Layers of Fear (2023)

Neat idea, but I have zero faith in the Bloober Team when it comes to the PC.
 
I heard really good things about 'The Medium' in terms of RTX effects so I really want to give that a try...too bad it left PC Game Pass a few months ago...hopefully it returns soon or goes on sale on Steam
 
polonyc2 said:
I heard really good things about 'The Medium' in terms of RTX effects so I really want to give that a try...too bad it left PC Game Pass a few months ago...hopefully it returns soon or goes on sale on Steam
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I've tried the Gamepass version repeatedly. I keep re-downloading it and hoping for fixes/updates, but there never are any. It's a mess of a game. It looks and plays like 90's point + click adventure game, but performs akin to Cyberpunk running in 8K with no DLSS. Super choppy and slow in lots of places, no matter what settings you use. Both HDR and surround sound are full-on broken, too. The RT effects look neat until you realize they're mostly pointless. Most areas are dead still and they could have just pre-rendered the same effect. There are some pretty detailed ways to fix some of the HDR/audio problems via the DX11 Steam version, but the Gamepass version has always been locked down as a UWP file. Even after MS allowed devs to let people to install the files in normal folders, the Medium never did.
 
Domingo said:
I've tried the Gamepass version repeatedly. I keep re-downloading it and hoping for fixes/updates, but there never are any. It's a mess of a game. It looks and plays like 90's point + click adventure game, but performs akin to Cyberpunk running in 8K with no DLSS. Super choppy and slow in lots of places, no matter what settings you use. Both HDR and surround sound are full-on broken, too. The RT effects look neat until you realize they're mostly pointless. Most areas are dead still and they could have just pre-rendered the same effect. There are some pretty detailed ways to fix some of the HDR/audio problems via the DX11 Steam version, but the Gamepass version has always been locked down as a UWP file. Even after MS allowed devs to let people to install the files in normal folders, the Medium never did.
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Ja, the PC version is a mess. Console version on both the Series X and PS5 is fine.
 
If this was any other developer I'd seriously consider this on the PC. As it stands, It's something I might check out on the PS5 instead.
 
For those wondering, this is a remake of a 2016 game as well as its 2019 sequel. Kind of recent games to remake. I think I have one of these that I got free somewhere and never played it.
 
Flogger23m said:
For those wondering, this is a remake of a 2016 game as well as its 2019 sequel. Kind of recent games to remake. I think I have one of these that I got free somewhere and never played it.
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I guess they wanted to better tie the 2 games together from a narrative perspective. The second game was a departure from the first, so this is a chance for them to get it right.
 
Interesting.. Loved LoF and will check this out on xbox x game pass.
 
Layers of Fear Demo Available on May 15

The demo will be available for a limited time as it's expected to end on May 22 at 3:00 PM PT...



Layers-of-Fear.jpg
 
this looks like the first UE5 game that will be released...sounds really impressive...

Layers of Fear Hands-On Preview

What truly elevates the Layers of Fear experience, however, are the visuals and audio...built with Unreal Engine 5, the game is among the best-looking horror games released to date...taking advantage of Lumen and dynamic lighting, Anshar Studio managed to make the Painter's house more haunting than ever...the series' iconic transitions are vastly enhanced by the new lighting system as well, making the experience incredibly immersive

what's even more impressive is how smoothly the game ran even in its pre-release state, as my system (i7-10700 CPU, RTX 3070 GPU, 16 GB RAM) had no trouble running the game at 4K resolution with the NVIDIA DLSS quality preset and ray tracing on at an average of 90 frames per second, with none of the stuttering issues that are plaguing most recent PC ports

Audio is no less impressive than the visuals...using binaural audio to immerse players even more in the haunting world it has created, the developer took extra care in creating the perfect soundscapes for every moment, with some haunting piano pieces being the highlight of the game's audio elements...

https://wccftech.com/layers-of-fear-hands-on-preview/
 
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Good stuff. The original had a wonderful and beautiful creepy environment so this should look pretty damn impressive at 4k on an OLED. I should be able to keep 120fps locked np too..

Looking forward to this . . .have a calendar reminder to install it Monday!
 
I like the blobber games,they look good and this one had minimal amount of stutter and hitching compared to there other games.Has Ray Tracing and all the upscaling crap.

One thing I do not get,I think I was playing as a black woman writer but when I look at my reflection I was a white male.Did I fall asleep while playing and missed something.Removed HDR so you can see character on forums better
Layers of Fear 2023-05-15 1_11_31 PM.jpg
 
The demo is okay. I dunno if it seems "next gen" necessarily, but the graphics are good if you crank 'em up. It isn't really my style of game, but I suppose it's exciting to have an UE5 title in the wild. Performance seemed fine. I got a little hitch when looking around for the first time in each area, but it was only one and done. Compared to most full titles these days, I'll take that.
 
