In addition to the trailer, there’s this slightly-overwrought quote from Red Barrels’ Philippe Morin: “Horror rises from desperation and blind faith. Outlast 2 will test your faith, pushing players to a place where going mad is the only sane thing to do.”
Whoa there, Charles Manson. I thought we were talking about a video game here, not a late-night trip to Walmart.
I’ve got high hopes for Outlast II. The setting seems (from what I can gather) more interesting than the spooooky (cliché) asylum, and the trailer’s ending teases the return of the unique night-vision camera mechanic, which was arguably the best part of the first game. If you never played: Outlast cast you as an “investigative journalist,” ostensibly filming your trip to the asylum to uncover some dark secrets. The game was shown as if you were filming it through a crappy old camcorder, complete with bright-green night vision mode. Glad to see it return.
It’s great, and it’s part of what made the original Outlast so successful at emulating Frictional’s brand of horror (Amnesia, Penumbra)—successful enough, in fact, to earn a spot on our list of favorite horror games. Now that Frictional’s gone the “It’s scary, but not too scary because we have this existentialist story about robots to tell” route with SOMA, my hopes for genuine horror rest with Red Barrels and Outlast II. No pressure.