PAX East 2016: Outlast 2: Stunning, Scary, and Sick

Welcome back to hell. 
You’d think that a place like the cacophonous show floor of PAX East 2016 would be just about the worst possible venue to preview a game as reliant on mood and atmosphere as Outlast 2, but somehow developer Red Barrels absolutely nailed the presentation. Nestled in the back of the show floor was an ominous wooden structure, and upon entering, we were guided to a claustrophobic nook that removed us from the sounds of the show floor, and given the opportunity to play a 15-minute slice of the sequel.

Like the original, the immediate takeaway from Outlast 2 is just how damn gorgeous the game is. Every single gross, maggot-covered severed limb looks exactly how I'd imagine a gross, maggot-covered severed limb would look like. Textures and objects in the environment are terrifyingly-realistic, low fog and walls of dust obscure your vision in a realistic and evocative way, and the night-vision camera effects from the original game are back to amp up the tension ten-fold.

The core gameplay element of battery management from the original was definitely back in this demo for Outlast 2, which has me a bit worried. While I liked the tension that an ever-depleting battery delivered, I ultimately felt like it actively prevented me from exploring the rich, gorgeous, and terrifying world that Red Barrels created. Here’s to hoping that the mechanics of Outlast 2 rely less on this management, and more on some new gameplay tweaks and elements.

While the original took place primarily in a trope-heavy asylum and the laboratory that existed underneath it, Outlast 2 tossed a wrench in all of this by guiding me through a variety of different locales in my short time with the demo. An ominously-empty village filled with shadows that scurried away as soon as my eyes caught sight of them quickly led way to an abandoned school rife with self-slamming lockers and whispers from just over my shoulder that felt like they were pulled straight from my nightmares. Shortly after that, I found myself blindly storming through a corn field trying to stay hidden from the flashlight beams to a group of backwoods do-wrongers who wanted nothing more than to jam their pitchforks straight into me.While I definitely felt a sense of whiplash in going from environmental dread and schoolyard poltergeists, to a Cthulhu-esque tentacle beast and religious zealots, I appreciated the kitchen-sink approach that Red Barrels took to horror in this demo. Whether this was a tone-piece meant to highlight some of the different types of horror that we’d see in the final game, or a demo that’s actually indicative of the rollercoaster ride we’ll be going on later this year remains to be seen, but my short time with Outlast 2 made it quite clear that PC, PS4, and Xbox One owners who like scaring the hell out of themselves have something to look forward to in 2016.