A note accompanying this review copy suggested I turned off all the lights and whack the speakers up. Well thanks for that, scared me bloody witless. But that’s obviously quite the point.

So this sequel to the reasonable-to-good horror romp regurgitates the STEM of the original (a machine which unites minds but tends to have horrifying consequences) but this time poor Sebastian’s daughter is heaved into the mix.

Inevitably Sebastian is thrown into the STEM again and forced to wallow in unspeakable terror in order to retrieve her.

What follows is traditional third-person survival at its most basic. Those familiar with The Last of Us will be quite at home: collect bullets, pick up detritus, make the detritus into weapons, find healthy stuff, make medpacks, kill terrible things, repeat.

Where TEW2 diverges sharply from TLOU – and it is a hairpin turn – is in the dialogue. Sebastian constantly talks to himself in a way that no one does ever, usually along the lines of “what the hell” suffixed with, if we’re lucky “…is going on”.

Exchanges between characters are also stilted at best; if the voice actors were in the same room when recordings were taking place, I’ll eat my controller.

But if you follow the instructions I mentioned at the start, TEW2 will certainly give you no little amount of the willies, particularly the terrifying singing spectre of a woman who pops up occasionally. It’s just a shame a little more effort wasn’t put into the script and vocal work.