The original Outlast took the world by storm in 2013 with its gore centric take on the at the time relatively new genre of first-person horror games, the popularity of which had first started with Amnesia: The Dark Descent. The story of Outlast follows Miles Upshur, a journalist who was given a tip off by an employee of the Murkoff Corporation that they've been doing some shady experiments on the inmates at the Mount Massive Insane Asylum. Miles ventures into the asylum to find that all the inmates are loose and killing each other (and him), and also that the Murkoff Corporation had indeed been experimenting on these poor tormented souls and through their experiments created a literal monster that ends up using Miles’ body as a vessel to get it out of the asylum.
It was a low budget indie darling that swept up critical acclaim, awards, and a huge fanbase. Its biggest selling point was the inclusion of a camcorder which you use to navigate dark environments using the night vision feature, and you can also record all the nasty goings on at the asylum. It was extremely gory, dealt with some pretty nasty subject matter, and was mighty scary to boot. All round a great horror story set in a spooky mansion, but nothing much more than that because it didn't need to be.
The DLC expansion to Outlast, Whistleblower, received equally high praise for giving players a peek behind the curtain at how the monster from the first game was created, as well as putting players in the shoes of the person who informed Miles of the goings on at Mount Massive. It expanded on the game in new and interesting ways, giving players more lengthy chase sequences in more complex environments, whilst neatly complimenting the main game.
The fanfare that these two titles had of course would warrant developer Red Barrels to start work on a sequel to Outlast, people were hungry for another gory first-person run & hide horror akin to the original game. It took Red Barrels until 2017 to do this however, chief among the reasons for the lengthy development is that, understandably, Red Barrels wanted the game to be bigger, better, and bolder than the original game ever was, as every sequel should be. Unfortunately though, Outlast 2 is a game that is more scary in how it tests the players patience, instead of being truly terrifying.
It was a low budget indie darling that swept up critical acclaim, awards, and a huge fanbase. Its biggest selling point was the inclusion of a camcorder which you use to navigate dark environments using the night vision feature, and you can also record all the nasty goings on at the asylum. It was extremely gory, dealt with some pretty nasty subject matter, and was mighty scary to boot. All round a great horror story set in a spooky mansion, but nothing much more than that because it didn't need to be.
The DLC expansion to Outlast, Whistleblower, received equally high praise for giving players a peek behind the curtain at how the monster from the first game was created, as well as putting players in the shoes of the person who informed Miles of the goings on at Mount Massive. It expanded on the game in new and interesting ways, giving players more lengthy chase sequences in more complex environments, whilst neatly complimenting the main game.
The fanfare that these two titles had of course would warrant developer Red Barrels to start work on a sequel to Outlast, people were hungry for another gory first-person run & hide horror akin to the original game. It took Red Barrels until 2017 to do this however, chief among the reasons for the lengthy development is that, understandably, Red Barrels wanted the game to be bigger, better, and bolder than the original game ever was, as every sequel should be. Unfortunately though, Outlast 2 is a game that is more scary in how it tests the players patience, instead of being truly terrifying.
Because It’s Scary: The Story of Outlast 2
In Outlast 2 you play as Blake Langermann, another journalist who gets caught up in an awfully nasty situation. He and his wife, Lynn, set about solving the murder of a young pregnant woman who nobody can seem to identify. The two are on edge with each other and appear to be having their relationship strained due to Blake’s recent dreams about their childhood friend Jessica, who hanged herself during their time at Catholic middle school. Their search for the Jane Doe’s killer leads them to the forests of Arizona, whilst flying over the forest the helicopter they are travelling in crashes (as all helicopters do) because of a bright light that flashes from the edge of the forest.
Blake awakens to find that Lynn is missing, and the pilot has been skinned, gutted, and crucified to a nearby tree. Blake ventures further into the forest in search of Lynn where he finds a village, some of the inhabitants of which appear to want to kill him. There Blake finds a mass grave of the villagers children whom the villagers have slaughtered in the hope that they will stop an impending apocalypse from happening. Blake finds Lynn at the church where she has been captured by a cult led by Knoth, a man who believes that the village is situated at the mouth of Hell and that Lynn is carrying the Anti-Christ in her womb, despite the fact that she is not pregnant. Blake escapes with Lynn but the two are attacked and separated by a group of heretics and their leader, Val, who wish to hasten the apocalypse and Lynn’s birth of the Anti-Christ.
