Tormented Souls 2 Review Overview
What is Tormented Souls 2?
Tormented Souls 2 is a survival horror adventure that follows Caroline Walker as she seeks her abducted sister in the remote town of Villa Hess. Players explore eerie environments, solve intricate puzzles, and use improvised weapons to survive against monstrous enemies while shifting between alternate realities to uncover hidden truths.
Tormented Souls 2 features:
⚫︎ Customizable Weapons
⚫︎ Reality Shifting Mechanic
⚫︎ Environmental Puzzles
⚫︎ Direct Sequel in New Setting
⚫︎ Narrative Driven Progression
⚫︎ Unlimited Inventory
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Steam |
 PlayStation |
 Xbox |
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| Price | $29.99 | ||||
Tormented Souls 2 Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Ingenious Puzzles QoL Additions Like Detailed Map Markers Successfully Captures Classic Survival Horror Atmosphere Impactful Game Design with Limited Saves and Scarce Resources |
Minor Glitches Clunky Controls Room Transitions Disorient Controls |
Tormented Souls 2 Story - 8/10
Tormented Souls 2 tells a chilling continuation of Caroline Walker’s journey, balancing its cult-driven mystery and psychological terror with satisfying momentum. The narrative stays faithful to its eerie roots and offers enough intrigue to keep you invested, but while I’m a fan of religious and cult-themed horror, it’s not exactly groundbreaking. You won’t find yourself psychoanalyzing every little symbol or dialogue. Still, it’s a gripping experience that thrives on tension, atmosphere, and the satisfaction of uncovering its twisted layers.
Tormented Souls 2 Gameplay - 9/10
This is classic survival horror at its finest—tight exploration, clever puzzles, and limited resources that constantly keep you on edge. Every discovery feels earned, and the Other Side mechanic adds satisfying depth to its loop. The only real drawback lies in its occasionally clunky controls, especially during combat and dodging sequences, which can turn tense encounters into mild frustration. Still, the overall gameplay design is both rewarding and faithful to the golden age of horror.
Tormented Souls 2 Visuals - 7/10
Visually, the game embraces its retro inspiration with fixed cameras, dramatic lighting, and a heavy, oppressive tone that nails its atmosphere. The environments are detailed enough to sell the dread, but the technical side struggles—glitches, stiff animations, and some rough texture work occasionally break immersion. It’s far from unplayable, but the visual polish doesn’t quite match its ambition.
Tormented Souls 2 Audio - 9/10
Sound is where Tormented Souls 2 truly thrives. Its eerie soundtrack and subtle ambient noises constantly trick your senses into thinking something’s lurking nearby. The music perfectly echoes the tension of each area. While voice acting is intentionally old-school, it occasionally slips into awkward or flat delivery that can undercut the intensity of certain moments.
Tormented Souls 2 Value for Money - 9/10
At $29.99, Tormented Souls 2 offers outstanding value. It’s a full-length experience with multiple endings, replayability through higher difficulty modes, and satisfying content that feels well worth the price. While a few technical issues hold it back from perfection, there’s no filler here—just a focused, terrifying adventure that respects both your wallet and your time.
Tormented Souls 2 Overall Score - 84/100
Tormented Souls 2 may not reinvent the genre, but it doesn’t need to. It stands tall as a confident, nostalgic survival horror that knows exactly what it is, a game made for fans of tension, puzzles, and atmosphere. Some technical hiccups and clunky moments keep it from achieving greatness, but its heart—and horror—are exactly in the right place.
Tormented Souls 2 Review: Classic Fear Never Goes Out of Style
Feels Like Coming Home
Survival horror has always been my ride or die. The first game I ever finished wasn’t some colorful platformer or turn-based RPG—it was Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. Maybe it’s the influence of those around me, or maybe it’s just the fact that survival horror is one of those genres that stress you just enough, that you keep on coming back. So when Tormented Souls first released back in 2021, it immediately found its way onto my radar.
At that point, the survival horror genre had already gone through its big modern reinvention—streamlined controls, cinematic storytelling, less tank, more walk and talk. But Tormented Souls dared to be unapologetically classic. Fixed camera angles, deliberate pacing, resource scarcity, the kind of mechanics that made you plan every step like your life depended on it. It was a beautiful throwback, a mix of Resident Evil’s logic-driven puzzles and Silent Hill’s psychological unease—two of my most beloved horror worlds stitched together in one grim, nostalgic package.
So naturally, when the sequel arrived, you best believe I jumped right back into the nightmare, eager to see whether Tormented Souls 2 could once again remind me why I fell in love with the genre in the first place.
