SPOILERS - Outlast 2 story explained (theory)

[haz:mat]

After my first playthrough I was very confused about what had unfolded at Temple Gate, but after just finishing the story a second time I think I have a solid theory.

Blake was raised Catholic, obviously a firm believer in God & a devout Christian.

One of Jessica’s hangman clues in his Catholic school hallucinations spells out “Not telling is the same as lying”

I think Jessica’s suicide was a cover up from Loutermilch to hide the fact he broke Jessica’s neck throwing her down the stairs. This was what I took to have happened rather than a mere violent assault, due to Loutermilch being further up the stairs when Blake finds Jessica dead on the stairs.

My theory is that none of the events at Temple Gate ever actually happened. The morphogenic engine powered by the radio tower caused an EMP disruption to the helicopter’s systems causing it to crash, possibly killing Lynn outright & leaving Blake injured on the verge of death, while also slipping into madness from the effects of the morphogenic engine pulses more & more over time as life slipped away from him. In Outlast 1 it is stated that the engine has much more profound effects on those who have experienced severe psychological trauma, which was why it was used on asylum inmates at Mount Massive during the Walrider experiment.

I believe the entire events of Outlast 2 are an effect of the morphogenic engine on Blake’s guilt for not coming forward about Jessica’s murder at the hands of Loutermilch, while he is also having a religion induced “near death experience”. The name Temple Gate could be a reference to the gates of heaven (or hell) as he is going through this near death experience. The religious symbols of armageddon throughout the game could also be explained by this. The raining blood, the siphilis enduced sores & boils on the Scalled, the plague of locusts, fire & brimstone from the sky & earthquakes in the mines & even the death of the first born child at the hands of a horned beast (possibly Val in her crown of branches, or even that the baby itself is referenced as the antichrist, described as a horned beast in Christian texts) are Christian symbolism of armageddon from the book of Revelations.

I think the entire game is just Blake losing his mind over the guilt of staying silent about Jessica’s murder, as his life flashes before his eyes & his terror of the book of revelations coming to fruition, due to exposure to the morphogenic engine warping his sanity, while dying in the wake of the heli crash. Jessica's death & the guilt of not coming forward obviously plagued his mind his entire life, as he even dreamed about it in the heli right before the first tower pulse & crash happened.

As the game ends and the light of the sun fills the screen, this could be the final moment as he sees the light in the tunnel, that so many people claim to see during near death experiences, as his life force finally leaves him.

[ThePugHybrid]

Originally posted by haz:mat:

After my first playthrough I was very confused about what had unfolded at Temple Gate, but after just finishing the story a second time I think I have a solid theory.

Blake was raised Catholic, obviously a firm believer in God & a devout Christian.

One of Jessica’s hangman clues in his Catholic school hallucinations spells out “Not telling is the same as lying”

I think Jessica’s suicide was a cover up from Loutermilch to hide the fact he broke Jessica’s neck throwing her down the stairs. This was what I took to have happened rather than a mere violent assault, due to Loutermilch being further up the stairs when Blake finds Jessica dead on the stairs.

My theory is that none of the events at Temple Gate ever actually happened. The morphogenic engine powered by the radio tower caused an EMP disruption to the helicopter’s systems causing it to crash, possibly killing Lynn outright & leaving Blake injured on the verge of death, while also slipping into madness from the effects of the morphogenic engine pulses more & more over time as life slipped away from him. In Outlast 1 it is stated that the engine has much more profound effects on those who have experienced severe psychological trauma, which was why it was used on asylum inmates at Mount Massive during the Walrider experiment.

I believe the entire events of Outlast 2 are an effect of the morphogenic engine on Blake’s guilt for not coming forward about Jessica’s murder at the hands of Loutermilch, while he is also having a religion induced “near death experience”. The name Temple Gate could be a reference to the gates of heaven (or hell) as he is going through this near death experience. The religious symbols of armageddon throughout the game could also be explained by this. The raining blood, the siphilis enduced sores & boils on the Scalled, the plague of locusts, fire & brimstone from the sky & earthquakes in the mines & even the death of the first born child at the hands of a horned beast (possibly Val in her crown of branches, or even that the baby itself is referenced as the antichrist, described as a horned beast in Christian texts) are Christian symbolism of armageddon from the book of Revelations.