This is the setup to the whole story of Outlast 2, and it’s honestly a pretty good one. You get all the markings of a great lost in the woods horror story, along with some neat religious undertones that will undoubtably play a key role in the story, and a twist that the woman who is to give birth to the Anti-Christ in just a few hours is not actually pregnant.
From this point on though the story takes a pretty heavy nosedive, and the justification to which I can only seem to explain as “because it’s scary”.
In Outlast 2 you play as Blake Langermann, another journalist who gets caught up in an awfully nasty situation. He and his wife, Lynn, set about solving the murder of a young pregnant woman who nobody can seem to identify. The two are on edge with each other and appear to be having their relationship strained due to Blake’s recent dreams about their childhood friend Jessica, who hanged herself during their time at Catholic middle school. Their search for the Jane Doe’s killer leads them to the forests of Arizona, whilst flying over the forest the helicopter they are travelling in crashes (as all helicopters do) because of a bright light that flashes from the edge of the forest.
Blake awakens to find that Lynn is missing, and the pilot has been skinned, gutted, and crucified to a nearby tree. Blake ventures further into the forest in search of Lynn where he finds a village, some of the inhabitants of which appear to want to kill him. There Blake finds a mass grave of the villagers children whom the villagers have slaughtered in the hope that they will stop an impending apocalypse from happening. Blake finds Lynn at the church where she has been captured by a cult led by Knoth, a man who believes that the village is situated at the mouth of Hell and that Lynn is carrying the Anti-Christ in her womb, despite the fact that she is not pregnant. Blake escapes with Lynn but the two are attacked and separated by a group of heretics and their leader, Val, who wish to hasten the apocalypse and Lynn’s birth of the Anti-Christ.
This is the setup to the whole story of Outlast 2, and it’s honestly a pretty good one. You get all the markings of a great lost in the woods horror story, along with some neat religious undertones that will undoubtably play a key role in the story, and a twist that the woman who is to give birth to the Anti-Christ in just a few hours is not actually pregnant.
From this point on though the story takes a pretty heavy nosedive, and the justification to which I can only seem to explain as “because it’s scary”.
Very shortly after losing Lynn to Val’s heretics, Blake encounters a man named Ethan. A former follower of Knoth, Ethan tells Blake that Knoth rapes the women of the village and then orders them to be executed due to them supposedly carrying the Anti-Christ. One such victim was Ethan’s daughter whom he helped escape the village, this girl later became Blake & Lynn’s Jane Doe. Ethan is then promptly killed by one of the village executioners, Marta. During his escape from Marta, Blake finds out Lynn's location from a tortured villager and begins to head to the mines where she has been taken.
Blake begins his trek to the mines, along the way frequently seeing the same bright flash of light that took down the helicopter at the start of the game. He spends the majority of this middle section of the game deep in the woods, escaping from village outcasts who have severe syphilis and gonorrhoea infections due to inbreeding and bizarre sexual practices encouraged by Knoth. During this section Blake is pursued by Nick & Laird, two heavily deformed former villagers who believe that Blake is a modern messiah and will save them from the apocalypse. In an attempt to spare themselves they crucify him. Blake, surviving the initial crucifixion, then pulls himself off of the cross where Nick & Laird then bury him alive. Blake escapes again and in the ensuing chase Nick & Laird fall to their deaths due to being pushed off a cliff by their own followers.
Throughout the game Blake regularly also has flashbacks to his time at Catholic middle school, this is where the story of Jessica and her suicide are explained in greater detail. It is revealed over the course of the game that Jessica did not actually kill herself but was sexually assaulted by one of the Father’s at the school; after an attempt to escape from him assaulting her Jessica fell down some stairs and broke her neck. The priest then staged her death as a suicide by hanging to remove any suspicion about his involvement in her death.
