Sequels often resolve old pains through revenge narratives. Retribution presumably rights old wrongs. Uniquely, The Evil Within 2 foregoes a climactic showdown between Sebastian and Ruben "Ruvik" Victoriano, the main antagonist from The Evil Within. It instead pits Sebastian against his trauma directly, forcing him to confront the bad coping habits that persisted after the credits rolled.

Kidman finds a lot of ash for Sebastian's resurrection at the start of The Evil Within 2. He mourns the loss of his daughter and wife, and he curses himself for failing to locate Mobius, a shadow organization. For years, Sebastian has decoded his grief by assuming fault for tragedies that unfolded around him, even those in which he played little part. His guilt created a second tier of pain. He coped through emotional avoidance and alcohol. He bent his memories every time he summoned them in self-abuse, adjusting them to fit his low self-image.

Through The Evil Within 2, Sebastian learns to change, not merely what he remembers, but how he remembers. The mind heals through repetition, a crawl of unlearning bad habits once formed in self-defense. He grows through successive trials, applies new insights to old challenges, and rewrites his memories of weakness as proof of his strength. His dream revelation with Myra and his escape from Anima prepare him to revisit the first game's frights, ultimately reconciling him with his most intense point of contact in The Evil Within, the player.

The game breaks the fourth wall to build a player/character relationship through the player's memories of The Evil Within, the game. Through metanarrative storytelling like Metal Gear Solid 2's, The Evil Within 2 implicates the player as the engine of Sebastian's neurosis. It gives Sebastian the power to refuse the player, and it reunites player and character with greater power. In the end, it "heals" the player by fulfilling lingering expectations from The Evil Within.