On that journey, you’ll need to sneak past roving packs of rural folks gone mad. Or, even better, here’s six hicks in checked shirts, a QTE prompt, and no chance to use your healing bandages. This is literally a game where you can run out of batteries in a room containing another torch. The best wireless gaming headsets for 2020, MSI MEG Z490i Unify ITX motherboard review, MSI GeForce RTX 3080 Gaming X Trio 10G review. While the original Outlast could depend on the hospital’s architectural pathways to direct the player, pulling off subtle signposting in an outdoor setting can’t be as obvious without compromising the feeling of being lost and helpless. Thank you for signing up to GamesRadar+. Almost invariably, these chases are scripted, meaning you must get from point A to a specific point B as quickly as possible. Mortal Kombat 11 Getting Free PS5, Xbox Series X Upgrades With Cross-Play, PS5 Official Teardown Video Gives Great View Of Internals, By NY 10036. While sometimes signposting is clear, with bloody handprints telling you where you can climb walls, elsewhere it fails miserably, leaving you circling grim environments, desperate to see where to go next. Plus, the addition of the camera microphone is an enjoyably tense way to hear when enemies are on the other side of walls, without actually peeping your head around. In truth, Outlast's "no weapons" formula worked better as a shorter experience. There are monsters, sure, but Outlast 2's scariest moments come from its most familiar faces. Red Barrels knows horror. And while the visuals pack plenty of unsettling details, the sound design is some of the best in horror game history. These sequences are packed with expertly crafted jumps and atmospheric terror as you wander the passages and crawl through claustrophobic air conditioning ducts. While the more open environments do have scattered barrels to jump inside, and you’ll need stealth to survive some sections, you’re more likely to have a (remote) chance to live if you just start to run. There are a few standout moments in the present, other than the intriguing story. At the same time, however, I admire its purity, and to an extent, I'm willing to accept its shortcomings for the sake of true survival horror. The only way to understand your situation is to gather information from, for example, suicide notes and deranged gospel excerpts. This was occasionally an issue in the first game as well, but you often had more freedom and could play more strategically--if you're trying to avoid one bad guy in a large area while sneaking from room to room to collect valve handles, you can decide, "Okay, he'll see me when I dart across here, but I think I can make it back to this locker and hide before he catches me." Why on earth he couldn’t have espoused his bleak ramblings while looking at it the first time is unclear, but the ghost train judders to a stop every time, killing any tension built up by, y’know, not dying for fifteen minutes. It took Scott nearly a dozen hours to trek though Outlast 2's desert hellscape, though he immediately started over at a higher difficulty once he finished his first run. Please refresh the page and try again. Not only do you have to watch the probably static scene for ten long, dragging seconds, you also have to watch it back, this time with Blake’s panicked thoughts. An intriguing story just can’t save the infuriating misery that awaits. Its gameplay may stumble in certain ways, but you're always deeply, inescapably immersed in its atmosphere. You need a javascript enabled browser to watch videos. You’ll find him somewhere in the west growing mushrooms and playing Dark Souls. There was a problem. Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offer, The global authority on all things PlayStation. Like its predecessor, Outlast 2 puts the player in control of a journalist who finds himself with no choice but to, in the words of the intro, “run, hide, or die” from the maniacs … You will receive a verification email shortly. © 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. The notes scattered everywhere and the paintings of the hideous Papa Knoth, the leader of one of the aforementioned cults, are hideous glimpses into a horrific and senseless nightmare. It's almost scarier than being totally blind, so it's important to expend your battery power strategically. Even without wit, persistence does the trick, as frustrating as it can be. Just as before, your camera's night vision allows you see in the dark, and the new directional mic also lets you (loosely) track enemies through walls. It’s just hard when you have to admit that you wish you could stay in the school, a better location for Red Barrels’ expert talent in siphoning you through controlled scares. Privacy Policy. Where this worked perfectly in the more constrained environments of the original, as you dart into nearby lockers to avoid patrolling enemies, feeling equally terrified and smug as they wandered past, Outlast 2 has a very different plan for you. Stretched over twice the length of the original game, Outlast 2's gameplay starts to wear thin, especially since too many of its scripted chases funnel you down preset paths. Death isn’t just a key theme in these beautifully grim environments scattered with bodies on spikes. Besides the vague story and some directed flashback sequences that feel like a detour, the slow progression through rural Arizona is layered with enough apocalyptic Christian imagery to be a complete journey. Early on, I wandered the same cornfield for 30 minutes, crawling the perimeter and making several suicide runs to scope out the buildings for an exit. Sign up to get the best content of the week, and great gaming deals, as picked by the editors. Visit our corporate site. There’s genuine fear here. Thus developer Red Barrels has shifted its night vision gaze to the dusty Arizona desert, where journalist Blake Langermann and his wife, Lynn, are investigating the murder of a pregnant woman. Just like the original, Blake can only run, hide and film, nothing else, leaving you utterly helpless in the path of whatever lurks in the dark. Both functions drain your