Back to Caroline’s Nightmare
Tormented Souls 2 wastes no time pulling you back into Caroline Walker’s strange, haunted world. The story picks up directly after the first game’s events, where Caroline is now caring for her twin sister, Anna. Together, they travel to a remote town called Villa Hess, hoping to find help for Anna’s… unusual condition. You see, her drawings have started turning into reality. Yes, literally.
Now, if you didn’t play the first game, don’t worry—all you really need to know is that Tormented Souls has always danced between cults, sacrifice, and realities bending in on themselves. Time travel, alternate dimensions, and unspeakable rituals— it’s all part of the package. And thanks to how the "true" ending of the first game wraps up, this sequel fits perfectly as a direct continuation rather than a loose spin-off.
So, let me set the scene. Caroline and Anna arrive at a convent in Villa Hess, following an invitation from Isabella who claims the convent where Mother Lucia promises they can help with Anna’s condition. But of course, in true survival horror fashion, nothing is ever that simple. The convent turns out to be the heart of a cult, and the moment they arrive, Anna is abducted. What follows is a desperate search through the shadowed halls of the convent to unlock the church where Anna was taken—a place now sealed by a powerful curse.
Along the way, Caroline encounters Joseph, a suspicious bald man who offers advice on breaking the seal, and as she delves deeper, she discovers that every nun in the convent has been slaughtered. The further she goes, the more grotesque the horrors become, culminating in a twisted battle against a monstrous, oversized nun that feels ripped straight from a fever dream. But even after surviving that nightmare, Caroline’s search for Anna is far from over. With the convent behind her, she steps into the cursed streets of Villa Hess, where she meets Miguel, another lost soul searching for someone of his own. Their uneasy alliance sets the stage for the horrors that lie beyond the church walls.
Shadowy Story
Before we get into the Tormented Souls 2’s gameplay, I’d like to talk about the story first. Tormented Souls 2 isn’t really trying to be a story that makes you think too deeply. Its narrative feels more like a vehicle for the gameplay—a reason for you to keep solving puzzles and fighting monsters rather than something meant to be psychoanalyzed. The game frequently jumps between time and dimensions, tossing Caroline into alternate realities or past events without ever explaining how or why this happens. If you played the first game, and only thought that her connection to these powers was vaguely established, you won’t find a clean cut explanation for her abilities here either.
You’re meant to piece things together through notes, clues, diary entries, and encounters, rather than rely on clear exposition. Even with the only other sane person in the entire town, Miguel, we don’t get a proper explanation for why he’s here in Villa Hess. He never explains who he’s looking for or why, and while the game eventually gives us the answer, it’s… well, kind of a soft thud instead of a big reveal. And that’s fine to an extent, since this is still Caroline and Anna’s story—but a bit more flesh on his motivations could’ve made their alliance hit harder.
Then there’s Joseph, who’s aura just screams "I know more than you do". He pops in and out at key moments, but he doesn’t really get his own story arc where it is explained who he is, why he’s here, or how he’s tied to the cult. Still, that air of mystery does feed into Tormented Souls 2’s old-school storytelling style—vague, fragmented, and soaked in ambiguity.
Suffocating Dance of Light and Logic
If you’ve played the first Tormented Souls, you’ll know exactly what kind of nightmare you’re walking into—fixed cameras, limited lighting, and that familiar feeling of being constantly on edge. The sequel doesn’t reinvent that formula, instead, it leans into it with confidence. Every corridor feels like it’s breathing down your neck, every flickering light a reminder that you’re never truly safe. There’s this constant damp heaviness to the air, like the entire town of Villa Hess is waterlogged with rot and secrets, pressing down on you as you move through it.
The gameplay loop is, at its core, the same as before, a tightly wound mix of exploration and puzzle-solving that rewards observation and memory. The map itself isn’t sprawling, but the way it’s structured makes it feel deceptively large. Every shortcut, every locked door, and every clue connects in a way that forces you to think spatially. You’ll find a lead on where to go next, only for your path to be blocked by a mechanism you don’t yet understand. That puzzle inevitably branches into another puzzle, and before long, the key you need ends up being tucked away in some distant, shadow-choked corner of the map you swore you’d already cleared.
It’s the kind of design that thrives on backtracking, but not in a tedious way. There’s a rhythm to it, a satisfaction in realizing how everything eventually clicks into place. One minute you’re aimlessly wandering through empty halls, and the next, a single item suddenly recontextualizes half the areas you’ve explored. It’s deliberate, it’s old-school, and it’s so unmistakably survival horror.
With the setting and loop out of the way, let’s dive into the review.