Blake begins his trek to the mines, along the way frequently seeing the same bright flash of light that took down the helicopter at the start of the game. He spends the majority of this middle section of the game deep in the woods, escaping from village outcasts who have severe syphilis and gonorrhoea infections due to inbreeding and bizarre sexual practices encouraged by Knoth. During this section Blake is pursued by Nick & Laird, two heavily deformed former villagers who believe that Blake is a modern messiah and will save them from the apocalypse. In an attempt to spare themselves they crucify him. Blake, surviving the initial crucifixion, then pulls himself off of the cross where Nick & Laird then bury him alive. Blake escapes again and in the ensuing chase Nick & Laird fall to their deaths due to being pushed off a cliff by their own followers.
Throughout the game Blake regularly also has flashbacks to his time at Catholic middle school, this is where the story of Jessica and her suicide are explained in greater detail. It is revealed over the course of the game that Jessica did not actually kill herself but was sexually assaulted by one of the Father’s at the school; after an attempt to escape from him assaulting her Jessica fell down some stairs and broke her neck. The priest then staged her death as a suicide by hanging to remove any suspicion about his involvement in her death.
Eventually Blake reaches the mines and crawls through the tunnels in search of Lynn. When he finds her she is heavily pregnant. Blake is discovered by the heretics, raped by Val, and blacks out. When he reawakens, Knoth’s cultists have caught up to them and killed Val and the heretics, this gives Lynn and Blake a chance to escape. As they leave the mines they discover that the village is being destroyed by a huge lightning storm and are hunted down by Marta, who in turn is killed by a metal pole that is caught up in the high winds of the storm (which is painfully similar to a particularly infamous death in The Omen). Lynn gives birth to the child and as Blake shows her their new baby Lynn states that “there is nothing there” and dies. Blake then walks towards the sunrise with the baby when another white light flashes and the game ends.
After reading that synopsis you may be wondering what on earth the story of Outlast 2 is actually about, and the unfortunate problem is so am I. I have researched the title deeply and discovered that there isn’t really an explanation to any of the events that happen in the game. Perhaps the most definitive answer for much of the chaos in the game, as well as the link to the first game, comes in the form of a well-hidden, optional collectible note that outlines that the Murkoff Corporation has set up radio towers around the village, and that the bright flashes of light are towers being activated. When the towers are activated the radio waves are affecting the villagers thought processes and slowly making them insane. This would also explain Blake’s hallucinations of his childhood, and perhaps even Blake believing that Lynn is pregnant.
The problem with Outlast 2’s story, and the way it’s told, is that it only serves the singular purpose of “because it’s scary”. There appears to be almost no substance to the narrative, this was perfectly fine in context of the original Outlast where it was essentially a haunted mansion type scenario. But Outlast 2 sets up a narrative that carries weight and has a very film anti-religious stance; yet whenever it tries to do something interesting with that material it simply results in a gory jump scare. It usually handles this with all the finesse of a sledgehammer too and ultimately comes off as a bit insensitive towards the topics of child molestation, rape, and suicide.
The first Outlast had a very straightforward narrative, but there was a twist explained at the end of the game in an exposition dump from one of the main villains that provided the story with some context for those who desired it. Outlast 2 misses that crucial scene and relegates it to a collectible that’s hidden so well that it seems as though players were never meant to find it. Most players won’t discover it because of it's extremely obscure location, and even then it doesn’t really explain anything. Instead of contextualising what’s going on, it pulls the 'it was all a hallucination' card; because people losing their minds and committing horrible acts like these is scary…but it’s not when it’s handled like how Outlast 2 handles it.
After reading that synopsis you may be wondering what on earth the story of Outlast 2 is actually about, and the unfortunate problem is so am I. I have researched the title deeply and discovered that there isn’t really an explanation to any of the events that happen in the game. Perhaps the most definitive answer for much of the chaos in the game, as well as the link to the first game, comes in the form of a well-hidden, optional collectible note that outlines that the Murkoff Corporation has set up radio towers around the village, and that the bright flashes of light are towers being activated. When the towers are activated the radio waves are affecting the villagers thought processes and slowly making them insane. This would also explain Blake’s hallucinations of his childhood, and perhaps even Blake believing that Lynn is pregnant.
