-Evil Within 2 has been in development since around a month after the first one released, they got greenlit early. Some of the team went to work on the DLC, while other bits of the team started to begin planning what they wanted to do for the sequel from the response they got.
-Mikami is Executive Producer and not director, but his hands are all over it. He was still heavily involved in the sequel's development. It is his studio so he wanted to be involved.
-Sebastian's life has fallen to crap since the original game, apparently outside of just no one believing him he has also become an alcoholic.
-Mobius created the town of Union using Sebastian's daughter as a centerpiece. It combines several people's consciousness, and which Sebastian enters to try to find his daughter in the STEM. Confirmed several people are already connected to it when Sebastian enters besides just his daughter. The world will warp and change as the game goes.
-Evil Within's side-quests aren't involved in the main story, many involve completely optional locations, people you meet in Union, or strange occurrences in the land. The game has a focus on very limited supplies, side-quest often reward in little troves of resources, but they may have separate smaller scale stories as well.
-Claims this is 100% still a survival-horror game, there will definitely be action and there will be shooting but this isn't a shooter, you don't have loads of ammo, the enemies are terrifying and powerful, you have several different methods to tackle foes from using combat, to stealth, to traps, to avoiding conflict in many cases, you need to choose when to use your resources.
-Communicator in terms of its communication with Kidman and not its other functions does provide further narrative context as she is a connective tissue for Sebastian to the real world and what is happening.
-Confirms some things people will remember from the first game of distorting reality are still in the sequel; you see something and then it's suddenly no longer there, you walk through a door and suddenly in a completely different environment, you turn around and things have changed behind you, etc. They have a lot of new tricks up their sleeve as well this time they won't reveal yet though.
-Sequel is aiming for a much stronger narrative with much stronger characters this time around. Much more personal story.
-Confirmed the game has multiple antagonist characters this time around. Stefano is one of the antagonist. He's the guy in the trailer who stabs the soldier guy and rose petals come out of his body. He is described as a perverse, twisted artist who celebrates and wants to capture the beauty of death and pain. The Museum/Mansion is his 'domain' to speak of within The Evil Within 2. Each location in TEW2 is related to some character within the game, and confirmed Obscura the monster with the camera-head is sort of his pet creature who takes pictures of his art and strokes his ego, sometimes more literally.
-Mentions the game is grotesque at times, but it's not made to be like Saw or for torture porn. Some people do die in grotesque ways, but one thing the sequel is aiming for is deeper meaning into things and what things represent, symbolize. Some of that manifests in morbid ways, but there's more to it than that and it's not a continuous stream of grotesque imagery. It's not supposed to be a bloodsport.
-Mention this is a horror game through and through, but there's also more going on to it. Says people may enjoy it for its deeper beauty that may also be found in the game, for its improved action and stealth abilities, for the decision making systems that apply both to exploration and things they don't want to reveal at this time. What they hope is this game will be very compelling to people with its story, world, and that even people who don't enjoy horror may enjoy things it does and wants to tell. It's not just trying to be gross, bloody, there's a deeper vision they have for the game.
-There was a small crafting system in the original game with supplies you found, they did try to add more to it and to make items they don't want to reveal yet which are useful for more than just killing things, more than just combine bullets with something to make special bullets, and to make items that have uses beyond just death. Want to allow players to have more options in what they can create and choose what they may need right now.
-They saw how people enjoyed the story in the DLC more than the main game, they want to take the story a lot further than they did with the original game or the DLCs. They also mention that the characters were a bit flat originally, and like Sebastian was kind of an asshole in the original game. They have tried to humanize him more in this game than they did originally.
-They listened to what people enjoyed and did not enjoy on the original and decided where to cut back some things, build on some things, etc.
-For balance of 'horror fatigue', this game is not a relentless in intensity, moments for breathing and beauty, but also this game more than the first one isn't just going from point A to B, B to C, etc. There are things the player can do between the main point that aren't as intense, more relaxed, to get their bearings and look around.
-Mention Shinji was a lot more involved this time around in the game's pacing as a continuation to the previous question. They've done a lot of testing, tweaking, etc., but mentions one of Mikami's biggest involvements in the sequel is for the pacing of the game. Mentions Mikami was very concerned in making moments where they reel back the intensity and change the tone and situation, or where players think they're at 10 at intensity and suddenly reel it up to 11 before reeling it back. Choosing the right moments to explore different possibilities.
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