Puzzles That Make You Feel Smart
Let me tell you something, it takes a lot to scare me these days. It’s rare that I find something that makes my pulse spike and my brain spin at the same time. But Tormented Souls 2 managed both. It’s the kind of horror that doesn’t rely on cheap jump scares or loud noises, it’s built on tension, logic, and the creeping dread of knowing you’re one step away from disaster.
And I have to start with the puzzles, because they are genuinely ingenious. Logic is everything here, not the vague "try everything on everything" type of logic, but the kind that makes sense when you step back and think about it. They feel handcrafted, layered, and fair, with each solution feeding perfectly into the next. It’s like the developers took what worked in the first game and refined it, striking a delicate balance between being challenging enough to stump you and clear enough to make you go "Oh, of course!" once it clicks. It’s an evolution of the original’s design—familiar, but smarter.
Survival Means Counting Every Bullet and Save
The gameplay keeps that same spirit of old-school survival horror alive—you explore, you collect, and you pray there are no monsters in the dark because you need to keep your lighter on and there’s no way to equip both lighter and a weapon at the same time. Resources are scarce, especially if you play on Standard difficulty (which I did, and yes, I regretted it more times than I can count). Each weapon can be customized through parts you find scattered around the world, not through some overblown crafting system, but through simple, "combine" that make you feel rewarded for exploring.
And speaking of limited, the save system is delightfully cruel. Instead of typewriter ribbons, you’ll use "recording tapes" at save stations. You don’t find many, which means you’ll think long and hard before hitting that save button. Every time you do, Caroline reflects on what’s happened and what she plans to do next—a small touch, but one that makes saving feel narratively grounded rather than mechanical. It’s these little details that make every decision feel meaningful.
Despite all that scarcity, your inventory space is surprisingly generous. You can hoard to your heart’s content—and as someone whose survival strategy boils down to pick up everything shiny, I appreciated that more than I probably should’ve. It’s a smart bit of design that makes you feel both limited and empowered, never forced to choose between a key item and a healing kit.
Death Is a Lesson
And then, of course, there’s combat—because it wouldn’t be survival horror if you didn’t die a few times. Okay, maybe more than a few. Most of the roaming enemies can be avoided if you’re careful, but trust me, clearing them out pays off. You’ll be backtracking a lot, and some areas spawn more enemies the further you go through the story, so having the early ones gone makes traversal much less stressful.
Boss fights are a particular highlight but it’s actually a weird balance to strike—on one hand, you want to clear enemies so you can move around easier later on, but on the other, you also need to conserve enough ammo for the boss fights ahead. It’s not that bosses have an insane amount of hp and are hard to take down (they’re not, thankfully) they’re not simple bullet sponges, but each one has a gimmick or weakness you’ll need to exploit, often involving other mechanics or objects in the environment. So if you’re careless and go into a boss fight empty handed, you might find yourself painfully underprepared when it’s time to exploit their weak points. You can’t just unload and hope for the best, you have to think under pressure. It’s wonderfully tense, wonderfully cruel, and completely in line with that classic survival horror DNA the series wears so proudly.
There are five major bosses: Iron Maiden, the Harvester, Dr. Hertze, Pig Face and Lord Nautilus. Each fight is distinct in both mechanics and tone. Some are straight up duels like Pig Face, while others like Dr. Hertz forces you to deal with waves of enemies.
If it’s your first time, I’d honestly recommend starting on Assisted difficulty. The lack of autosaves and the scarcity of save records and bullets in normal mode can really get under your skin after a while. And since the game offers two endings and unlocks extra outfits after finishing it once, there’s no shame in saving your suffering for round two.
Exploring the Unknown
And yes—the return of The Other Side mechanic, where actions in the dark dimension affect the real one, remains a brilliant piece of design. It’s integral to both puzzles and story, weaving seamlessly into the gameplay loop. It’s a perfect example of how Tormented Souls 2 understands its own identity: part brain-teaser, part nightmare, and all atmosphere.
Not only that, but the time-traveling aspect from the first game also makes a comback—still as confusing and fascinating as ever. The way the story shifts timelines to alter reality is a mystery itself, it’s a mechanic that makes exploration feel layered.
Traversal is made painless thanks to the map system. It records everything—from locked doors and unsolved puzzles to rooms you’ve already cleared—turning what could’ve been a tedious backtracking nightmare into a methodical exploration. It’s the kind of subtle quality-of-life feature that respects your time. And before anyone starts with the "this ruins immersion" spiel—Silent Hill has been marking doors and notes on maps since the PS1 era. This isn’t hand-holding, it’s just smart design that respects the player’s sanity.
Atmosphere, Angles, and Audio
Visually, Tormented Souls 2 keeps that retro charm alive while still managing to step things up a notch. You’ve got your fixed camera angles and those occasional Dutch tilts that instantly tell you, "yep, something’s about to go down." That deliberate sense of disorientation, paired with the dim lights and oppressive halls, gives the game that thick, suffocating tension you only get from true survival horror.