The problem with Outlast 2’s story, and the way it’s told, is that it only serves the singular purpose of “because it’s scary”. There appears to be almost no substance to the narrative, this was perfectly fine in context of the original Outlast where it was essentially a haunted mansion type scenario. But Outlast 2 sets up a narrative that carries weight and has a very film anti-religious stance; yet whenever it tries to do something interesting with that material it simply results in a gory jump scare. It usually handles this with all the finesse of a sledgehammer too and ultimately comes off as a bit insensitive towards the topics of child molestation, rape, and suicide.
The first Outlast had a very straightforward narrative, but there was a twist explained at the end of the game in an exposition dump from one of the main villains that provided the story with some context for those who desired it. Outlast 2 misses that crucial scene and relegates it to a collectible that’s hidden so well that it seems as though players were never meant to find it. Most players won’t discover it because of it's extremely obscure location, and even then it doesn’t really explain anything. Instead of contextualising what’s going on, it pulls the 'it was all a hallucination' card; because people losing their minds and committing horrible acts like these is scary…but it’s not when it’s handled like how Outlast 2 handles it.
The side plot of Jessica and her suicide/manslaughter at school is also handled incredibly poorly. It’s difficult to tell if Red Barrels were trying to make this story beat a twist or if they were just going for a dramatic reveal, because the narrative of Catholic Priests doing naughty things to kids in the shadows is a cliché that’s far too predictable to come off as surprising, especially with the way it’s handled. It’s also extremely cruel to handle this narrative the way it does due to the game’s fixation on gore. The message of Outlast 2 is that religion can be very bad, which is a perfectly fine narrative to have. But using a young girl’s death at the hands of a sexually abusive priest as an allegory for villagers being driven insane by technology and thereby twisting their religious views into violent and sexually taboo practices are two totally different things, to the point that the handling of the Catholic school narrative is downright offensive.
These school sections are also plagued by the presence of a gore ridden monster made almost entirely of hands and tongues that follows your character constantly trying to kill them. This is a terrible metaphor for the abusive priest character that again, is incredibly insensitive to the subject matter at hand. The reason for the monster’s presence? Because it’s scary. It’s fast, it’s repulsive to look at, and the death animations are extremely horrible to witness. So it’s scary…but again, not in a way that actually services the story.
The biggest issue with this ‘because it’s scary’ approach is that you become desensitised because it’s trying so hard to be scary for the lowest common denominator. The idea of a murderous cult in the middle of the woods with no one around to help is scary. The narrative of a priest sexually abusing young girls and framing their deaths as suicides is also scary. But to frame this in the same way as the original Outlast by using excessive gore at every turn begins to make the whole thing a farce rather than a fright-fest. This gory tone worked in the first Outlast because it was justified, the inmates were already crazy upon admittance to the asylum, many of them horribly disfigured anyway. Outlast 2 doesn’t justify these same things which it pushes even harder than in the first game. Take the main cult storyline, the justification for it all is that Blake and the rest of the villagers are actually just hallucinating, not that these people are actually crazy, or are actually just dangerous by nature. Because the gore and jump-scares are so overdone the horror becomes desensitising. The worst thing horror can be is palatable, or at least enough where the only reason you find it scary is because you look at your Spaghetti Bolognese and see the mangled corpse from the game you were just playing. At that point it’s no longer scary, it’s just off-putting.
These school sections are also plagued by the presence of a gore ridden monster made almost entirely of hands and tongues that follows your character constantly trying to kill them. This is a terrible metaphor for the abusive priest character that again, is incredibly insensitive to the subject matter at hand. The reason for the monster’s presence? Because it’s scary. It’s fast, it’s repulsive to look at, and the death animations are extremely horrible to witness. So it’s scary…but again, not in a way that actually services the story.
