Outlast 2: First Look at Gameplay Is a Wild Trip to Hell
When Outlast dropped in 2013, it was in the wake of Amnesia: The Dark Descent. After an era of Resident Evil 4-inspired action horror titles, the return to a more stealth-focused horror experience was heralded as the coming of a new and glorious dark age.
It’s a movement that still has a lot of momentum, with stellar releases like Soma and Layers of Fear. Unfortunately, for every outstanding title, there are a hundred micro-budget amateur Unity projects. Even successfully funded and widely supported titles like Among the Sleep often fail to deliver on anything more than a fleetingly enjoyable C+ experience. What’s even worse are promising titles like P.T. (technically I’m talking about Silent Hills) that wind up dead before they even get out the door. And then, of course, there is Slender: The Eight Pages and the legion of shit that Slenderman memes turned pop culture icon has wrought.
The point of all this is that when Outlast was released to moderately positive reviews, the metric at the time for quality was totally fucked up. It sits at around an 80% on Metacritic (an altogether fucked up system in its own way), which while good doesn’t by most standards qualify it to be considered a “classic.” For most horror critics, the game failed to live up to their memory of how great Amnesia was, and they were simultaneously soured on the whole concept by their exposure to similar, cash-in titles. I’m not just spouting hate at other critics. It’s certainly how I felt at the time too.
Now, with the benefit of a few years time and the decreasing popularity of Slenderman, I can more accurately appreciate Outlast for what it is. Though mechanically similar to Amnesia, the tone and substance are completely different. If Amnesia were a John Carpenter film, Outlast is more of a Rob Zombie. It’s a fucked up, intentionally shocking, and depraved look into an insane world. The visuals, characters, and scares are unforgettable, followed up by an exceptional DLC pack that grew the narrative without feeling tacked on.
For Outlast 2, the environment into which it’s being released is totally different. Thanks to the fickle hearts and short attention span of the media and industry, Amnesia is no longer the go-to title when people think of horror. With multiple releases and extensive coverage by YouTube gamers/streamers, Outlast is on more equal footing. So with Outlast 2, the people at Red Barrels have to balance what people loved, while giving the game its own identity. Keeping it too much the same will mark it as a greedy repeat, and too much of a departure will alienate the core fan base.
When I approached the playable demo for Outlast 2 at E3 2016, I did so more as a scholar checking over an academic paper than as a gamer. When I started playing, Outlast 2 did something incredible: it took me out of my head and put me into the game world. The visually stunning intro and hauntingly powerful audio made my pupils dilate like a junkie getting his fix. Moving through the first area, I was surprised by the level of restraint they were showing. Sure, there was rotting food and a few dead bodies, but nothing was jumping out and going “boo.” I was treated to a more subtle scare at one point when I decided to use my night vision to check outside of a window. Right behind the fence in the field of corn was a ghoulish, withered farmer, staring directly at me. He wasn’t more than a few meters away, and my switching to night vision gave him no hint that I could see him. So he just stood there, slowly sizing me up, before backing away into the night. It’s the kind of scare that could easily have been accompanied by an earsplitting sting and some shrieking. It’s a level of control and maturity that is unseen in more amateur products.
And then, a crow popped out and went boo. Okay, I’m not really mad about jump scares, especially when they aren’t the sole horror element. I just get really tired of being perpetually startled and haven’t yet devolved into enough of a prostitute to sell my screams online for likes and subscribes. Fortunately, this was one of the few cheap scares in the demo. Not to say there weren’t other jump scares. There were plenty of those. Rather, the jump scares were all well built up, serving as climactic finales rather than just assuring that the player isn’t asleep.
What the Outlast 2 segments I played did best was weave these visceral scares into a more nuanced, depraved world. There seems to be more of a supernatural element here this time, which does wonders for making you question if what you see is actually real. It combines this surrealism with brutally savage and grotesque violence, grounding it all in a solid horrifying reality that you just can’t look away from. The religious vibe gives it an air of believable insanity, despite being pulled by a frog tongue into a haunted school.
I got the chance to talk to the dev team a bit after and made a video about my time with the demo. Check it out if you want to know more:
So, how about you folks? Looking forward to the release of Outlast 2? What are you hoping from this new direction? And what did you think of the first? Let me know in the comments!
Categorized:Editorials Horror Gaming News
