Some of this embeds into the plot organically, others with aimless, empty Eli Roth shock value, including a side character discussing his daughter’s rape. As it continues, Outlast II doesn’t recuse itself from tougher material. No excuses – Outlast II makes those mistakes and suffers as a result. Fear feels artificially inflated as a result, even if the well-considered audio design works as intended.īut, Outlast II is dumb only as necessitated by convention. Pitchforks stuck in hay must be equivalent to the Arthurian sword in the stone. Langerman has no offense either, not even a push. Good thing these cults, infatuated with morbidly desecrating their dead and suffering from leprosy, made trips to Wal-Mart to stay well stocked on Energizers. Also, Langerman’s camera needs constant batteries, AAs no less, as if any handheld cam in 2017 still uses disposables. It’s unnecessarily bogged down by collectibles, less obvious a video game through its interactivity than distributing plot devices on pieces of glowing paper. Outlast II needs a few logic lapses to work.
Drizzling light through cracked shutters, backlighting threats, forcing uncomfortable shadows, and raining mist over everything, Outlast II’s aesthetic eye towers over its B-level construct. Outlast II is, partially, Blair Witch – Langerman keeps a video camera close on the right trigger, a half-in take on found footage. For first-person, few are better at establishing space and maintaining a cinematic punch. Committed to hard shadows and sublime use of light, this entire space comes rife with intelligent framing. It’s not subtle and feels spiteful on the part of developer Red Barrels Studio.Īlthough bothered by a languid pacing, the run through Outlast II is deviously beautiful.
Those bound to Christian teachings on Outlast II barely function above movie zombies. Even without a central antagonist for most its (too many) hours, Outlast II finds a villain in its exaggerated spin on hyper-conservatism. Ho hum.) what he witnesses is cult-like behavior between two Christian sects.
While a bit of a lug in terms of heroics (Langerman is typically voiceless and out to rescue his wife. Twenty-something protagonist Blake Langerman often flashes back to an incident at his Catholic grade school, seamlessly intertwined with his jaunt through an unspecified cross-section of the Bible Belt. The more fantastic Outlast II becomes with its fiction though, the more personally resentful it feels toward religious institutions. Plot developments utilize real world headlines, despite inherent fantasy qualities in the story. Underneath the images of shack-dwelling, machete-wielding people comes an unexpectedly outspoken story of extreme Christianity. Utilizing the outlandish American Southerner trope – and with unfortunate timing, too near the equally trope-addled Resident Evil 7 – Outlast II’s derivative horror exterior is a bit of a con.