As the tall, gangly men with flashlights hunt him down, their voices creeping ever closer, Blake runs directly into an otherworldly figure - a woman with a horrifying, lifeless face and a giant, homemade axelike weapon. Soon after, Blake finds himself back in the high desert, running from the townsfolk once again - and from something much more sinister. It's sucked up by demonic hands and tentacles as Blake yells her name.

She runs by, a small girl in a prim school uniform, and Blake runs into the hallway, only to see her body hanging from the ceiling. As Blake walks along aisles of lockers, black silhouettes materialize and disappear by his side until eventually the entire hallway is overrun with ghostly energy, lockers banging open and closed in a riotous cacophony.īlake is familiar with this school, and he makes his way into another hallway, where he begins screaming for Jessica, a young girl he once knew. He's landed in a Catholic school.Īs if Catholic school weren't terrifying enough, the hallways are dark and filled with shifting, shooting shadows. The vent eventually falls, and Blake emerges in a well-lit classroom covered in crosses and posters glorifying Jesus.

The demonic voice laughs as he crawls across the thin metal, peering backward every now and then with a single button press as other voices join the tunnel of terror. He ends up in a vent system with a deep, malicious voice ringing in his ears. As he peers into it, tonguelike tentacles emerge from the black pit and suck him down. The townsfolk have flashlights, and Blake hides from their beams in a cornfield the town is walled off in certain places, subtly nudging players in the correct direction while imparting the illusion of choice in an open world.Įventually Blake stumbles across a well. His breaths huff in my ears as he becomes more panicked, and bodiless whispers assault my senses, sending shivers down my spine. At one point, I direct him straight into a cactus and it actually does damage, slowing him down for a second while he recovers. He screams for his wife, and he hears horrified shrieks in return.īlake runs. After a while, though, they begin to chase him, intent on killing him. Blake spots townsfolk as he searches the houses and shacks, though at first they simply stare at him with glowing green night-vision eyes and then fade silently into the night. Crosses hang from the doorways and under one canopy, flies swarm around a pile of blood and dismembered limbs. The tiny, scattered town is rife with religious imagery and bloodshed.

Outlast is a brilliantly panicky franchise, and from what I've seen, the sequel proudly continues this trend. This is on top of the constant, frantic hunt for Lynn and Blake's desperate attempts to outrun the violent demons and townsfolk occupying the small desert town. Also mirroring the first installment, night vision quickly drains the camera, sending Blake on a constant, frantic hunt for fresh batteries. Just as in the original Outlast ( which I adored), Blake can use his camcorder's night vision to see in the dark, lending a majority of the game an unearthly, eerie green glow. Some of the buildings are dimly lit, but other areas are completely engulfed in blackness. You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu.

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