On second play, this game kinda sucks sadly.

[TXI]

I'm making a video on this game after making a full video essay on Outlast 1 that did pretty well... Needless to say, I loved Outlast 1 and praised even the smallest details, I replayed it around 3 times and felt good, it still felt like a strong game... Outlast 1 was great.

However...Outlast 2...
I've only played OL2 once before, when it came out. I thought it was OK, was more on the 4/10 side but enjoyable. However replaying this game makes me... kinda hate it. The things I thought were great or OK before just feel awful.

The religious storyline is unsubtle, uninteresting and boring. It's not used to further the plot or sink you into the world like in Far Cry 5, Resident Evil 4 or even in movies like Midsommar. It's literally just "GOD WANT YOU DEAD, WE CRAZY AND DONT LIVE IN NORMAL SOCIETY" "WE WORK FOR SATAN AND WE LIKE BLOOD AND DEATH." It's fine for the first 2 hours but it just gets ridiculously overused. This is what happens when your only theme is religion and cults. At least other games tried to BUILD on those characters to make them interesting, like Joseph Seed.

The second part is the maps. Some of these sequences are so stupid. In the school sequences when you're getting chased you can't HIDE, you have to go to SPECIFIC areas. What happened to "Run, HIDE OR DIE" OR. I've hidden from enemies before only to realise it's not what your supposed to do and they just stand right next to the place I've crawled under doing nothing. Some of the "areas" your meant to go to are so specific. like in the mines a little crawl hole that is so hidden you'd have to crouch to see it. Why?!? This game tries to give off the "open world" feel but it's more restricted than Outlast 1.

I dunno, maybe it's just me. That's why I'm here to ask... does anybody else feel like this game is bad, or at worst, SUCKS on the second playthrough? This has been a total drag. My review is gonna become so negative in the second portion of the video cause of these things.

[ijsman]

I'm kinda the opposite. Didn't really like the game on my first playthrough as it was very unclear where to go and what to do. I really liked it on my 2nd playthrough tho and it pushed me to get all achievements which was hella enjoyable. I do 100% get it if you don't like the game tho. I personally hate how the game is split between the school and the real life sections, I'd rather have a full game in the forest or a full game in the school instead of getting taken out of a certain situation every 10 or so minutes.

[TXI]

Originally posted by Ice:

I'm kinda the opposite. Didn't really like the game on my first playthrough as it was very unclear where to go and what to do. I really liked it on my 2nd playthrough tho and it pushed me to get all achievements which was hella enjoyable. I do 100% get it if you don't like the game tho. I personally hate how the game is split between the school and the real life sections, I'd rather have a full game in the forest or a full game in the school instead of getting taken out of a certain situation every 10 or so minutes.

Yeah I'm glad other people like it, I love that about games that people can be split on 'em. I think it could be due to the school thing too, it feels really annoying when you're recording, scripting and all that to suddenly have to switch to explaining a whole entire different story.

It's like a story... within a story... but they're both about the same religious theme. So it feels like I'm being thrown between two "cult" "religion" stories and it gets tiresome for me as I've played quite a few "religious" cult games recently.

Could 100% be just my taste and dislike of "cult" themed games which makes playing the game worse for me. Obviously if you don't enjoy a story you're going to have a harder time enjoying the gameplay itself hahaha.

[Kain]

Yeah I didn't like the story either, they had all these interesting elements and stories but failed to do anything interesting with them, like Marta, the Heretics or Val.

[DerFritz]

the story isnt the problem..the more open world is....with this open areals they steal the game the density it had in the first one....

the overall plot is not religion its abuse and sexual violence ( thats why the school lvls made me shiver far far more and i felt so uncomfortable in them ) done by self proclaimed higher ones..

the priest dude in the reality and the teacher in the school flashback

and foremost its about trauma...your character has a massive traume witnessing sexuall abuse of his friend...

and having to deal with psychological problems myself some of the stuff is kinda what can happen when you dig scary or ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stuff inside you and hide it to long...

[PrimeDarkseid | TTV]

Well, i always thought that game was inferior to the first one when i've played it on consoles. That was intensified when i've did numerous try for insane mode.

Now i have retried it on PC. While i did insane mode faster this time around. I think the game is even worse. The replayability is very bad. This game should have had a cutscene skip features. The stamina system while some would like the realism. I do not. Video games are supposed to be an escape from IRL stuff. Insane mode and limited stamina are the opposite of that. While i like those challenges, Outlast 2 is one of those i don't like. Not fun at all.

As for the story, it make sense when you think about it but, it's obviously controversial.... However this game unlike what the title says is not a sequel of the first game but more like Silent Hill 2 was to Silent Hill 1. It's just an individual story in the same universe.

