Say Cheese and Die
Sebastian Castellanos is barreling toward a head-on collision with a new type of foe. As we saw in the original Evil Within, he’s accustomed to dealing with the grotesque, the supernatural, and the horrifying. The sequel pits him against something different: a still-living serial killer.
Bethesda released this new character trailer that introduces Stefano Valentini, a photographer who gets off on capturing his subjects in the few seconds that they accept that death is imminent. He’s very BioShockSander Cohen in the egocentric and eccentric way that others’ suffering is his art.
Here’s the description and backstory of Valentini that Bethesda sent along in a press release:
After losing his eye in an explosion during his time as a war photographer, Stefano rapidly descended into madness. His newfound “vision” drove him to become fascinated by the precise instant when death takes a person — that split second in time when people are, in his opinion, at their most open and most beautiful. Stefano returned home from the war with a newfound purpose. But he wouldn’t wait for these perfect moments to arise on their own. Why should he, when he could orchestrate those final breaths? One victim became two, and soon enough he had become a serial killer, photographing each of his victims’ faces at the exact moment of their demise.
Also like Cohen, Valentini won’t be the main target of the protagonist’s aggression. He’ll be a side attraction, another evil and fucked-up thing in a long list of evil and fucked-up things. (For anyone looking for better examples of the degree of demented we’re dealing with, Bethesda released some snapshots of the serial killer’s gallery.)
Maybe I’m the only one thinking it, but I gotta say it: This Valentini guy…he seems like a real jerk!