Outlast 2 Review : A bed-wetter for adults

A few years back at 2013, amateur game development and publishing company, Red Barrels, published and developed a game which turned out to be pretty popular among horror-centric gamers. That game was called Outlast. Now, 4 years later on 25th April, 2017, after almost a year-long tease, they released the sequel to that game. And boy is it scary!

The Game

When the Canadian company released the reveal trailer for the game, people were as horrified as they were excited to play. The first-person survival horror game has the player play as a veteran cameraman, Blake Langerman, who, along with his wife and fellow reporter Lynn, visit a remote village in Arizona, to investigate the murder of a certain girl, nicknamed Jane Doe. The plot of the game evolves around the incident that happens, after the helicopter they were travelling in, loses control and crashes, where the duo get separated. Soon after this, the player witnesses some horrifying and pretty disturbing scenes as the game advances. Jake's sole motive is to find and rescue his wife and escape the village as soon as possible. The character has to maneuver carefully amongst a cult of flesh eating people, and spooky inexplicable characters who follow a self-crowned Messiah/God-like figure, called Knoth, who brainwashed the people that he'll save them from the world's end. The character finds himself trapped in the village, along with some hilly terrain, lush dense jungle, and a spooky abandoned school, which we'll come back to soon. The actual head-turner for this game is the fact that the character, Blake, basically can't do anything except running, jumping, crawling, accessing his video camera and bandages, and some pre defined actions in the game. This enhanced the survival theme of the game more, as it did put the character in a tight corner.

Plot Breakdown

As already mentioned, the game begins as Blake and Lynn are separated. Blake, accompanied by his videocamera, needs to search and rescue Lynn, and escape the village. Blake soon discovers that the village is run by a man called "Papa" Sullivan Knoth. Knoth claims to the villagers that he is their Messiah, their Christ and their Redeemer. As Blake nears Lynn, they are again separated, Lynn is further kidnapped by another cult who opposes Knoth, and is known as the Heretics. Blake, struggling to outlast the vicious villagers and Knoth's pick-axe wielding executioners, is saved by a man called Ethan. Ethan was the father of "Jane Doe". It was him who made his daughter, Anna Lee abandon the village, as he feared that, like the rest of the village women, Knoth would rape and kill her, blaming that she carried the Anti-Christ. Also, as Blake progresses, he is teleported by a mysterious white flashing light, to his and Lynn's childhood Catholic school. Blake, now 8 years old, has to escape the labyrinth of corridors and vents of the school, being chased by a demonic monster and finds himself in a different place in the village every time, as before. In the end, Blake rescues Lynn in an abandoned coal mine, but Lynn dies delivering their baby, and uttering her final words, "There is nothing there.". While in his school scenes, it is shown that Blake is recollecting his memories with his childhood friend Jenn, who had a crush on him. In the epilogue, it is revealed that Jennifer was murdered by their principal, but before that she insisted Blake to stay, which he did not, and sorely regrets. The game ends mysteriously as Blake stands holding his child as the world ends, yet again teleported back where he finds himself with Jennifer in the school kitchen.

Gameplay

The game has been gathering quite a fan base, mostly because of it's game, which profoundly compliments it's story. The character has standard controls like walking, sprinting and crouching, however these are particularly the only things that the character mostly does, other than interacting with his constant companion, his videocamera equipped with night vision and an enhanced microphone. Since most of the game is played in dark, and as this is the 21st century, the developers decided to ditch the flashlight and get the character equipped with a much more modern device. The night vision in the camera lets players see pretty well in the dark, and the microphone lets players hear malicious people standing behind walls, to look out for. But this comes with a cost, of course. Just like in standard FPS games, they player has to have an ample supply of batteries scattered through many intricate places all around the village. The battery drains power only when the night vision and/or the microphone is in use. Although, the fact that one time or the other the battery gets exhausted is kinda more frustrating than scary.

Talking of frustrating, lets talk about the characters ability, which, he has none. Say if you encounter a crazy, blood thirsty villager, which you definitely will, how would you guard yourself ?? One might think the character might pick up a stick, or throw a rock, but no. He is TOO scared to do that. Well that's the only reason I could think of. Anyways, your only way to stay alive would be to outrun him, or hide without him noticing you. Also, pro-tip, if you ever notice a freakishly tall woman, wielding a pick-axe, just stop thinking and run for your life.

Also, the character carries a bunch of bandages, and can collect them scattered around the village in many small places, however they don't seem to help much, because you won't get much of an opportunity to "heal" yourself once you get attacked.

Well except for the cringy, clustered and frustrating movements, the gameplay does add charm to the game.

The Ending

What this game truly surprises it's players, is when the game ends. The final part, just after Lynn dies, and Blake ends up with Jennifer in his childhood chilling spot, is so very much definable by the players themselves. One can think of many versions of this games ending. One interesting ending can be the fact that, as the villagers were seemingly brainwashed by microwave emissions from the tower, Blake and Lynn's sufficiently prolong stay might have had affected them as well, more so to Blake than Lynn, as she spent most of her time underground away from the rays. This might explain the fact that, in the end when she says, "There's nothing there", right after she gives birth, might mean that there was no baby, but Blake could look and hold the baby because he was exposed more to the rays. And perhaps those rays caused the deaths of the villagers, and as Knoth controlled them, his statement about him murdering his children(referring to the villagers) might sound legitimate. But, it's mostly up to the players whether they believe this theory, or believe that everything really happened, or may have a theory of their own.

Final verdict

The classic cult-ridden horror-centric games lost their charm since Amnesia: The Dark Decent. However, that wasn't a long time before Outlast was released and gave us hope. And now, in 2017, Outlast 2 doesn't disappoint us at all. Except for the oh-so-frustrating situations, like when the guy gets his a@# handed on to by an old guy, this game is quite a roller coaster of mystery, jump-scares, and a village full of crazy people, slaughter house for humans and dead bodies here and there. Of course one needs to prepare themselves with man sized diapers and a cross all the time. For those who love survival-horror games or are new to this genre and would want to explore more, this game is highly recommended.