Domingo said:
The demo is okay. I dunno if it seems "next gen" necessarily, but the graphics are good if you crank 'em up. It isn't really my style of game, but I suppose it's exciting to have an UE5 title in the wild. Performance seemed fine. I got a little hitch when looking around for the first time in each area, but it was only one and done. Compared to most full titles these days, I'll take that.
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Bloober Team's last game 'The Medium' seemed to have a lot of performance issues so this new Layers of Fear sounds like a huge improvement (due to UE5)
 
polonyc2 said:
Bloober Team's last game 'The Medium' seemed to have a lot of performance issues so this new Layers of Fear sounds like a huge improvement (due to UE5)
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Absolutely. I tried to play the Medium 4 different times. Every time I did, something else was broken or it ran like complete hot garbage on a 3090/5800X. I guess there were work-arounds, but because the Gamepass version was locked down, none of them work on that version. This ran totally fine minus those couple of hitches. For all I know the real game won't have that, too.
 
Game looks and runs fantastic on my machine. No stuttering or hitching to be seen.
gerardfraser said:
I like the blobber games,they look good and this one had minimal amount of stutter and hitching compared to there other games.Has Ray Tracing and all the upscaling crap.

One thing I do not get,I think I was playing as a black woman writer but when I look at my reflection I was a white male.Did I fall asleep while playing and missed something.Removed HDR so you can see character on forums better
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This is a different character. The black woman is only in the beginning of the demo. When you finish her section you take on this white male for the rest of the demo.
 
Just got through the demo, I've only played on my laptop so far and I'm getting great framerates but also getting stutter, area transition at the very least. Even though I lost over 40fps the game seemed to run more smoothly (though not perfectly) with DLSS off at ~80fps. I also don't see anything at all that feels next gen to me, hell, even the old metro games look better to me than this. Everything looked really washed out to me as well. I found the ending of the demo pretty damn creepy though, maybe there's something here? Too early to tell for me.
 
w35t said:
Just got through the demo, I've only played on my laptop so far and I'm getting great framerates but also getting stutter, area transition at the very least. Even though I lost over 40fps the game seemed to run more smoothly (though not perfectly) with DLSS off at ~80fps. I also don't see anything at all that feels next gen to me, hell, even the old metro games look better to me than this. Everything looked really washed out to me as well. I found the ending of the demo pretty damn creepy though, maybe there's something here? Too early to tell for me.
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Don't know if you were using HDR, but this game has the same issue so many others do: The black level is elevated when using HDR. In the last part of the demo when you need to go through the dark corridors it is quite annoying how the whole screen has a grey haze. You can sometimes fix it by switching the color output from RGB to YCbCr444 in the NVIDIA Control Panel. I didn't bother trying this last night since the demo was so short.

Found a thread on the Steam forum where a developer responded. They said they're working on the HDR issue, but was not yet aware of the SDR issue. They're asking people to send them an e-mail so they can investigate.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1946700/discussions/0/5617721963194271031/
 
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Armenius said:
Don't know if you were using HDR, but this game has the same issue so many others do: The black level is elevated when using HDR. In the last part of the demo when you need to go through the dark corridors it is quite annoying how the whole screen has a grey haze. You can sometimes fix it by switching the color output from RGB to YCbCr444 in the NVIDIA Control Panel. I didn't bother trying this last night since the demo was so short.

Found a thread on the Steam forum where a developer responded. They said they're working on the HDR issue, but was not yet aware of the SDR issue. They're asking people to send them an e-mail so they can investigate.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1946700/discussions/0/5617721963194271031/
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This laptop unfortunately doesn't haven't HDR, and there's a chance it's the display itself, or the color palette they chose, hard to say but gray haze over everything seems to describe it pretty well. The later areas were better but initially it appeared just, incredibly washed out.
 
peppergomez said:
I never played these were the originals good?
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eh-seth-meyers.gif


I've only played the first one but remember it kinda being a bit underwhelming. Horror is one of my favorite genres and LoF was already in my library due to a Humble Bundle or something, so I decided to give it a playthrough after seeing someone recommend it in a thread (maybe in the News forum of all places?).

