Hello Neighbor 2 offers impressive open-ended puzzling and one creepy villain

digitaltrends.com:

Hello Neighbor from 2017 was a thematically creepy game. It followed the story of protagonist Nicky Roth, who, through the player’s input, infiltrated the labyrinthine house of an unhinged man with a few too many dark secrets rolled up his sleeves. Without giving too much away, the original’s three main acts were filled with the same sort of horrors one might expect to find if they were to rummage around in their shady next-door neighbor’s basement in the middle of the night — only to find the aforementioned neighbor creeping around the corner with a hatchet and a menacing glint in their eye.

But the average neighbor doesn’t keep macabre secrets behind traps and puzzles in their basement, which means Hello Neighbor 2 could be the next big thing for anyone who ever fantasized about solving mysteries in the dead of night. Don’t try this at home — er, your neighbor’s home — but do try Hello Neighbor 2.

I went hands-on with a demo of Hello Neighbor 2 at PAX West several weeks ago, and what I discovered was a delightful 30-minute chunk of tinkering and toying amid the hiding and frightened scurrying that shortly followed.

The first moments of my Hello Neighbor 2 demo were rather humbling. I woke up in a barn, dazed and confused, with nothing more than a crowbar and some tchotchkes to bang together until a giant door unsealed itself so I could meander off to the great outdoors and, ultimately, into my neighbor’s home. It took me a few minutes to figure out the physics and inventory systems. Still, I eventually learned that I could throw a rock to break a glass case containing one of several gears required to open the big door, and that alone was a victory worth celebrating.

I scampered out of the barn and off to the big