I think the entire game is just Blake losing his mind over the guilt of staying silent about Jessica’s murder, as his life flashes before his eyes & his terror of the book of revelations coming to fruition, due to exposure to the morphogenic engine warping his sanity, while dying in the wake of the heli crash. Jessica's death & the guilt of not coming forward obviously plagued his mind his entire life, as he even dreamed about it in the heli right before the first tower pulse & crash happened.

As the game ends and the light of the sun fills the screen, this could be the final moment as he sees the light in the tunnel, that so many people claim to see during near death experiences, as his life force finally leaves him.

I agree with most of what you say apart from the events at the Temple are real and Lynn did survive etc. This is shown in the Outlast comics that Papa Knoth and other things are real. The Engine does make Blake and everyone in the compound insane and hallucinate other than Lynn to an extent because she was sheltered from the radiation most the game in the mines. The phantom pregnancy stuff was in Outlast 1 so Lynn is having a phantom pregnancy so when she gives birth and says "there is nothing there" she is referring to there being no baby amd what Blake sees is not real. (The baby also has no shadow). The final light is the engine going off again and taking Blake back to Jessica at school one last time before in my opinion he dies from the final radiation burst.

[haz:mat]

Originally posted by ThePugHybrid:

I agree with most of what you say apart from the events at the Temple are real and Lynn did survive etc. This is shown in the Outlast comics that Papa Knoth and other things are real. The Engine does make Blake and everyone in the compound insane and hallucinate other than Lynn to an extent because she was sheltered from the radiation most the game in the mines. The phantom pregnancy stuff was in Outlast 1 so Lynn is having a phantom pregnancy so when she gives birth and says "there is nothing there" she is referring to there being no baby amd what Blake sees is not real. (The baby also has no shadow). The final light is the engine going off again and taking Blake back to Jessica at school one last time before in my opinion he dies from the final radiation burst.

This parallels my original take on the story after my initial playthrough, but this theory just leaves too many holes for my liking. If the radiation from the tower blasts is strong enough to kill Blake, it would have killed everyone at Temple Gate long before he & Lynn ever even arrived there. Lynn being in the mines would explain her not losing it as much as Blake (not seeing the baby), but the entire pregnancy angle, while psychosomatic pregnancies are referenced in the first game, could just also be in Blake's mind due to the fact the last thing they were talking about before the helicopter flash was looking for info on the dead pregnant woman, Anna. Another point that backs up my theory is that there was no sign of Temple Gate from the air in the heli before the flash, but it was seen to be a very short walk from the crash site, after Blake's initial exposure to the Engine. They are all talking about how there is nothing there while flying into the area & with each subsequent flash, Blake's delusions & hallucinations of the compound become more & more vivid, from regular hillbillies, to disfigured infected people, to almost inhuman demonic looking creatures by the time he enters the mines. It seems more & more like a descent into hell as time goes on, backing up my theory that he is slowly dying & the Engine is amplifying his guilt & fear of going to hell, as a devout Catholic. The school flashbacks could symbolize his need for redemption & forgiveness, as an unconfessed Catholic on the brink of death, looking to seek forgiveness from his school friend Jessica for not speaking out on her murder. An internal struggle between good & evil, heaven or hell.

I can't remember if the comics actually referenced Temple Gate by name, or just that the blasts were affecting the "locals" in rural Arizona near the tower. Both theories leave an awful lot open to player interpretation, as did the ending of Outlast 1, which tied things together nicely in the Whistleblower DLC & comic book series.

The biggest plot hole in my theory is the fact that Anna definitely existed as she was killed in hospital by one of the Murkoff damage control specialists in the comic. Even reading the comics leaves a lot open to interpretation to be honest. What happened when the ant colony possessed with the Walrider's life force attacked the signal relay tower? What was Murkoff's actual purpose with the tower? Were they involved in setting up Temple Gate? Was Temple Gate also a figment of their own imaginations after investigating the area & being exposed to the tower's signal? Is Temple Gate simply the result of the tower signal morphogenic engine experiment? The mount massive experiment was clear that Murkoff had some serious interest in the occult & the signal tower experiment could be a different experiment entirely, trying to find answers on the afterlife by emulation? Perhaps the Engine was having similar effects to the Engine at mount massive prior to it's being damaged by the 'Walrider ants' explaining Anna's psychosomatic pregnancy, but after the damage event, became more powerful amplifying the delusion to the point everything in the game was psychosomatic, including the existence of Temple Gate itself. The existence of both the religious & satanic cults could also symbolize Blake's inner struggle of whether his soul deserved to go to heaven or hell, as he slowly dies from wounds inflicted in the crash. becoming more & more pronounced with each exposure to the Engine.

