Fans of the original will certainly have something to be thrilled about, because Outlast 2 takes what made Outlast great and takes it to another level of fear. While many of the same aspects are still intact, that being running for your life and not dying, Outlast 2 takes you into new territory far from the old asylum and throws you into this grimy and grotesque village.

Much of the game reminds us of Resident Evil 4 simply because both games have a protagonist who ventures into an unknown village to save someone from danger. Furthermore, both villages are totally possessed and manic, with you not really understanding their biblical tongue right away. We'll dive more into this in the gameplay section but if you enjoyed the RE4 vibe, and pair that with the Outlast insanity then this one will be an absolute freak fest.

For this reason, Outlast 2 doesn't fool around when trying to force you into a corner and watch you squirm as you desperately try to gather as many batteries and bandages as possible to live another day. Flashbacks are truly another freakish element to Outlast 2, and running around in an empty school with only your footsteps and breathing as the only ambience is terrifying. Walking through the school halls, we honestly had to blink a few times to make sure we weren’t watching a cutscene, because this game looks so photo realistic at times it blew our minds.

Women get raped, children get mutilated, men get emasculated, these are just some of the grotesque images you'll encounter in Outlast 2. It's deliberately placed there to evoke strong emotions from the player, to make you realize the harsh reality we live in, which is what creates more fear in the end. We say this because the village you travel to feels all too real, and we imagine if this game had VR mode a vast majority of people wouldn't last 10 minutes. You're either so disgusted by all the sick and twisted things around you, or your heart beats frantically as you try to avoid being bombarded by a horde of possessed villagers out to kill. Once you get to know more about Sullivan Knoth and his totally twisted plans, you’ll see what we’re talking about.

Outlast 2 is an extremely dark game both literally and figuratively, and so you'll often times be walking over thin ledges or descending down into a dark abyss not knowing what could be there. Your battery consumption starts to become a game in itself because you'll need to sometimes save power for important moments, such as recording specific events or more importantly running the hell away and knowing exactly where to run.

We often times ran out of batteries at the most pivotal moments and that's when the fear factor skyrocketed well beyond what we could fathom. When it's absolutely dark, it is DARK. You can barely see anything in front of you and the night light is so dim it provides no merit. We highly recommend to search for as many batteries as possible otherwise you'll end up in a terrible situation. You can hold up to about 6-8 batteries and around 4 bandages, which is certainly enough for the long trek. However the battery life is short especially when you keep the camera running, so it becomes a strategy to turn off your camera in locations that provide enough lighting to move around.

However just when you think you've got the answer, the game violently drags your already damaged conscience back into the freakish village, where you now have to avoid being impaled by a woman walking around with a cross-shaped axe, who seeks nothing more than to hear your blood curdling scream as she drills her axe straight through your gut.

Fortunately, you can manually save at points within the game so you could continue from a desired checkpoint. However that isn't the case all the time, and so getting over obstacles could prove difficult when you can't really see what's in front of you. We absolutely loved the story and overall setting of Outlast 2, if it wasn't already clear in our earlier paragraphs where we compared it to RE4 but without weapons. Being thrown into a vast open world where your chances of survival are so low is quite the rush, because you're always trying to come up with ways to gather information about the antagonist and his plot, without dying in vain. It's cat and mouse at it's best, with some tactical elements to keep you on your toes.

The voice acting was stellar and having a town full of obsessed religious bloodthirsty townspeople was superbly done. While Outlast 2 certainly does provide a plethora of scares and surprises, the more you dive into it and get accustomed to everything you become more horrified of the blood and guts than you do with random enemy pop ups. That isn’t to say that the scares are lackluster because they’re far from that, but when you constantly die in the same spot over and over again you kind of know what to expect. Be that as it may, Outlast 2 is one horror game definitely picking up, especially if you’re a fan of the series but also if you truly love a nice scare or two.

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