#Outlast 2 switch movie#
#Outlast 2 switch full#

If Chekhov’s gun is the narrative principle that if a gun is shown on a mantle in the first chapter, it must be fired by the third, then Outlast 2 runs on the principle of Chekhov’s piss. If you see a mutant hillbilly pissing into a ditch of decapitated heads and severed body parts, you can be sure that you’ll have to belly crawl your way through that filth in the next 15 minutes or so. This is a trick Outlast 2 comes back to again and again. It shows you something horrifying, something repulsive, then it grabs you by the scruff and rubs your nose in it. Outlast 2 is not game about pulling punches or subtle implications. There is something admirable about such a direct approach to terror.Ībout not wanting something to happen and then being forced to endure it, inch by inch, in excruciating detail. The eagerness Outlast 2 has for making the player wriggle uncomfortably, for forcing them to come face-to-face with some of the most gruesome and disturbing imagery I’ve ever seen in a horror game is impressive. What is less admirable, however, is the lack of follow-through in the narrative. Outlast 2 knows it wants to shock you, but it doesn’t know exactly what it wants to say.īefore we go any further, you need to know that Outlast 2 deals with some extremely heavy and uncomfortable topics (and not always with the most tact or delicacy). Religion, body horror, misogyny, and sexual abuse are the overarching themes that stitch together all the moment-to-moment violence and terror. The game is exceedingly gruesome and explicit. If that doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, then bail out now. Outlast 2 uses a similar setup to the original, casting you as a milquetoast videographer named Blake. You and your reporter wife, Lynn, are investigating the mysterious death of a pregnant 15 year old Jane Doe found wandering a desolate highway miles from civilization. While her story is unknown, the most promising explanation is that she was a runaway from Temple’s Gate, a reclusive religious community hidden in the mountains. While filming some establishing shots of the countryside and rural compound, the chopper you’re in goes down. Needless to say, things take a quick turn for the worst. Waking up in the wreckage, you’re separated from Lynn and are forced to explore the shanty huts and creepy chapels of the cult alone, relying on your camera’s night vision optics and directional microphone to navigate the dilapidated compound. It’s a bad situation even before you encounter knife-wielding hicks, knee-high piles of child corpses, and scrawled notes rambling about the apocalypse and a monstrous sun creature “fucking the earth.” Yeah. You’ll want to give the locals a wide berth.

#Outlast 2 switch movie#

More than simply a way to ride on the found-footage horror movie craze of the past few years, or provide a convenient excuse to play with night vision and spooky whispers caught on the directional mic - it forces the player to linger on the depravity. As you wander through the cult’s compound, you’ll encounter gruesome scenes that demand to be recorded, scribbled notes and cryptic passages from the cult’s bizarre gospel that you feel compelled to document. You’re making something between a case against the cult in the slim chance that you might make it out alive, and a dead man’s letter to whoever might find your body. Your role isn’t to intervene or to put an end to the madness.

#Outlast 2 switch full#

You have no combat skills, no folding knife or pocket full of shotgun shells.

To capture it, catalog it, and ultimately wallow in it. This is a fantastic example of game mechanics used to reinforce the themes of its narrative. The camera is both your lifeline and your burden. It is your eyes and ears in an almost literal sense, since you can’t navigate the darkness surrounding you without it. The few brief moments you spend separated from it are some of the most tense sequences in the game.

But it’s also a millstone around your neck, a duty you have to uphold, despite the circumstances. There is a wonderful union of action and idea at play with the camera. Unfortunately, the rest of the narrative never gels quite as smoothly. The original Outlast and its DLC expansion The Whistleblower were similarly enthusiastic about forcing the player to confront some distinctly uncomfortable ideas.

But, its criticisms and themes were more apparent and coherent. By tying the fictional charnel house of the Mount Massive Asylum to the real life debauchery and horror of the MKUltra program, Outlast 1 was a clear commentary on the overreaching cruelty of the military industrial complex.