Tormented Souls 2 | Xbox Review

I love sinking my teeth into a good survival horror game. Dual Effect Games’ original Tormented Souls was a delicious treat. It was a callback to classic titles such as Resident Evil and Silent Hill while being its own entity. So how does the sequel fare against the first title? I’m happy to report it expands and builds on the lore and gameplay while still maintaining the old-school charm of its predecessor. This is a must-play horror experience.

Sweet Caroline

The story of Tormented Souls 2 follows from the events of the end of the first game, so revealing too much would spoil a wonderful experience. All you need to know is that you are once again playing as Caroline Walker, and you’re waking up in a creepy unknown location tasked with discovering where the hell you are and what has happened to you. You start off without a single item to your name and must navigate the hostile environment Caroline has found herself in. It’s dark (literally and figuratively) and unsettling in the best way. It was so easy to become immersed in this world, and the narrative is engrossing.

I loved that this sequel is so much bigger than the original game. While the first title was set in one single location, there are multiple areas to explore in Tormented Souls 2. Each section feels distinct yet still complementary of the previous ones you’ve already visited. Items and notes are spread out at a good pace, not feeling too close together or too far apart. It took me about eighteen hours to complete the story on Assisted difficulty, and I loved pretty much every second.

The Darkness Consumes

Gameplay is similar to that of the original Tormented Souls, but is spruced up a bit. Caroline has a fear of the dark, so you must juggle carrying a lighter with pulling out a gun when enemies appear. It creates a delicious amount of tension trying to find a safe place to fight or run away to. The gunplay feels good and each weapon you acquire feels unique. You’ll end up with a handful of weaponry as you progress through the game, and you can now assign up to four items to a shortcut tied to your right joystick. 

This was immensely helpful and helped cut down on the amount of time spent in the inventory screen. Speaking of the inventory, you don’t have to manage or worry about this at all. Everything Caroline picks up fits and once an item is no longer needed, it’s automatically removed. This was a refreshing change from the usual mechanics of survival horror titles that I’ve become used to. 

Briefly talking about the puzzles, they are challenging but not enough to pull your hair out. They’re actually quite clever and well-executed. I highly recommend keeping a pen and paper nearby to write down clues as you come across them. 

I also appreciated the variety of enemy types present. Each new area has its own distinct enemies, with the ones you’ve already encountered sometimes also popping up. It keeps you on your toes, and each foe takes a different amount of shots to down. You’ll quickly find out which enemies are bullet sponges, which you’ll want to try to avoid if possible. Your ammo is limited, so running away is a great tactic at times.

Bumps in the Night

I genuinely didn’t have any major problems with Tormented Souls 2. My main gripe was the fact that a couple of achievements didn’t trigger, even after a hefty patch was added to fix this issue. I also found the autosave present in Assisted difficulty to be spotty. It helped when I died, returning me to the room I was in prior to dying. It didn’t help when the aforementioned update kicked me to the main menu and out of Quick Resume on Xbox. I could only play in short bursts due to being drenched in anxiety (in the best way) while playing, and safe rooms are few and far between. I lost a couple of hours of progress because of this. I expected this if I had played on the Standard difficulty mode, but Assisted makes a big point of highlighting autosave. It’s a personal little niggle that probably won’t affect most gamers used to classic survival horror.

I also felt like I needed to address the fact that I started playing the game thinking I was on Assisted difficulty. I stated on the podcast that safe rooms didn’t have three recording tapes in them as promised. After dying and being returned to a safe room from two hours before, I realized I had somehow selected Standard difficulty. I started the game over fresh on Assisted. There weren’t too many differences, honestly. You do receive three recording tapes instead of one or two on Standard. The enemies take the same amount of ammo to down them and I found the same amount of supplies. Caroline had a little more health on Assisted but still could only take a few hits before being in the danger zone. The major difference is purely the presence of autosave.

The Final Verdict

Tormented Souls 2 is an excellent entry in the survival horror genre, and a fantastic sequel. It expands on the original while maintaining its pillars of classic gameplay. I didn’t encounter any problems or bugs besides a couple of achievements not popping, and I found autosave to be somewhat misleading. Even despite those small issues, I loved every second I spent in this dark, twisted world and fought through my anxiety to uncover the fascinating narrative.

To hear me talk more about Tormented Souls 2, be sure to listen to the November 5, 2025 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast around the 1:05:03 time stamp.

This review is based on an Xbox Series X/S copy of Tormented Souls 2 provided by PQube for coverage purposes. It is also available on PlayStation 5 and PC via Steam and Epic Games Store.