It is possible also, that Blake finds the redemption he seeks in death, his final hallucination of praying with Jessica could symbolize her forgiveness as he passes, and his soul redeemed, he enters heaven to join her in death, at the end of his guilt driven near death experience.

I really wish they would do a DLC filling in the blanks. Maybe similar to the first, with a Murkoff employee showing up to fix the tower after the ants damage it, to explain its purpose, encountering the cultists & having some involvement with Ethan & Anna's escape from the cult.

There is so much potential for a great DLC & wrapping up these loose ends would make this game so much better IMO

[ThePugHybrid]

The last flash of radiation is much brighter than before so maybe the radiation increased even greater or maybe he just went fully insane and didn't die. The disfigured worshipers of Val are seen right at the start of the game and the people with syphilis are put there by Knoth to try and stop it spreading as they were once his followers. It is also up to interpretation about Blakes faith. I personally get the feeling he is not a devout Catholic but did go to a Catholic school so does know about the Books of the Bible and events that are reflected in the game.

I personally believe that the people lived in this place in Arizona and after the Engine tower was set up they created the cult after having "Visions" from the radiation as they could have thought it was from God with the bright flashes thrown in. The Murkoff corporation is basically using them as test subjects without the possibility of things to go wrong in the same way as they did with Mount Massive as that was actually one of their facilities, whereas this looks like just some random isolated cultists if people found out.

[haz:mat]

Ultimately, due to the massive plot holes left by Red Barrels, the story is very much open to interpretation. The heretics seen early on, if using my theory, could have been simply the beginning of Blake's doubt of reaching heaven & his first glimpse into the deeper reaches of the hell that could await his soul without redemption, which in turn could have led his mind to flashback to the events at his school that fill him with guilt. Some way of seeking forgiveness from Jessica in his final moments on Earth. There is nothing in the game to suggest Blake lost his faith after leaving Catholic school, but to be there in the first place, he would definitely have to have been raised in a devout Christian upbringing. He never once utters anything condemning the Christian faith, even when his mind is tortured with visions of Catholic school, abusive priests or the fact he is supposedly being pursued by vicious, murderous religious fanatics throughout the campaign. The scalled's physical ailments from extreme syphilis symptoms, are also reminiscent of the boils & sores connected to the Christian apocalypse events described in Revelations.

There are definitely a lot of religious undertones, connections made to the book of revelations & a strong sense of a continuous descent into hell / madness throughout the game. Usually further worsening directly following each flash from the tower. The name Temple Gate is suggestive of the threshold to enter either Christian afterlife. The gates of heaven or hell. There is no sign of the compound from the air prior to the first Engine exposure & a lot doesn't add up at the outset of the story (such as the pilot being skinned & nailed to a post in the time it took Blake to wake up, which couldn't have been long due to the wreckage still freshly burning). Also even if Lynn's pregnancy was psychosomatic, it is unlikely that she would look 9 months pregnant overnight, and even if she was sheltered in the mines, she was still saying things like "the baby is coming", meaning her pregnancy wasn't only imagined by Blake in the story. There is no mention of psychosomatic pregnancies within the cult throughout the game, as Knoth states very clearly (as well as many notes) that the babies the cultists killed were mostly his & there is evidence of dead babies throughout the compound.

Everything about the entire story suggests to me that it was mostly in Blake's mind, whether he was actively wandering through the woods, or lying there dying. But again... it is very much open to interpretation. I just figured I'd throw my theory into the mix, because it is one I haven't seen discussed elsewhere.

Thanks for debating & I understand where you are coming from. Your theory almost matches exactly what I thought had unfolded after my first playthrough. It was only after playing a second time that I realized there may be more to Blake's delusions than simply seeing a baby that didn't exist.

I am in no way religious, so it took a little research at my end to draw the parallels to the apocalypse described in Revelations, which I discovered some time after my first playthrough. It was this new information that led me to play a second time after I remembered that many of the apocalyptic events of the book of revelations were definitely relevant to this game.

