Outlast 2 (NSP, XCI) ROM

Outlast 2 (stylized as OU⸸LASTII) is a 2017 first-person psychological survival horror video game developed and published by Red Barrels. A sequel to the 2013 video game Outlast, the game features a cameraman named Blake Langermann, along with his wife Lynn, a journalist roaming the Arizona desert to explore the murder of a pregnant woman only known as Jane Doe. Both get separated in a helicopter crash, and Blake has to find his wife while traveling through a village inhabited by a deranged sect that believes the end of days is upon them.

Shortly after the release and popularity of Outlast, Red Barrels announced the sequel. A gameplay demo was then released at both PAX East and E3 2016 on April 22 and June 15 respectively, with a release originally slated for Autumn 2016. Due to development delays, the game was ultimately released on April 25, 2017, for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. The Nintendo Switch version was released on March 27, 2018, on the Nintendo eShop.

The game was met with generally positive reception upon release, with praise going towards the graphics, sound design, and atmosphere. Criticisms were reserved for the amount of gore, and difficulty. A third installment in the series, entitled The Outlast Trials, was released on May 18, 2023, via early access for Microsoft Windows, and is scheduled for a full launch on March 5, 2024, on Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5. It takes place during the Cold War and is a prequel to the first Outlast.

GAMEPLAY

Outlast 2 is a first-person survival horror game that, like its predecessors Outlast and Outlast: Whistleblower, is a single-player campaign. It is set in Northern Arizona. The game continues with the found footage characteristics from the first game. The player controls the investigative journalist Blake Langermann, who investigates a dilapidated rural area in Supai, near the western edge of the Colorado Plateau.

Langermann cannot fight except in scripted scenes but must run and hide from the numerous hostile members of Temple Gate. The player can crouch, run, jump, walk, vault, slide, and climb much like in the first game, and can hide in lockers, barrels, wardrobes, beds, pools of water, tall grass, cornfields, and inside of houses. He has a limited stamina meter, and the player must manage how long he runs, lest he becomes exhausted and move more slowly.

Langermann possesses only a camcorder, which has night vision capabilities, though the camcorder’s batteries are also drained when night vision is used. Compared to the first game, Langermann’s status as a cameraman means he carries a more advanced camera, one with clearer footage, zoom, and a sensitive microphone that can be used to detect distant footsteps and other noises.

The player is equipped with an inventory system displaying the amount of footage recorded on the camera and the items they are carrying. Spare batteries suitable for the camcorder and med kits to heal are spread throughout the game. The game takes influence from the horror films The Hills Have Eyes, Race with the Devil, and The Blair Witch Project.

PLOT

Blake Langermann is an assisting cameraman for his wife Lynn, an investigative journalist, who is investigating the murder of a pregnant teenager known only as Jane Doe. The couple has a helicopter pilot fly them over the area where the girl possibly came from, although they crash-land in the Supai region of the Coconino County region of Arizona after being hit by a mysterious flash of light. When Blake wakes up after the crash, he finds the pilot skinned alive and his wife missing.

Blake makes his way to a nearby town, Temple Gate, where he learns that the residents sacrificed all their children in the name of God. Blake eventually locates Lynn in a chapel, captured by a violent and delirious Christian cult led by preacher Sullivan Knoth, who rapes the women of Temple Gate and, once they are pregnant, executes them on suspicion of carrying the Anti-Christ. Knoth claims that Temple Gate lies on the mouth of Hell and that Lynn is pregnant with the Anti-Christ. They escape the chapel, but Lynn falters, suffering from stomach cramps. The couple is separated when Lynn is kidnapped by a Satanic splinter group known as the Heretics and their androgynous leader Val, who wish to hasten the end of days by witnessing the birth of the Anti-Christ.

Blake is rescued by a man named Ethan who has left Knoth’s cult and gives him refuge in his home. It is revealed that Ethan’s daughter Anna Lee is Jane Doe after he explains that he helped her escape Temple Gate. As Blake rests, Marta, an imposing woman wielding a large pickaxe and who is one of Knoth’s executioners, breaks into Ethan’s home and murders him after accusing him of heresy. Blake flees to another chapel, where he learns from a tortured Heretic being interrogated by Knoth that Lynn was taken to the mines near Temple Gate. Blake leaves Temple Gate for the mines but instead ends up in the forests occupied by the syphilis infected ‘Scalled’ who were cast out from Temple Gate. He is captured by the Scalled’s dwarfish leader Laird Byron and his hulking mount Nick Tremblay, who believe he is the Scalled Messiah. Blake eventually escapes when Laird and Nick’s followers betray and kill them.

Throughout his journey, Blake is repeatedly assaulted by flashes of light and suffers from increasingly disturbing hallucinations of his Catholic elementary school while pursued by a demon. The hallucinations gradually reveal the events surrounding the apparent suicide of Blake and Lynn’s childhood friend, Jessica Gray. It is ultimately revealed that Jessica was molested and murdered by their music teacher, Father Loutermilch, who manipulated Blake into keeping quiet about the incident while making it look like she had hanged herself, and the demon chasing Blake is a twisted version of the priest. Blake also finds a document revealing that the Murkoff Corporation is the cause for everyone’s insanity due to an experimental mind control station hidden deep in the mountains, which is also responsible for the flashes of light.

Reaching the mines, Blake enters the Heretics’ underground temple and finds Lynn visibly pregnant during a ritual. Knoth’s cult also reaches the mines and kills the Heretics, allowing the pair to flee. As dawn breaks, a freak lightning storm begins to destroy the town. Marta reappears and attacks Blake and Lynn, but a cross toppled by lightning from a chapel in the distance fatally impales her. Taking shelter from the storm, Lynn gives birth but dies in the process and Blake blacks out holding the newborn, implied to be a hallucination by Lynn’s last words and the baby’s lack of a shadow.

Knoth greets Blake as he wakes up. He claims that he had to kill all of his followers and implores Blake to kill the child before slitting his own throat. As Blake walks outside, he finds that Knoth’s followers have committed mass suicide via poisoning in preparation for the apocalypse. The sun grows brighter, and Blake hallucinates being engulfed by the light. He has a final vision of chasing Jessica through the school; when he catches her, she promises that she will never let him go, and they start praying.