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Red Barrels are at it again. Bringing the popular first person horror game back. Its gameplay was premiered at PAX East last week. From the sounds of it, there was a lot to be desired from the first of the series as far as meeting a lot of predictable horror clichés. It sounds like the developers took note on this, as the situation in the sequel is much different than an abandoned hospital with a paranormal entity.  This time, it’s psychological. Reaching the standards of the canceled phenomenon, Silent Hills PT.
While the mechanics that made Outlast the game that it was, still exists, such as staying stealthy in a dangerous environment with only your camera to use for night vision and having to run when caught until you have lost sight of your pursuer, the overall atmosphere has changed. This time, when you run, you may never lose them. It is still set in the same universe as the first Outlast; you’re in a helicopter trying to capture footage for a film over a rural area (in what could possibly be the Deep South at night) when your helicopter crashes. As you limp your way through what seems to be an abandoned village, you come across macabre scenes as you find decaying cadavers in each cabin you investigate. Knocking door to door hoping you can find someone to help you in your situation, you come across a door that is ajar and find yourself in a cellar with a single light and a well. You immediately get ripped away by a ghostly arm and dragged away. You wake up in an abandon high school and your descent into madness begins.
Walking through the corridors of the high school as the voices that haunt the halls whisper to you. Running into and being chased by a maniacal satanic cult through cornfields as the cult leader spews a sermon that you are an intruder and you need to die. Just when you think you’re safe, a human, the scariest of all monsters, ends your demo with a pickaxe.
This world seems different, instead of a haunted house full of crazies; you come across the religiously motivated in a more murdering panic 1970’s slasher film kind of way. No conflict is ever in black and white. Be ready to get your pants scared off as the horror game is set to release by Red Barrel this fall.