[Дримкастер]

Both games suck. DLC to the first part is the only bright spot.

[Kain]

That DLC is great indeed.

[TXI]

Originally posted by MasterDarkseid:

Well, i always thought that game was inferior to the first one when i've played it on consoles. That was intensified when i've did numerous try for insane mode.

Now i have retried it on PC. While i did insane mode faster this time around. I think the game is even worse. The replayability is very bad. This game should have had a cutscene skip features. The stamina system while some would like the realism. I do not. Video games are supposed to be an escape from IRL stuff. Insane mode and limited stamina are the opposite of that. While i like those challenges, Outlast 2 is one of those i don't like. Not fun at all.

As for the story, it make sense when you think about it but, it's obviously controversial.... However this game unlike what the title says is not a sequel of the first game but more like Silent Hill 2 was to Silent Hill 1. It's just an individual story in the same universe.

See that's the problem though, it's not an individual story. It's all linked back to Murkoff and their experiments. Outlast 2 reveals way more about Murkoff than Outlast 1 does in many ways... The problem is the story is so bad most people overlook this.

Outlast 2 was Red Barrels attempt at making a "evil" corporation bigger than it ever needed to be. Showing us that they're now experimenting on entire regions of people with "horn blasts" that cause delusions. However the outcome of this being 2 goofy cults is laughable.

They could have took it so much further or even to a better place. Did you know the WALRIDER is also in Outlast 2? Guess what - they hid that in the COMICS.

The main problem with this game is that it TRIES to tie this huge mess of a game to the bigger Outlast world. Maybe if they DID go with a "Unique story" seperated from Murkoff it would have been fine. Though the story would have always been "mainstream."

[TXI]

Originally posted by DerFritz:

the story isnt the problem..the more open world is....with this open areals they steal the game the density it had in the first one....

the overall plot is not religion its abuse and sexual violence ( thats why the school lvls made me shiver far far more and i felt so uncomfortable in them ) done by self proclaimed higher ones..

the priest dude in the reality and the teacher in the school flashback

and foremost its about trauma...your character has a massive traume witnessing sexuall abuse of his friend...

and having to deal with psychological problems myself some of the stuff is kinda what can happen when you dig scary or ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stuff inside you and hide it to long...

I agree about the open world, it stole the claustrophobic feeling Outlast 1 had.

As for the story, I have to disagree about it being "good" if you believe that (not sure if you do lol). It seems like they lookd at a few headlines and cults then ran with it. An abusive priest? A Cult isolated from humanity? An Evil corporation controlling them all? Come on - that's literally the 3 most mainstream / predictable things to ever write. When I first played the game I knew exactly what would happen only about 2 hours into the game. Maybe it was an attempt at being controversial but honestly nobody I saw got upset, they were just shocked at how cliche the story was.

I mean take Outlast 1's story - it was unique as hell, there were no games even similar to that type of enviroment or story, and the next game is "cult isolated from humanity" and "priests touching kids"??? Does that not seem like a huge step down in creativity?

Idk maybe it's just me. I just thought the entire story was cringe - though I'll admit the "school levels" were the scariest even if I personally believed the story was way too cliche.

[DerFritz]

Originally posted by TXI:

Originally posted by DerFritz:

the story isnt the problem..the more open world is....with this open areals they steal the game the density it had in the first one....

the overall plot is not religion its abuse and sexual violence ( thats why the school lvls made me shiver far far more and i felt so uncomfortable in them ) done by self proclaimed higher ones..

the priest dude in the reality and the teacher in the school flashback

and foremost its about trauma...your character has a massive traume witnessing sexuall abuse of his friend...

and having to deal with psychological problems myself some of the stuff is kinda what can happen when you dig scary or ♥♥♥♥♥♥ stuff inside you and hide it to long...

I agree about the open world, it stole the claustrophobic feeling Outlast 1 had.

As for the story, I have to disagree about it being "good" if you believe that (not sure if you do lol). It seems like they lookd at a few headlines and cults then ran with it. An abusive priest? A Cult isolated from humanity? An Evil corporation controlling them all? Come on - that's literally the 3 most mainstream / predictable things to ever write. When I first played the game I knew exactly what would happen only about 2 hours into the game. Maybe it was an attempt at being controversial but honestly nobody I saw got upset, they were just shocked at how cliche the story was.

I mean take Outlast 1's story - it was unique as hell, there were no games even similar to that type of enviroment or story, and the next game is "cult isolated from humanity" and "priests touching kids"??? Does that not seem like a huge step down in creativity?

