The infamous scene in the original “Layers of Fear” where the spooky baby crashes into a wall at full speed will not be featured in the upcoming remake series.
That’s Damian Kocurek, creative director from Anshar Studios, the studio working with Bloober Team on the remake. At the end of GDC this week, he sat down with me to chat about the game.
Quite frankly, the game is an Unreal Engine 5 remake of Layers of Fear 1 and 2 (and some brand new content), with minor changes to small parts of the game. Yes, this includes baby wipeout, which was removed because it “didn’t fit with what we were trying to do in that particular part of the game.”
After making this decision, the team considered adding it as an easter egg elsewhere in the game, but ultimately decided to remove it. Asked if it was a tough choice, Kocurek sighed, before replying, “Yes. There are a lot of those decisions. People remember a lot of things for one reason or another, and you have to decide whether it Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing for the whole experience.”
He went on to point out that the team tried to preserve as much as possible, relocating certain small encounters or events to other parts of the game to make them more intense. Sadly, the baby doesn’t have a meaningful place.
Obviously some people will find this pathetic. This moment, while funny, was the fun part of the original game for many. That being said, games should be scary. A ghostly baby head-first hitting a wall, an event that loops indefinitely until you can’t stop laughing, is a profile that flagrantly doesn’t fit the expected tone of Layers of Fear.
As for Kocurek’s expectations for the community’s response, he’s not worried. “While it’s the most prominent part of people’s minds, Layers of Fear is so much more than that. It’s the mood, the theme… We’re trying to hone that and give them the best possible experience. In service, I believe this is the right choice.”
So we have it, baby annihilation no longer exists. To experience it for yourself, you have to go back to the original layers of fear. We’ll be posting another article about our interview with Kocurek next week, this series isn’t just a meme moment after all, so keep an eye on this space!
For more articles you might be interested in, check out this article: Silent Hill 2 remake developer wants to be “the studio that defines the future of video game horror”
