Even Dead Space (the most terrifying game I’ve ever played) didn’t give me the chills I experienced in the last quarter of Outlast 2. Whether it was a deformed giant carrying an equally grotesque dwarf on his shoulders, shooting arrows of fire in my direction naked men with face paint, screaming with anger and moaning in pain - probably from the sticks jabbed into their faces - chasing me through a rickety old coal refinery and its labyrinth of tunnels that lie beneath it or the haunting creature that stalks the halls of the school in which Blake’s recurring nightmare takes place - it didn’t matter who was out to kill me, it was all equally frightening. As I got deeper into the game, new antagonizers showed up more frequently. And to make things more interesting, she’s not the only one this time around. As I progressed through this twisted town, the moments in which she was about to show up became more obvious (thanks to her haunting audio cue), but the intensity level kept growing with every new altercation. She’s a taller, quicker, creepier and more feminine adversary who wields a giant pickaxe that can kill you in one fell swoop, and spews crazy sermons from her high pitched and hoarse diaphragm. Outlast 2 has a similar antagonist who goes by the name Marta, but for the sake of word play, let’s call her “Maniacal Marta”. Speaking of crazy people, there was always a persistent predator after you in the first game, and while I can’t remember what his name ever was, a good friend of mine - who hates horror games - likes to call him “Big Biggums”. Outlast 2 made me feel the strongest sensations of stress and claustrophobia that I haven’t experienced since Dead Space. It didn’t matter if I was in a more open space or navigating tunnels, hallways, or corn fields - having to frantically switch between night vision to see in the dark, or utilizing the microphone to get a better sense of my surroundings and lowering it to conserve battery power to aimlessly search for an escape route was frustrating, even more so with crazy people or creatures right on my heels. Trying to navigate through its dark, dank, and narrow hallways is nerve wracking, especially when a grotesque creature begins stalking you. Throughout the game, Blake is pulled into this nightmare where his childhood friend Jessica, was found hanging from the ceiling of one of their classrooms. Another terrifying area is the catholic school that Blake and Lynn attended as children. Especially at night, hunted by flashlight and machete wielding psychopaths, hell bent on cleansing me of my sins. Children of the Corn taught me one great lesson in life, don’t go into a cornfield. Other areas were littered with totems of people skinned alive, sacrificial chambers, mass graves, and corn fields. The narrative forced me to go to smaller outlying areas of this decrepit town, populated by a coterie of murderous zealots or outcasts stricken by horrifying diseases living in dilapidated cabins, shacks, or lean-to’s - many of them littered with feces, blood, entrails, bones or various body parts, unsettling albeit depressing notes and torn out pages from Knoth’s biblead. Everything that transpires throughout the story is as unsettling as it is macabre and felt like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre had a love child with The Hills Have Eyes.
During the escape, they are ambushed by his loyal followers, who are then ambushed by the Heretics, led by the equally deranged Val taking Lynn away to her underground temple to watch over her until the “End of Days”. After Lynn and Blake escape the church of Temple Gate, Knoth announces to the town that an anti-christ lives inside of her and she must be killed. After waking up from the crash and finding the pilot skinned alive, Blake stumbles upon a church where his wife is being held and raped by the town’s insane leader, “Papa” Sullivan Knoth.
As they enter the airspace, their helicopter is shot down and the two are separated by deranged locals. Outlast 2 follows Blake and Lynn Langermann, two journalists out to investigate the murder of a pregnant woman that disappeared in the Havasupai region of Arizona. Outlast 2 serves up the same meaty dish of heart palpitations and sprinkles it with an unwholesome garnish of cerebral terror. Throughout it’s entirety, it consistently made my heartbeat intensify, which forced me to pause the game or wait in hiding for an extended amount of time. It’s mechanics were simple: record everything, run, hide and evade. The original Outlast was a frantic horror game of cat and mouse.