Review for Outlast 2. Game for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 25/04/2017 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 27/03/2018
There is a dark place in our mind that morbidly longs for all that reason shuns. It feeds on the archetypal terrors of a dystopian imaginary: it is the fear of the dark, of the monster under the bed, of that sound that you would swear to have heard clearly. If you have come here perhaps Shinji Mikami's horror veteran, survivor of the silent hill of Keiichiro Toyama, convinced voyeur of Dario Argento, victim of the seductive charm of the Hitchcockian universe or trapped in that dusty tome signed Stephen King: it doesn't matter.
It matters little whether to move your step is the desperate search for exorcism of a restlessness encountered by mistake and never forgotten or an irrepressible need for that concoction of horror, thrill and suspense for which you so long. Are you ready to lock the windows, put on your headphones and throw yourself headlong into that masochistic pleasure you well remember. Welcome to the terrible Arizona of Outlast 2.
Arizona's horror story
We are playing the role of cameraman Blake flying over the canyons of Arizona with his partner Lynn, intent on investigating the mysterious death of Jane Doe, strangled in the hospital. Suddenly the breakdown, the screams and the quick fall. Survivors of the collapse, wounded and armed only with the faithful battery-powered chamber, a single thought grips us: where is Lynn? Tumbling down the steep slopes of the mountain, when the horizon reveals a village.
Encouraged by the rural vision we enter the rural outskirts of Castle Gate in search of help. Loudspeakers mounted on the church overlooking the village caw a gruesome announcement: the mother of the antichrist fell from heaven, pregnant and ready to give light to the apocalypse. Warned of the madness we have just heard, we realize that the nice villagers are hunting us, we crouch and proceed cautiously, we must save Lynn at any cost.
Outlast 2 is proposed on our monitors as an incessant race on well-defined tracks, hunted by hordes of religious fanatics and monstrosities, blinded by the dark and confused by the sharpness of the horror that is preparing to tear us apart. As seen in the previous chapter, the gameplay centralizes the use of the camera as the primary source of survival. Thanks to it we will be able to see in the dark through the use of night vision and learn the positioning of enemies thanks to the directional microphone, thanks to a non-invasive Hud that will signal the sound intensities in the surroundings.
The visual filter of the camera imposed on the subjective that we impersonate, with the constant light of the low battery, turns out to be an excellent expedient to keep the voltage high even where there is no actual need.
The guys from Red Barrell also managed to pack a never repetitive product without departing from the winning combination of the stealth phase followed by the breathtaking race. The variety of situations by which we will be overwhelmed is impressive: we will quickly pass from making our way through the wooded quarantine of the plague victims to the tormented echoes of a ghostly mine, from directing a raft for the impervious lake currents to crawling between the various cabins of the bathroom of a catholic school.
The narrative plot of events is in fact segmented by the presence of discontinuous flashbacks, designed to narrate Blake's childhood in a school, the scene of her best friend's suicide. Although the writing of the script is quite scholastic, without launching towards any structural hyperbole or presenting any reversal, it blends perfectly with the needs of level design, capturing the player and leaving him with bated breath at each new glimpse of the landscape.
The devil makes the pots but not the lids
However, the script embodies the game's biggest flaw, preventing Outlast 2 from being the genre masterpiece it could have become. Despite the mature and convincing writing of the documents scattered around the game map, the dialogues are didactic and the ending of the story is the most banal and at the same time pretentious one could expect. Victim of obvious narrative holes, the plot fails to justify what appeared on screen.
Strong themes such as rape, infanticide and violence against women lose their meaning completely when the monster ceases to be a metaphor, wearing the jesters in the role of ugliness. Then adding the pretense of reflection regarding a protagonist devoid of introspection, we sail fast towards a disastrous and not very credible ending.
The highest point of Red Barrels production is undoubtedly represented by the audio sector, with a punctual sound design that emphasizes every movement of Blake and the surrounding world with maniacal naturalness and fidelity, maintaining high credibility of the action on screen even where the graphic rendering creatures would have turned up the nose of the most demanding gamer.
During the ten hours of play that the longevity of the title offer, as regards the PC version there was no problem with regard to the stability of the Fps, guaranteeing an extreme fluidity of the experience. Honorable mention goes to photography, which although fluctuating, has been able to illuminate some views with extreme mastery of language, giving paintings of rare beauty.
There are some barely mentioned and unexpressed gaming features that have been truly missed. You will surely remember during the misadventures of the first chapter, how the glass of the protagonist's room splintered, forcing us to observe the atrocities of the asylum through a fragmented lens. A touch of credibility that is bitterly absent in Outlast 2. Yet during the early stages of the game, during a couple of cutscenes Blake loses his glasses, leaving us to foresee that in the advanced stages we will have faced annoying and fascinating mechanics.
None of that. Despite a thousand daring falls, crucifixions and leaps of faith, the glasses remain in place, just as the room survives unscathed. That Outlast 2 had to come out in a hurry, well before it was complete? It would be an exhaustive answer to the evident speed of the final chapters of the adventure, as well as to a not very exhaustive plot, closed in full fury.
Outlast 2 flows nicely during the ten hours of gameplay, capturing the player inside a cruel and ferocious world, giving a heart-pounding experience. Unfortunately, the resolution of events is not such as to make the last effort of the Red Barrell boys memorable.
► Outlast 2 is a game for PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, the video game was released on 25/04/2017 The version for Nintendo Switch came out on 27/03/2018