[ThePugHybrid]

I think Red Barrels like leaving the Outlast series to interpretation and I like it that way. It leaves for interesting discussions like this. I would also look at the plagues in Exodus as the game links with them as well. Each chapter in the game is also named after a book of the Bible so you may find further links there. E.g. Job and Leviticus.

[haz:mat]

yeah the plagues from Exodus was what i meant by the boils & sores, locusts & death of the first born, as well as a lot of links to Revelations like raining blood, earthquakes, fire & brimstone & the horned beast. I haven't loaded from chapter so i didn't notice the chapter names. Interesting.

[Immolator772]

the game doesn't attack religion, it only uses christian themes. In fact the way i understood the ending, is that those experiments were so horrific that they caused the end of the world. In a way we see the second coming. Also the Priest in the previous game was testing your faith, which lead him to force you to stay and show you the truth. The game is mostly attacking science than religion.

[Alcoholic]

Originally posted by haz:mat:

After my first playthrough I was very confused about what had unfolded at Temple Gate, but after just finishing the story a second time I think I have a solid theory.

Blake was raised Catholic, obviously a firm believer in God & a devout Christian.

One of Jessica’s hangman clues in his Catholic school hallucinations spells out “Not telling is the same as lying”

I think Jessica’s suicide was a cover up from Loutermilch to hide the fact he broke Jessica’s neck throwing her down the stairs. This was what I took to have happened rather than a mere violent assault, due to Loutermilch being further up the stairs when Blake finds Jessica dead on the stairs.

This is correct.

Originally posted by haz:mat:

My theory is that none of the events at Temple Gate ever actually happened. The morphogenic engine powered by the radio tower caused an EMP disruption to the helicopter’s systems causing it to crash, possibly killing Lynn outright & leaving Blake injured on the verge of death, while also slipping into madness from the effects of the morphogenic engine pulses more & more over time as life slipped away from him. In Outlast 1 it is stated that the engine has much more profound effects on those who have experienced severe psychological trauma, which was why it was used on asylum inmates at Mount Massive during the Walrider experiment.

I believe the entire events of Outlast 2 are an effect of the morphogenic engine on Blake’s guilt for not coming forward about Jessica’s murder at the hands of Loutermilch, while he is also having a religion induced “near death experience”. The name Temple Gate could be a reference to the gates of heaven (or hell) as he is going through this near death experience. The religious symbols of armageddon throughout the game could also be explained by this. The raining blood, the siphilis enduced sores & boils on the Scalled, the plague of locusts, fire & brimstone from the sky & earthquakes in the mines & even the death of the first born child at the hands of a horned beast (possibly Val in her crown of branches, or even that the baby itself is referenced as the antichrist, described as a horned beast in Christian texts) are Christian symbolism of armageddon from the book of Revelations.

I think the entire game is just Blake losing his mind over the guilt of staying silent about Jessica’s murder, as his life flashes before his eyes & his terror of the book of revelations coming to fruition, due to exposure to the morphogenic engine warping his sanity, while dying in the wake of the heli crash. Jessica's death & the guilt of not coming forward obviously plagued his mind his entire life, as he even dreamed about it in the heli right before the first tower pulse & crash happened.

It's a good theory, but events in Outlast 2 happened and are real. The comic confirms it. The Cultists were living in Temple Gate for years and after Murkoff decided to do and experiment and set up radio towers powered my Morphogenic Engine, that's when it all started. The Cultists began to slowly lose their minds and venture into insanity. By the time Outlast 2 happened, the Cultist were already too far gone. All of the unnatural things Blake encountered happen mostly late into the game, because at that point the Engine had already consumed him. And yes, he does feel guilty he hasn't been able to save Jessica. At the beginning of the game he was fine, but started to slowly venture into insanity. You can also hear his recording narration and see that at the start he speaks normally, but towards the end of the game he speaks like a child

Originally posted by haz:mat:

As the game ends and the light of the sun fills the screen, this could be the final moment as he sees the light in the tunnel, that so many people claim to see during near death experiences, as his life force finally leaves him.

His force didn't leave him, his last tiny bit of sanity did. After that he became 100% catatonic. When Pauline and other agents found him, he is alive but completely unaware of the things that happened or even who is he