The biggest issue with this ‘because it’s scary’ approach is that you become desensitised because it’s trying so hard to be scary for the lowest common denominator. The idea of a murderous cult in the middle of the woods with no one around to help is scary. The narrative of a priest sexually abusing young girls and framing their deaths as suicides is also scary. But to frame this in the same way as the original Outlast by using excessive gore at every turn begins to make the whole thing a farce rather than a fright-fest. This gory tone worked in the first Outlast because it was justified, the inmates were already crazy upon admittance to the asylum, many of them horribly disfigured anyway. Outlast 2 doesn’t justify these same things which it pushes even harder than in the first game. Take the main cult storyline, the justification for it all is that Blake and the rest of the villagers are actually just hallucinating, not that these people are actually crazy, or are actually just dangerous by nature. Because the gore and jump-scares are so overdone the horror becomes desensitising. The worst thing horror can be is palatable, or at least enough where the only reason you find it scary is because you look at your Spaghetti Bolognese and see the mangled corpse from the game you were just playing. At that point it’s no longer scary, it’s just off-putting.
A Nightmare Hiking Trip: The Gameplay of Outlast 2
Part of the reason the first Outlast was as successful as it was is because the setting, Mount Massive Asylum, was incredibly claustrophobic and extremely easy to get lost in. Some of the game’s most memorable sequences are the chases. Sections where you must run from pursuing foes, franticly sprinting down twisting hallways, closing doors, sliding barricades, hiding in lockers. It worked because you were stuck in there with them. Even though you might have escaped those inmates that were just chasing you, you’re still trapped in the building with them where they could find you later on. There was nothing you could defend yourself with and no way of escape because of the way the asylum had been designed, and it was believable for the most part.
Outlast 2 at its core retains the same gameplay from the first Outlast. You must run and hide, unable to fight your foes. This is also perhaps the greatest flaw with Outlast 2. The problem stems from no longer being confined. You spend the vast majority of the game outside, in the woods. There are also plenty of things littered around that a normal person would defend themselves with such as spades, pitchforks, knives, and fire. Yet Blake does nothing to combat the villagers. It is here that I no longer believe the protagonist is in actual danger. This complaint is often levelled at found footage films, where the characters are so concerned with documenting what’s happening that the actions they take do not make any kind of logical sense. There are plenty of opportunities for Blake to leave the village, or to defend himself against his attackers, yet he simply chooses not to…because it’s scary.
Whilst I certainly agree that making your player characters too powerful removes some of the horror from the experience, see the Dead Space and Resident Evil sequels as evidence of this, but this does not mean that protagonists shouldn’t be able to defend themselves in some fashion. Alien: Isolation is a perfect example of this, Ripley can hit attackers with tools, shoot the Alien with a flamethrower, and even later on in the game use guns to defend herself. The way Alien: Isolation retains its horror is by making it incredibly hard for enemies to die, the Xenomorph is even invincible. What Outlast 2 could have done is allow Blake to use these tools, like a pitchfork, to kill villagers, yet only be able to use them extremely sparingly, perhaps even as single use items. This would have stopped the game from falling into the same repetitive structure of attempting to sneak around, getting spotted, and running away.
This formula worked in the original Outlast because the Asylum did not have anything to be used as weapons, spare the very occasional knife that other inmates were holding. Miles also loses several of his fingers at one point in the story, so that also works as a justification of why he couldn’t even hit people because his hands were practically useless shortly after he first ventures into the asylum. Blake has no such excuse.
The asylum also worked well for run & hide gameplay because it was confined. There were only a limited number of options for when you needed to run, especially when it was a scripted sequence. Outlast 2 however, due to the naturally larger environments because it's set outside, often has the issue of the way forward not being well marked and therefore players will often run into invisible walls in an attempt to find an escape route. I can’t even count how many times I ran towards well-lit scenery, usually an indicator of the way forward in dark environments, only to find that once I reached said well-lit area that it was a dead end. In my playthrough I often found that the way forward was actually by squeezing between two specific trees that had not been made to look different from any other trees in the environment. So, as a result Outlast 2 becomes a tedious affair of running in one direction, dying, and repeating over and over until you get lucky in finding the way forward.
