ouTlasT 2

PuBlisher REd BARRElS / DeveloPer REd BARRElS / format XBoX onE / release Date out now / cost £23.99

If at fIrst you don’t succeed, dIe, dIe agaIn louise Blain

Fear in videogames is a funny thing. Well, not literally. While it might look like just a matter of putting you in a dark corridor while things jump out at you like a cheap fairground ghost train, the truth is that it’s actually exceptionally difficult to terrify someone who is happily sitting on their sofa with a cup of tea within reach. The original Outlast knows this only too well, expertly leading you into an abandoned asylum with only a video camera for company. Taking away everything but the ability to look, look harder and run, it’s a horrific rush of adrenaline that makes you genuinely afraid to turn every corner. You’d expect more of the same from Outlast 2. If the night-vision camera ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Well…

Outlast 2 moves the action to the Arizona desert, where a pregnant woman has been found murdered. Journalist Blake Langermann and his wife Lynn travel to the area to investigate – and before you can even take in the view from the helicopter, everything goes awry and Blake is left alone and bleeding on the ground, in the dark, with only his camera for company. So far, so familiar – and the set-up is perfect. From the get go, the atmosphere is loaded and grim. Influences from every hick-packed horror movie are everywhere but with the nasty cranked up to 11. It’s almost decadently grisly as you uncover the activities of the Satanic cult that calls the place home.

The great outdoors

Here’s where the ‘but’ that you’re waiting for comes in. Where the original had the long oppressive corridors of Mount Massive Asylum, the shift to open outdoor environments immediately becomes a problem. While exploring is initially brilliant, tense fun, the second prowling enemies are set upon you the fear unravels. The first time you meet an ominous character armed with an enormous pickaxe, you’ll probably be terrified as she looms out of the mist before stabbing you in the crotch, letting you watch the blood pour and then playing golf with what’s left. But as you restart and desperately try to work out what the developers want you to in that section before having the same cutscene happen again, the terror quickly wears off. Prepare to die. And not in a fun Dark Souls way.

While each section might look like an open world, it’s not. Open worlds suggest choice, and Red Barrels has a very specific plan for Blake – you just need to work out what that is. And that means running in circles in the dark, furiously trying to see through the green-tinged gloom to trigger another save point before a one-hit kill takes you down. This isn’t an isolated incident, and whether you’re in the corn fields early in the game or desperately trying to navigate forests of barbed wire, frustration quickly becomes Outlast 2’s biggest problem. While signposting can sometimes be clear – oh hello, smudgy bloody

short cut

What is it?

A jaunt into the Arizona desert where things have gone more than a bit wonky with the local Satanists.

What’s it like?

Endless hours of that one section of a found footage horror movie where they turn on the night vision. Who’s it for?

People who don’t mind losing all sense of fear as they rinse and repeat each trial and error section.

Outlast 2 was banned in Australia for a few days before it was discovered that Red Barrels had submitted the wrong footage

far left Hallucinatory trips back to Blake’s childhood take you to a catholic school where horrors lurk in the dark.

rIgHt every grim detail is realised perfectly, but you won’t get time to appreciate the horrific scenery.

ASSAult And BAttERiES

Blake langermann really needs to switch to some kind of rechargeable lithium ion device. what kind of journalist still uses AAs? in order to keep your camera suitably charged for peering into the gloom with night vision, you need to keep one eye on your battery usage and another for spares lying around. toggling night vision on and off or moving to just the microphone can save some charge but, just like when you need to replace the ones in your tV remote, it’s best to keep a stash handy. there’s no other controllers to steal them from and you’ll be literally left fumbling in the pitch black. handprints on that wall – other times it’s nonexistent and you’re left alone in the dark, surrounded by enemies who, despite having QTE options, will eliminate you in a matter of seconds. Even a new camera mechanic where you record and rewatch particular atrocities just to hear Blake’s grim narration over the top makes Outlast 2 seem obsessed with repetition. Fear just doesn’t work that way.

Just like the first game, you’re encouraged to hide – but running quickly becomes the default option. Even bolting doors behind you quickly loses its previously exhilarating charm as you repeatedly restart each area in order to progress. There’s a beautifully detailed world of horrors here to explore, and an atmosphere of utter madness, but you’ll see very little of it as you run panicked in any direction but toward the many enemies lucky enough to be able to hold things other than a camera. While barrels are scattered to cower in, and you’ll find the odd moment of smugness as murderous foes wander past your hiding place, it feels like these mere seconds are a grim reminder of what went before in the original game.

Skool Daze

Blake has flashbacks to his school days and it’s only when experiencing these that you’re reminded just how good Outlast’s horror can feel. Nightmares wait expertly in clean corridors, scares lurk in an innocentlooking swimming pool. It’s only in these hallucinations that the game reaches its true terrifying potential as phones ring in abandoned hallways and you crawl through air ducts to the blood-curdling soundtrack. There are some truly terrifying moments

left Initially terrifying, night vision quickly becomes infuriating as everything looks the same.

“Hiding is encouraged – but running quickly becomes the default option”

to be found in the final third of the game as you journey into even darker locations – and one particularly brilliant sequence on a raft – but the pain and suffering you’ll go through to get there just doesn’t balance it out. As Blake goes through his Revenant-style misery-fest you’ll probably feel something similar. Disappointingly, it’s just not for the reasons Outlast 2 wants you to. n

oXm verDict

glimpses of horrors can’t save this horrifically frustrating experience.