I remember it being a short, one-and-done experience for me. Steam shows 4.5 hours played, and I did manage to finish it within one or two sittings which felt a bit rushed. According to HowLongToBeat.com, supposedly the game length ranges from 3.5 hours to 10.5 for a full 100% completionist run. If that is the case, I'm not sure I would have wanted to play for another 6 hours...I felt like I saw/experienced most of the game world so I'm not sure what I missed but hopefully the additional hours aren't just full of tedium. As far as horror titles go, I'm pretty sure that I'd replay many others in my collection before this one. It wasn't a bad game; it just didn't live up to the hype set by another forum member after playing some of the greats like Amnesia, SOMA, Alien: Isolation, etc. Bear in mind I realize that enjoyment of any game is completely subjective.

Maybe this new one is better, but I'm a bit puzzled why they chose to remake this game and so soon. It's 1) not that old and 2) doesn't have the following of a game like System Shock or Amnesia.

I'd probably play this new one with the hopes that I would be a little more impressed by it, but it'll need to be an inexpensive pickup if they haven't improved the game length. The screenshots do look neat though, I'll give it that.

newls1 said:
The original FEAR was amazing and ground breaking for its time. I put my SLi 7800GT's and FX57 machine to its knees
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It was, but it has nothing to do with this game unless you consider that game and its sequels to be individual layers of F.E.A.R., heh.

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I know it was a shooter with horror mixed in, but the first F.E.A.R. was way more fun and spooky than LoF. Why not remake F.E.A.R. with ray tracing instead? :(
 
Interview with Anshar Studios Programmer Krzysztof Kansy and Technical Artist Michał Gawron to discuss the implementation of UE5's Lumen technology, the console specs, and the newly announced MacOS version optimized for Apple Silicon...

From a usability perspective, did UE5 meet your expectations? Does it speed up the workload?

Michał Gawron, technical artist: Definitely, yes. Working in Unreal Engine 5 is fast and very enjoyable. In the case of speed of work, Lumen is a great improvement. Thanks to it, we saw the effects immediately, without the need to bake the lights for several hours

Does Layers of Fear also support Nanite? If not, why?

Michał Gawron: We didn't implement Nanite because our game does not require that. Nanite is more useful when it comes to solving open world rendering. Meanwhile, Layers of Fear is a story taking place indoors, in a labyrinth of an old manor or a ship, with a strange and claustrophobic atmosphere

The Niagara VFX system is another UE feature you have previously mentioned. How did it help level up the visual presentation of your game?

Michał Gawron: Using Niagara allowed us to create more complex effects that can contain more particles. Compared to the older system, we were able to create exactly what we wanted without compromising on quality and performance

Ray tracing is also listed as a feature. Which effects are ray-traced in Layers of Fear?

Michał Gawron: We use Lumen's ray tracing features which improve the quality of Global Illumination and Reflections

https://wccftech.com/layers-of-fear...ue5-third-party-game-with-lumen-on-spotlight/
 
polonyc2 said:
Interview with Anshar Studios Programmer Krzysztof Kansy and Technical Artist Michał Gawron to discuss the implementation of UE5's Lumen technology, the console specs, and the newly announced MacOS version optimized for Apple Silicon...

From a usability perspective, did UE5 meet your expectations? Does it speed up the workload?

Michał Gawron, technical artist: Definitely, yes. Working in Unreal Engine 5 is fast and very enjoyable. In the case of speed of work, Lumen is a great improvement. Thanks to it, we saw the effects immediately, without the need to bake the lights for several hours

Does Layers of Fear also support Nanite? If not, why?

Michał Gawron: We didn't implement Nanite because our game does not require that. Nanite is more useful when it comes to solving open world rendering. Meanwhile, Layers of Fear is a story taking place indoors, in a labyrinth of an old manor or a ship, with a strange and claustrophobic atmosphere

The Niagara VFX system is another UE feature you have previously mentioned. How did it help level up the visual presentation of your game?

Michał Gawron: Using Niagara allowed us to create more complex effects that can contain more particles. Compared to the older system, we were able to create exactly what we wanted without compromising on quality and performance

Ray tracing is also listed as a feature. Which effects are ray-traced in Layers of Fear?

Michał Gawron: We use Lumen's ray tracing features which improve the quality of Global Illumination and Reflections

https://wccftech.com/layers-of-fear...ue5-third-party-game-with-lumen-on-spotlight/
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Good interview, thanks for the link.
 
I'm curious to read reviews when the embargo lifts...Bloober Team is not known for their stellar PC ports...hopefully the transition to UE5 helped as far as performance and overall stability
 
Yeah, I remember there being inherent stutter in the first game, so hopefully the new engine will solve that.

UE5? This is one of the first games using that engine?

Worth having a look at, I suppose. I thought the demo was kind of neat.

That said… do I really need another game… LOL.
 
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