batteries and like healing bandages, they’re limited, but never so much that you’re left without enough supplies to outwit any pursuers. Horrific in completely the wrong way, Outlast 2 is a night-vision journey into frustration. I’ll keep spoiler-free, but other, more narratively important scenes are hideously, entertainingly grisly, unafraid to disgust you with their first-person journey into hell. Tension, really, is what Outlast 2 does best. GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers. Outlast 2 takes you through dilapidating farms and flooded mines and old townships that all say something about the history of the people who lived there. Outlast 2 is a disturbingly infuriating exercise in disappointment. With the grisly heights of Resident Evil 7 to compete with - we’ve seen plenty of squalor and filth already this year - Outlast 2 needed to deliver something fresh, but instead serves up near instantaneous frustration. James is PC Gamer’s bad boy, staying up late to cover Fortnite while cooking up radical ideas for the weekly livestream. Red Barrels’ commitment to building such a disorienting horror simulation is as admirable as it is annoying. He also reviewed Resident Evil 7 back in January, if you'd like a reference point for his taste in horror. At least when you do stay on track, it's unbelievably intense and exhilarating. It doesn't do much to build on the original formula, but it unquestionably provides a more polished version of the same idea. Receive mail from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors? What if the most deranged, doom-saying cultists are right? The transitions between the past and present too are brilliantly realised. A lot. The few times I happened to stumble the right way through a level, Outlast 2 felt like an audiovisual horror masterpiece. Outlast 2 was really disappointing to me. Expect to witness the best of the worst of the bible through some of the most shocking first-person scenes in games, period. Without clear rules the illusion fades quickly, exposing the simple AI and restricted level design. But I am angry. You’re going to die. As a result, every snapping twig, every distant scream, every gruesome corpse grips you with fear even more tightly than it might if you actually had a way to defend yourself. And when you’re dashing through it, nearly out of battery while a ‘man’ screams biblical verse and shoots fiery crossbow bolts past your head it’s both thrilling and nauseating, all propped up by an incredible soundtrack. Long after the final minutes of Outlast 2, I felt queasy, uncertain that what I saw had actually happened. Get the best gaming deals, reviews, product advice, competitions, unmissable gaming news and more! It’s one of the most bizarre ending sequences I’ve witnessed, tapping into a fear I’ve known since my first week at Sunday school. He can still kickflip and swears a lot. Repetition is also the order of the day with a new camera function. https://www.gamespot.com/reviews/outlast-2-review/1900-6416662 The writing is strong throughout, but Outlast 2's primary narrative relies too heavily on trite horror tropes, including sadistic backwoods fanatics, demon babies, and of course, damsels in distress. Blake’s flashbacks to his childhood, when a friend apparently committed suicide, see you exploring the hallways of a school and are stark reminders of the horror of the original Outlast. There aren't many new mechanics or scenarios to keep the intervening hours feeling varied and engaging. It’s no spoiler to say that it all very quickly goes downhill, as their helicopter falls out of the sky and Blake wakes up alone in the burning wreckage with only his camera and some spare batteries for company. In place of the first game's mental asylum, new protagonist Blake Langermann finds himself lost in the Arizona desert surrounded by religious zealots and fetid corpses. Please refresh the page and try again. Two, I don’t want to spoil a single thing . NY 10036. Night vision might be scary, but it also renders any environmental cues nigh on useless. What I like most about Outlast 2 is that it doesn't just use its themes as set-dressing. From the jagged, unnerving score to the harsh whispers that seem to come from all directions, Outlast 2's audio is the single biggest contributor to its remarkable sense of foreboding. Horror games have to walk a line between joy and nastiness. Please deactivate your ad blocker in order to see our subscription offer. Your wife is quickly kidnapped by a cult, the genesis of which is fascinating, mostly told through discarded letters and environmental cues. Every inch of this world, from the cornfields to the mines into which you must eventually descend, is beautifully realised. Outlast 2 is the sequel to the acclaimed survival horror game Outlast. Given that Outlast already has a follow-up of sorts in the shape of prequel Whistleblower, there was no need to go over the same ground again. Thank you for signing up to PC Gamer. Helpless is the key word. Knoth and his flock are preparing for the … Despite a suggestion of choice in this open looking world, Red Barrels wants you to do something very specific in each section. It’s just what you do. Visit our corporate site. It’s not an isolated issue either. Though you'll endure a wide variety of environments, desecration follows you everywhere. But there is another side to Outlast 2's story. One sequence sees Blake on a raft, travelling below imposing cliffs where nightmares await, taking in the horror passively, a world away from the mindlessly frustrating chase sequences. It’s fear of the drastic measures people will take to ensure their salvation, the burden of guilt, and whether or not the big guy up top exists and gives a damn. Even if you're stocked up on batteries, though, there's another reason to brave exploration: journal entries. Tension makes even simple exploration feel challenging, Hallucinations create a compelling side story, Tedious trial-and-error chase sequences disrupt flow. Altogether, Blake's hallucinations prove to be one of the game's strongest elements. A stealthy first-person horror adventure Price: $30 / £23