Part of the reason the first Outlast was as successful as it was is because the setting, Mount Massive Asylum, was incredibly claustrophobic and extremely easy to get lost in. Some of the game’s most memorable sequences are the chases. Sections where you must run from pursuing foes, franticly sprinting down twisting hallways, closing doors, sliding barricades, hiding in lockers. It worked because you were stuck in there with them. Even though you might have escaped those inmates that were just chasing you, you’re still trapped in the building with them where they could find you later on. There was nothing you could defend yourself with and no way of escape because of the way the asylum had been designed, and it was believable for the most part.
Outlast 2 at its core retains the same gameplay from the first Outlast. You must run and hide, unable to fight your foes. This is also perhaps the greatest flaw with Outlast 2. The problem stems from no longer being confined. You spend the vast majority of the game outside, in the woods. There are also plenty of things littered around that a normal person would defend themselves with such as spades, pitchforks, knives, and fire. Yet Blake does nothing to combat the villagers. It is here that I no longer believe the protagonist is in actual danger. This complaint is often levelled at found footage films, where the characters are so concerned with documenting what’s happening that the actions they take do not make any kind of logical sense. There are plenty of opportunities for Blake to leave the village, or to defend himself against his attackers, yet he simply chooses not to…because it’s scary.
Whilst I certainly agree that making your player characters too powerful removes some of the horror from the experience, see the Dead Space and Resident Evil sequels as evidence of this, but this does not mean that protagonists shouldn’t be able to defend themselves in some fashion. Alien: Isolation is a perfect example of this, Ripley can hit attackers with tools, shoot the Alien with a flamethrower, and even later on in the game use guns to defend herself. The way Alien: Isolation retains its horror is by making it incredibly hard for enemies to die, the Xenomorph is even invincible. What Outlast 2 could have done is allow Blake to use these tools, like a pitchfork, to kill villagers, yet only be able to use them extremely sparingly, perhaps even as single use items. This would have stopped the game from falling into the same repetitive structure of attempting to sneak around, getting spotted, and running away.
This formula worked in the original Outlast because the Asylum did not have anything to be used as weapons, spare the very occasional knife that other inmates were holding. Miles also loses several of his fingers at one point in the story, so that also works as a justification of why he couldn’t even hit people because his hands were practically useless shortly after he first ventures into the asylum. Blake has no such excuse.
The asylum also worked well for run & hide gameplay because it was confined. There were only a limited number of options for when you needed to run, especially when it was a scripted sequence. Outlast 2 however, due to the naturally larger environments because it's set outside, often has the issue of the way forward not being well marked and therefore players will often run into invisible walls in an attempt to find an escape route. I can’t even count how many times I ran towards well-lit scenery, usually an indicator of the way forward in dark environments, only to find that once I reached said well-lit area that it was a dead end. In my playthrough I often found that the way forward was actually by squeezing between two specific trees that had not been made to look different from any other trees in the environment. So, as a result Outlast 2 becomes a tedious affair of running in one direction, dying, and repeating over and over until you get lucky in finding the way forward.
Also returning for the sequel is the camcorder. An iconic piece of equipment from the first game that allowed you to navigate the dark environments of the asylum, yet crucially still making everything absolutely terrifying because you could only see two feet in front of you in this weird green night-vision filter. It operates on batteries which you must find in the environment, if you run out of battery life then you can’t navigate darker areas.
This worked excellently in the original title and it’s understandable why Red Barrels would want it returning for the sequel, given how synonymous the original game was with the camcorder. However this time, much like the rest of what is copied from the first game, it isn’t as effective. The fault lies again with the larger environments. Whilst the actual camcorder mechanics have been improved as a whole, the issue is that you can only see a few feet ahead of you, and only in shades of green; this mixed with larger more open areas to navigate, and in levels where signposting is already poor, makes it almost impossible to navigate some of the games areas. This makes what should be a terrifying affair into a frustrating one.
