Outlast 2
Note to self: never go to Arizona
Developer Red BaRRels publisher Red BaRRels price Us$ 30 AvAilAble At steam redbarrelsgames.com/games/outlast-2
Outlast 2 garnered no small share of notoriety when it was temporarily refused classification in Australia on the grounds of sexual violence. While there are elements of sexualised violence in the final game, they play an all but inconsequential part in the overall story. At its core the game deals with something far more interesting and controversial: belief. Everyone believes something in Outlast 2, and believes to a pathological degree. Blake, the protagonist, believes he is responsible for a suicide, and the different factions all believe in some way or other they are doing God’s work. It’s a game about the corrupting influence of fanatical belief in anything. It’s also a game in which you can have your junk chopped off with a pickaxe, so there’s that too.
Blake Langermann is the husband and cameraman to investigative journalist Lynn Langermann. The couple are travelling to a remote location in the Arizonan Sonora desert to investigate the murder of a young pregnant woman when a bright light causes the helicopter they are traveling in to lose power and crash. When Blake regains consciousness, Lynn is missing and the pilot is strung up from a tree, skinned. Something is definitely wrong in the corn fields, and it’s not He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Fire and brimstone sermons of God’s wrath and the need for sacrifice ring out from loudspeakers and fanatics hunt for Blake with no good intent. Then things get weird and decidedly creepy.
There are a lot of jump scares in Outlast 2. That’s par for the course with survival horror, but there is also an almost overwhelming sense of
there are many good, genuinely frightening sequences, but there’s also plenty of repetition
unease that pervades the game that makes up for the cheap boo scares. The world is a great deal more open than the confined interiors of the original game. What this means mechanically is that there are far more places that enemies can come from but also more places to hide. Only the night vision mode of your battery hungry camera can pierce the darkness, and given the openness of the environment you’ll find yourself casting about wildly in all directions at the merest sound. It’s unnerving and thrilling and keeps the tension ramped up nice and high.
Thanks to some subtle visual signposting - the way forward is always marked with a faint light, be it a lamp, the moon, a fire or what have you - it’s difficult to get lost, but to get the most out of the game exploration to find letters and collectibles that fill out the story players really have to head off the beaten path, and due to the darkness, lack of batteries and openness of the maps, this is rarely fun. It feels like a way to pad play time for the most part, and in some ways the game already feels a little too padded. There are many good, and genuinely frightening sequences in Outlast 2, but there’s also plenty of repetition, so be warned. That said, the game also has one of the most audacious finales in memory, and just how many of the collectibles you found and how much you paid attention will drastically change your perception of events. DANIEL WILKS