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| Welcome to die. |
A few years ago, Outlast burst onto the scene and almost single-handedly revived the ailing horror genre. The independently-produced scarefest did an incredible job of terrifying anyone who played it, as well as giving us all a few more reasons to steer clear of any abandoned asylums we happen to come across. The first game rightfully earned developer Red Barrels legions of followers and became an instant classic in the genre, much like Amnesia: The Dark Descent before it.
Now, the much-anticipated sequel has arrived on the scene
with a lot of hype and some big shoes to fill. Sadly, while the first game’s
relatively simplistic mechanics and harrowing chase sequences helped to cement
it as a classic, the same ideas actually manage to hinder Outlast 2, which
isn’t a bad game, but fails to topple the lofty bar set by its predecessor.
Let’s start off on a positive note by talking about what’s
new, and there’s actually quite a lot to talk about. The setting, for instance,
is totally different this time around. Delving into the big bad book of horror
clichés, Red Barrels landed on the page marked ‘backwards religious cults in
the middle of nowhere’ and ran with it. Where Outlast confined us to the tight
halls, grey cells and grimy sewers of the Mount Massive Asylum, Outlast 2
shakes things up, transporting our new hero, cameraman Blake Langermann, to the
Arizona desert.
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| Meet Marta. |
Blake will spend the 6-8 hours of the game’s duration
sprinting, climbing and tiptoeing his way through villages, mines, and
cornfields. Without giving too much away, the plot involves a pair of rival
cults, each boasting its own psychotic leader and monstrous lieutenants. Blake
and his wife Lynn are thrust into the middle of this conflict and separated,
and like any good hubby, Blake will do whatever it takes to save his love.
The plot gets a little convoluted and bizarre towards the
latter stages of the game, with an ending that will surely prove to be very
divisive, but it does a good enough job of funnelling the action along and
providing you with some motivation to keep on trucking. And motivation is
something you’ll need to cancel out the frustration that comes along with large
sections of Outlast 2’s gameplay.
A big selling point of the game prior to release was the
introduction of huge, open areas, with many fans eagerly awaiting the thrill
and fear that seemingly go hand-in-hand with the idea of blindly charging
through a cornfield and wishing with all your might not to bump into anything
spooky. Unfortunately, in practice, these large environments aren’t a whole lot
of fun to navigate. For the most part, you’re left blindly running in circles
until you happen to come across the exit or the one object you need to use to
proceed.
| Cornflakes - Lovely. Corn on the cob - Awesome. Cornfields filled with murderous villagers - Not so cool. |
Why don’t these open areas work as well? The simple answer
is design. The first game’s narrow, compact environments facilitated a seamless
gameplay experience with guaranteed frights and minimal frustration. The
developers could introduce an enemy at one end of a long hallway, safe in the
knowledge that the player would have no option but to turn around and run the
other way. They could then plan out the player’s route, introducing additional
obstacles and enemies along the way to create a linear, but harrowing
experience. In Outlast 2, you have a bigger sandbox to run around, but there’s
still only one door that will lead you to the next passage or one item that
will open up the next scene, so it becomes much more about luck and repetition
than anything else.
In principle, the idea of frantically searching around for
your way out of this nightmare is both terrifying and realistic, and could have
resulted in some highly exciting, dynamic chases, but it just isn’t a whole lot
of fun to play. With a few one-hit kill enemies thrown in for good measure, too
often you’ll be forced to replay sections again and again, running a slightly
different way each and every time until you ‘trial and error’ your way into the
solution. Speaking of the enemies, none of them manage to be quite as memorable
as Whistleblower’s Eddie Gluskin (also known as The Groom), but Marta, a
gigantic, pickaxe-wielding, witch-like figure, sure will scare your pants off
every time she bursts onto the screen, and the game features a pretty
interesting cast of villains in general.
Every now and then, Blake will enter a dreamlike state in which
he’ll return to the school of his childhood, navigating abandoned classrooms
and creepy hallways. These sections of the game are much more reminiscent of
the original Outlast and I found them to be generally much scarier and more enjoyable
to play, perhaps reinforcing the idea that this sort of game works better in a
confined space. One cool new mechanic is also the addition of a directional
microphone on your video camera, allowing you to listen through walls and doors
to locate enemies. It drains the camera battery extra fast, but it certainly
saved my life more than once and added a little bit of extra depth to the
stealthy gameplay.
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| The school sequences break up the frantic action with some slow-burning scares. |
Just like in the original game, Outlast 2 presents you with
limited options: run, hide, or die. The last one isn’t too appealing and the
second isn’t particularly useful this time around, so you’ll basically be doing
a whole lot of running. There are still plenty of beds to crawl under and
blood-filled barrels to jump into, but with the sheer quantity of enemies and
scope of the environments, hiding just doesn’t feel particularly useful. Again,
the first game presented us with such tiny spaces that hiding in lockers was
often the only way to escape certain enemies, but here it’s easier to just
sprint in random directions for 10 seconds until your pursuers simply give up
the chase.
Despite the negative aspects mentioned above, Outlast 2
remains a fun horror experience. There are plenty of gruesome scenes to uncover
and creepy sequences to endure. The developers sure know how to create an
atmosphere, using lighting, sound and scenery to great effect. Some parts of
the game are particularly strong; one latter section down in the mines is
incredibly tense, the school sequences are terrifically terrifying, and I won’t
be forgetting my encounters with Marta for quite some time. The opening thirty
minutes also does a wonderful job of building the tension with creepy sound
effects, glowing eyes in the darkness and “did I just see that?” moments that
will have you freaking out and gleefully awaiting the horrors to come.
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| Spooky spooky spooky! |
Is it the lack of innovation and slightly subpar level
design that makes Outlast 2 a less satisfying experience? Is it the fact that I
couldn’t help comparing it to another recently released horror game that
brought so much more to the table (Resident Evil 7)? Is it the fact that the
first game set such lofty expectations? Is it just a case of ‘second album
syndrome’? Maybe it’s a little of all of these things. By the end of Outlast, I
felt like I’d ridden a rollercoaster of terrors and could still feel the
adrenaline pumping in my veins. The first game’s Whistleblower DLC left me even
more terrified. When Outlast 2’s credits rolled, I found myself doing little
more than shrugging my shoulders.
The folks at Red Barrels deserve credit for trying some
different ideas. Creativity is a virtue and, had the developers taken the
‘safer’ route of sending us back to Mount Massive for another 8 hours of cell
blocks and offices, I think we’d all have been a little let down. The trouble
is, they didn’t go far enough. They kept the same gameplay and stuck it in new
surroundings, but more tinkering was needed to make the whole package gel
together. As it is, Outlast 2 is a satisfying experience, but it’s very much a
horror game-by-numbers. It follows beats we’ve heard before, uses tricks we’ve
seen before, and ultimately feels like a game we’ve played before. I wasn’t
expecting this sequel to revolutionise the genre in the same way the original
did, but I still hoped for more than this.
