Review: Outlast 2
Written by Ben Vollmer
About halfway through my play through of Outlast 2, I realized that a video game had never terrified me so much. Not because Outlast 2 is in the master class of the genre, but because the game seemed so willing to do whatever it felt like to instill shock that I was genuinely afraid of what they might do next. That is most, for better or for worse, of what Outlast 2 brings to the table. You can count the mechanical advancements between this and the original on one hand (all of which we’ll get to in a bit), but it’s largely just a better looking version of its predecessor.
The game’s narrative is plenty ambitious. You begin the game side by side with your wife, Lynn. The two of you are on an expedition to cover a mysterious murder somewhere in the middle of Arizona, and before you can get their, your helicopter crashes and separates the two of you. That’s pretty much where the tropes end, as Outlast 2 gears itself up for some extra weirdness.
The game is largely centered around a feud between two cults: One headed by an (extremely large) big bad in Knoth, a man who rapes, impregnates and subsequently kills the children who are birthed — all in fear that they may wind up being the Anti-Christ. The other is a group of separatists called “The Heretics”, who envision an entirely different course of events taking place. The internal conflict between the two cults is interesting enough on the surface, but the game fails to really dig into its themes in religion and sexual violence. Outside of a couple dozen notes to be found in random areas along the way, depth is hard to come by. For a game that’s so reliant on its odd plot, it doesn’t give enough attention to it.
Fortunately, Outlast 2 does a nice job on building the mythology of the franchise. Thanks to a wild ending, the game connects itself in ever so subtle ways to the original. Even then, it’s near mandatory that you find a single journal log that is a good bit out of the beaten path. A series of odd flashes and rumbles are your only other connection to a world outside of the cult’s village. It’s enough to be intriguing, but not enough to lift an otherwise disconnected story that relies too much on shock factor.
Outlast 2 does introduce a few gameplay mechanics, including the ability to record video for future use. There’s not much to be found here, especially story wise, but it can be useful in piecing together where to go next. The protagonist, Blake, will go out of his way to explain what he saw just moments ago. It could have just as easily been done the first time around, instead of having to dig into the menu to do it, but it helps increase the strikingly short campaign, which rests at a measly 6-8 hours on normal difficulty levels.
That’s not the worst of it, either. Outlast 2 plagues the game with short and increasingly difficult chase sequences that feel more like a game of Temple Run than something out of a AAA horror game. The enemies are so quick to stab you with terrifyingly large weapons (especially the “mini bosses”) that even turning around to see where you stand will result in instant death. It normally takes a few test runs before you’re able to figure out exactly where to go, and by the third or fourth time, the horror is gone and all you’re left with is frustration.
The most compelling part of Outlast 2 is a series of flashbacks that take Blake back to his elementary school days. After learning that a former best friend committed suicide, you’re tasked with finding out what happened via a series of hangman puzzles and sifting through classrooms. It’s dark classrooms and eerie lack of presence makes it the most fear-inducing portion of the game, and it connects quite horrifyingly with the games themes of religion and sexual violence.
Central to the Outlast experience is an inability to fight back. This made a lot of sense in the original, where you are tasked with facing overly large prison inmates and monsters, but Knoth’s cult members (aside from the mini bosses) are far from formidable. Most of them have crippling cases of sexually transmitted diseases or some other kind of physical ailment. In fact, many of them just crawl on the ground. With machetes and weapons laying all about, it makes zero sense that Blake (who appears physically fit) wouldn’t pick something up and fight back. Even if it was a minor part of the game, it would have made getting through the mass amounts of cult members much less of a slog and more satisfying.
Ultimately, Outlast 2 doesn’t have much to offer. It’s a shame that it’s ambitious plot and often savvy writing goes to waste in exchange of awful chase sequences and long stretches of finding where to go next. Everything seems more like an attempt to stretch out its relatively short time frame. It isn’t until the very end that we see some of the original’s brilliant take on Amnesia, where you find yourself solving puzzles and gathering items in stealth, often with an intimidating foe just around the corner.
If it weren’t for some saving graces and a strong use of imagery, Outlast 2 might have been the death of an early franchise. Instead, fans of the franchise are left with a shell of what the game could have been and something just as rotten as the members of the game’s resident cults.
Score: 4
Rank: N/A
Price: $29.99