The town of Villa Hess itself is divided into several locales, each with its own aesthetic. There’s the church, where the story both begins and ends, drenched in candlelight and ritualistic dread. Then you’ve got the business and commercial district, split between the abandoned mall, the butcher shop, and back alleys. Beyond that lies the processing plant that has this almost industrial nightmare feel. Followed by the train station, cemetery, sewers, and the school. Each area brings a unique flavor of terror, but together they create a cohesive world that feels cursed and impossible to escape.
The sound design does just as much heavy lifting. The ambient noises—the faint creaks, the distant footsteps that may or may not be yours—constantly sell the illusion that something else is wandering the dark alongside you. The BGM itself feels ripped straight out of early Resident Evil playbooks, restrained when it needs to be, unnerving when it shouldn’t be, and sometimes eerily silent. Voice acting, too, carries that same old-school charm—it’s a little stiff, a little campy, but exactly in the way that makes it feel right for the genre.
The Rough Edges of Retro
But of course, not everything about Tormented Souls 2 is perfect.
Performance-wise, I ran into more hiccups than I’d like—this is on Xbox, mind you—and a few of them were hard to ignore. Glitches would occasionally be present where Caroline’s body would suddenly be invisible, or when i'd get stuck in a corner. And movement controls were a constant battle, for some reason, running and dodging just didn’t register properly. I hated that.
There were so many moments—too many—where I’d be out of nails, cornered by something unspeakable, and forced to rely on dodging… only for the said action not register. And listen, I know there’s a melee option, but come on, who in their right mind wants to go toe-to-toe with those things? The result was a combat experience that, while still tense and thematic, could sometimes feel like a chore when the inputs failed me. There were definitely moments where I caught myself yelling "leave me alone!" at my screen and not in the fun, horror-immersed way.
And then there’s the good old fixed camera issue. You know the one, running confidently down a hallway only for the angle to shift and suddenly you’re running back the way you came. Classic. It’s part of the charm, sure, and I wouldn’t trade that cinematic presentation for a full free camera, but I can’t help but feel like there’s a smoother way to handle transitions without losing that nostalgic flair.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate the clunk. It’s part of what makes the experience feel authentically retro. But there’s a fine line between old-school tension and old-school frustration, and sometimes Tormented Souls 2 wobbles on it.
Is Tormented Souls 2 Worth It?
Classic Reawakened in Modern Times
Tormented Souls 2 arrives just in time for Halloween, and honestly, even after the season passes, this is one I’d still recommend to anyone craving that raw, nostalgic brand of survival horror. It feels like a classic, looks like a classic, and is a classic, just one born in modern times.
In a world where every horror game seems to be modernizing itself into action-packed thrillers with cinematic polish and hand-holding, Tormented Souls 2 proudly refuses to follow suit. It’s stubborn in the best way possible. It’s a true love letter to the golden age of fixed-camera survival horror, dripping with atmosphere, challenge, and that satisfying blend of logic and panic that defined the genre’s roots.
Sure, there are quirks—occasional performance hiccups and some clunky movement that might make you want to throw your controller—but when you take a step back, it’s hard not to admire what Dual Effect has pulled off here. The puzzles are clever, the atmosphere is oppressive, and the overall delivery of the story continues to blur the line between worlds in a way that feels both haunting and fresh.
It’s not perfect, but it’s honest. And that honesty, paired with its $29.99 price tag, makes Tormented Souls 2 one of the easiest recommendations I can give any day of the year.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steam |
PlayStation |
Xbox |
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| Price | $29.99 | ||||
Tormented Souls 2 FAQ
Are There Multiple Endings for Tormented Souls 2?
There are a total of 2 endings for Tormented Souls 2.
Do I Need to Play Tormented Souls Before Playing Tormented Souls 2?
Since Tormented Souls 2 is a direct sequel, having knowledge of what happened in the first game is suggested. While the game offers enough context to grasp the basics, several story revelations make much more sense if you’ve experienced Caroline’s original journey. Though it is not mandatory, playing the first game definitely enriches the sequel’s narrative and character motivations.
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Tormented Souls 2 Product Information
 |
|
| Title | TORMENTED SOULS 2 |
|---|---|
| Release Date | October 23, 2025 |
| Developer | Dual Effect |
| Publisher | PQube |
| Supported Platforms | PC (Steam, Epic, GoG), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S |
| Genre | Survival Horror, Action, Adventure, Puzzle |
| Number of Players | 1 |
| ESRB Rating | M |
| Official Website | Tormented Souls 2 Website |