Idk maybe it's just me. I just thought the entire story was cringe - though I'll admit the "school levels" were the scariest even if I personally believed the story was way too cliche.

where in the world was Outlast 1 story unique? the game lives from his horror not the story

the story of 1 was the same you blame the second to have 2 experiments from a evil company going wrong

(dont know what they did with the ghost thing plot i think they ditched it )

but the story of 1 was never better or more unique....

the thing that made outlast 1 so sucessful was the dense horror and the very very gory horror at that time

[Kain]

The ghost nanite appears in a comic book. To be fair story of both is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. But the Whistleblower dlc's story was well told as simple as it was.

Outlast 2 could have been better, it had more going on and more interesting characers, it was just poorly used. Like Val for instance, such wasted potential.

[DerFritz]

Originally posted by Kain:

The ghost nanite appears in a comic book. To be fair story of both is ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. But the Whistleblower dlc's story was well told as simple as it was.

Outlast 2 could have been better, it had more going on and more interesting characers, it was just poorly used. Like Val for instance, such wasted potential.

2 was more ♥♥♥♥ i have to find my wife and get the ♥♥♥♥ out here...and the world was as i said to open to deliver plot

1 was the same (without wife) but the dense world made it easier to tell a story....

hopes high for Outlast 3 :D

[sircrimsonfox]

I'm on my FIRST play and it kinda sucks.

Making it an outside game was a bad move...seeing as every way is blocked and the illusion that you can go places but not makes things more confusing. Almost every door is locked making chase scenes that much worse. I needed to get help from a friend on one part because there was so many guys I could not make any progress. Just stabstabstab. Eventually I gave up stealth and just ran every single place I went. Just ran. I died on occasion but it worked so much better than trying to actually use stealth like the game wanted me to. Also really tired of rednecks. Was already tired of them.

[The Chocobo Racer]

Originally posted by sircrimsonfox:

I'm on my FIRST play and it kinda sucks.

Making it an outside game was a bad move...seeing as every way is blocked and the illusion that you can go places but not makes things more confusing. Almost every door is locked making chase scenes that much worse. I needed to get help from a friend on one part because there was so many guys I could not make any progress. Just stabstabstab. Eventually I gave up stealth and just ran every single place I went. Just ran. I died on occasion but it worked so much better than trying to actually use stealth like the game wanted me to. Also really tired of rednecks. Was already tired of them.

Game doesn't want you to use stealth, it's always been about using both stealth and blitzkrieg-style rush tactics. That's why you can lock doors. The thing about outlast 2 that it doesn't tell you, is that you have to be more purposeful in your movement. In Outlast 1, you could kinda just sprint everywhere and just loop enemies around. In Outlast 2, you have to plan out a route quickly in your head, you have to use sound detection to understand where enemies are, and on higher difficulties, it's expected that you can quickly understand the layout so you don't use NV the whole time. Outlast 2 did what Outlast 1 was trying to achieve, it just didn't do a great job of telling players what that was. This isn't a stealth game

[Utopian]

Originally posted by TXI:

The religious storyline is unsubtle, uninteresting and boring. It's not used to further the plot or sink you into the world like in Far Cry 5, Resident Evil 4 or even in movies like Midsommar. It's literally just "GOD WANT YOU DEAD, WE CRAZY AND DONT LIVE IN NORMAL SOCIETY" "WE WORK FOR SATAN AND WE LIKE BLOOD AND DEATH." It's fine for the first 2 hours but it just gets ridiculously overused. This is what happens when your only theme is religion and cults.

You either didn't actually play the game or didn't pay any attention whatsoever. This game is absolutely in no way about religion. Religion is just a surface level element and is there because Murkoff discovered it's easy to manipulate the faith of weak-willed people (as well as Reagents, obviously). It's the same MKUltra schizo conspiracy theory stuff as Outlast 1, as clearly shown through the texts you pick up in the game. However, if you didn't pay attention to such a degree, why would you even try to make a video essay, which requires the topic to be researched?

Originally posted by TXI:

Originally posted by MasterDarkseid:

See that's the problem though, it's not an individual story. It's all linked back to Murkoff and their experiments. Outlast 2 reveals way more about Murkoff than Outlast 1 does in many ways... The problem is the story is so bad most people overlook this.

Outlast 2 was Red Barrels attempt at making a "evil" corporation bigger than it ever needed to be. Showing us that they're now experimenting on entire regions of people with "horn blasts" that cause delusions. However the outcome of this being 2 goofy cults is laughable.

They could have took it so much further or even to a better place. Did you know the WALRIDER is also in Outlast 2? Guess what - they hid that in the COMICS.

But it seems you DO know. In that case, why would you say the game is about religion when it's clearly not, and it's just used as a tool for the actual story and narrative? Especially after the extra info from Trials.