The camcorder, like I previously mentioned, has been improved and expanded upon. For example, you now can use the camera’s microphone to listen out for enemy chatter. Firstly this provides some excellent stealth assistance, secondly the conversations NPC’s have can be quite insightful into the games story and lore. However, this mechanic is very under-utilised, I can only recall using it twice in the whole game because like the night-vision, it drains battery power really fast, and its benefits rarely outweighed having more batteries in my inventory.
The next feature, which is arguably the best addition to the whole of Outlast 2, is having collectibles tied to recordings made on the camcorder. If you see something interesting happening, bring up the camcorder and you may see the recording light flash with a timer. These sequences can be viewed back at any time on the camera’s storage for detailed analysis. All documents you find are also saved to the camera as a photo, meaning you’re never taken out of the game if you want to review collectibles.
This worked excellently in the original title and it’s understandable why Red Barrels would want it returning for the sequel, given how synonymous the original game was with the camcorder. However this time, much like the rest of what is copied from the first game, it isn’t as effective. The fault lies again with the larger environments. Whilst the actual camcorder mechanics have been improved as a whole, the issue is that you can only see a few feet ahead of you, and only in shades of green; this mixed with larger more open areas to navigate, and in levels where signposting is already poor, makes it almost impossible to navigate some of the games areas. This makes what should be a terrifying affair into a frustrating one.
The camcorder, like I previously mentioned, has been improved and expanded upon. For example, you now can use the camera’s microphone to listen out for enemy chatter. Firstly this provides some excellent stealth assistance, secondly the conversations NPC’s have can be quite insightful into the games story and lore. However, this mechanic is very under-utilised, I can only recall using it twice in the whole game because like the night-vision, it drains battery power really fast, and its benefits rarely outweighed having more batteries in my inventory.
The next feature, which is arguably the best addition to the whole of Outlast 2, is having collectibles tied to recordings made on the camcorder. If you see something interesting happening, bring up the camcorder and you may see the recording light flash with a timer. These sequences can be viewed back at any time on the camera’s storage for detailed analysis. All documents you find are also saved to the camera as a photo, meaning you’re never taken out of the game if you want to review collectibles.
Blake’s inventory is also much more engaging in Outlast 2, again never taking you out of the action when using it. Once you open the inventory Blake looks down into his pockets where you can see batteries & bandages. Yes, bandages! A change from Miles Upshur’s magic health regeneration abilities akin to Wolverine, Blake Langermann must stitch himself up when he is injured and will retain all damage incurred until he does so. Blake gets beat up pretty bad over the course of the game and the inventory screen adjusts for it, with his clothes becoming more stained and ragged as the game progresses. This is one of the rare gameplay expansions that really works and adds to the games’ scare factor, being able to go through your pockets to realise you don’t have any bandages to heal up a nasty wound is so much more terrifying than just camping in a corner for a few seconds until your screen stops being red.
Speaking of visibility, a huge missed opportunity that I hoped would flourish in the gameplay is that Blake wears glasses. It’s demonstrated very early on that his vision is greatly impaired without them and as a result I expected Blake to lose or damage his glasses over the course of the game, long story short he doesn’t. In fact his sight problems never resurface outside of non-playable scripted sequences.
Finally, I’m yet to address the flashback sequences. These have become a very contentious matter among players, with some arguing this is where the game is at its best, and others where the game is at its worst. I personally think these sequences are far too frequent, and far too repetitive, and as a result dampen the game as a whole. But the setting itself is far more creepy than the Arizona forest the rest of the game happens in.
