leslie? In addition, what happened to Joseph? Is Joseph truly dead? By the end of the game, Joseph’s body is not visible in the STEM experiment lab. He is essentially tossed aside. Players really have no idea if Joseph is actually alive or dead. What about Kidman’s shady organization? Is Kidman’s organization the new Umbrella Corp. for The Evil Within universe? It is a letdown that there is some hidden organization pulling the strings for events of the game, but the audience learns next to nothing about it. By the end of the game, Kidman basically plays the Ada Wong role. She helps Castellanos escape capture. Why did Kidman do this? Does Kidman care for Castellanos? There are hints and suggestions that Kidman’s organization is responsible for the death of Castellanos’ family for getting too close to the truth.
The problem with the story of The Evil Within is not that the details are abstract and up to interpretation, but that major plot points are left aside and unresolved. The ending is way too abrupt. Hopefully, The Evil Within DLC expansion will address some of these problems. However, it is rather disappointing that additional DLC is necessary to answer all these questions. When I purchased Resident Evil 4, it came with Separate Ways. Separate Ways was an alternate story path where players could experience the game through the perspective of Ada Wong, a peripheral character who appears in the main game. Overall, I would prefer to have all the story content on disc.
The Evil Within DLC will be released later on through the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live and Windows PC.
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