All the flashback sequences happen at the Catholic middle school and involve Blake piecing together what happened to Jessica. All of them involve walking around empty corridors where creepy stuff happens (see F.E.A.R.’s Alma hallucinations as a close example), but you’re almost always being hunted down by that previously mentioned gore monster that represents the Priest who molested children and staged Jessica’s suicide. It’s an instant death if you are caught by it, and much unlike the corridors of Mount Massive, the school is difficult to navigate and often consists of trial and error before working out where you’re supposed to run. There’s even a section where I had to run back and forth in a single corridor for a scripted event to trigger and allow me to progress. Why does it do this? Well, because it’s scary of course. Had these school sequences been less frequent, and perhaps never had the gore monster, then it may have been significantly more enjoyable. But as they stand, it’s simply another attempt at Red Barrels trying too hard to scare, without actually thinking about why it’s scary.
Speaking of visibility, a huge missed opportunity that I hoped would flourish in the gameplay is that Blake wears glasses. It’s demonstrated very early on that his vision is greatly impaired without them and as a result I expected Blake to lose or damage his glasses over the course of the game, long story short he doesn’t. In fact his sight problems never resurface outside of non-playable scripted sequences.
Finally, I’m yet to address the flashback sequences. These have become a very contentious matter among players, with some arguing this is where the game is at its best, and others where the game is at its worst. I personally think these sequences are far too frequent, and far too repetitive, and as a result dampen the game as a whole. But the setting itself is far more creepy than the Arizona forest the rest of the game happens in.
All the flashback sequences happen at the Catholic middle school and involve Blake piecing together what happened to Jessica. All of them involve walking around empty corridors where creepy stuff happens (see F.E.A.R.’s Alma hallucinations as a close example), but you’re almost always being hunted down by that previously mentioned gore monster that represents the Priest who molested children and staged Jessica’s suicide. It’s an instant death if you are caught by it, and much unlike the corridors of Mount Massive, the school is difficult to navigate and often consists of trial and error before working out where you’re supposed to run. There’s even a section where I had to run back and forth in a single corridor for a scripted event to trigger and allow me to progress. Why does it do this? Well, because it’s scary of course. Had these school sequences been less frequent, and perhaps never had the gore monster, then it may have been significantly more enjoyable. But as they stand, it’s simply another attempt at Red Barrels trying too hard to scare, without actually thinking about why it’s scary.
Horrible, Not Horrifying: Conclusions Of Outlast 2
Red Barrels certainly had their work cut out for them following up on Outlast. It’s admirable to see what they attempted to do with the sequel, and though a lot of what they tried doesn’t really work too well, it’s commendable that they genuinely tried to make Outlast 2 a bigger, scarier game than the first.
The game is gorgeous to look at and has had a significant visual upgrade from the first game. It’s clear that the original Outlast was a low budget indie game that was riffing on the success of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Outlast 2 though looks more akin to a AAA title, even in length it’s a decent upgrade at almost double the length of the first game, really allowing the story to breathe and develop beyond the basics.
But, Red Barrels made the mistake of assuming what made the original great was the gore and the chase sequences. To then make them the sole focus of Outlast 2, but with a story and gameplay that were designed for the very opposite, you get some extremely mixed signals and an overall messy experience.
Red Barrels certainly had their work cut out for them following up on Outlast. It’s admirable to see what they attempted to do with the sequel, and though a lot of what they tried doesn’t really work too well, it’s commendable that they genuinely tried to make Outlast 2 a bigger, scarier game than the first.
The game is gorgeous to look at and has had a significant visual upgrade from the first game. It’s clear that the original Outlast was a low budget indie game that was riffing on the success of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Outlast 2 though looks more akin to a AAA title, even in length it’s a decent upgrade at almost double the length of the first game, really allowing the story to breathe and develop beyond the basics.
But, Red Barrels made the mistake of assuming what made the original great was the gore and the chase sequences. To then make them the sole focus of Outlast 2, but with a story and gameplay that were designed for the very opposite, you get some extremely mixed signals and an overall messy experience.
STORY: 5/10
GAMEPLAY: 6/10
PRESENTATION: 9/10
LIFESPAN: 7/10
SCORE: 6/10
Is Outlast 2 worth playing? Yes, just to experience what Red Barrels we’re trying to achieve. But it’s best done so with an empty stomach and a lot of patience, as even though the games whole mantra is “because it’s scary” you’ll more than likely just be put off your dinner and break a controller in frustration.