You’re armed only with your camcorder’s battery-reliant night vision mode to make your way through the omnipresent darkness, and because you spend most of your time being chased at a clip you have to rely on the most basic of visual signals to stay on the right path. Much of this comes down to Outlast 2’s use of lighting. Developer Red Barrels has created a world where linearity exists but is deceptive, where each escape feels skin-of-your-teeth frantic thanks to smart world building.

I felt constantly disorientated while blindly running to a half-glimpsed place of safety, and while this might look like bad game design on paper, it’s effective in practice when the goal is to create a sense of desperation. With multiple labyrinthian structures and outdoor environments like tall grass and rivers to hide in, it’s easier to simply run from enemies, but it’s also harder to see them coming. It’s a lot more open than the original, which adds to an authentic horror experience. Outlast 2 is deep South horror, but without the trappings of domesticity we saw in Resident Evil 7 Supai is untamed cornfields, dilapidated shacks, and – go figure – gory remnants of unspeakable religious rites. The ending, however, stayed with me for days.Outlast 2 benefits from ditching the somewhat tired mental asylum setting of the original and travelling the less-trodden road of the Sonoran Desert, where protagonist Blake Langermann is searching for his wife Lynn after crash landing in the cult-ridden Supai region during an investigative journalism assignment. While it suffers from a couple of pacing problems and some finicky navigation issues, its careful - and sadistic - manipulation of my fight-or-flight reflex had me experiencing an overwhelming sense of dread throughout, which abated only once the credits were rolling. There is also dialogue in the present day that suggests Jessica survived her injuries, but was never able to recover from the mental trauma and committed suicide as a result.Not for the faint of heart, Outlast 2’s relentless scares, unforgiving monsters, and provocative meditations on faith are an anxiety-inducing but cathartic horror experience. The other explanation, that Jessica was so traumatized by the experience that she killed herself, is a bit more straightforward, but also possible.

It's possible that Loutermilch accidentally broke Jessica's neck in the struggle, and that he framed it to make it look as though she killed herself instead, perhaps with Blake's assistance, which would better explain his intense guilt over the situation. Blake chases the two of them down, and finds Jessica lying on a flight of stairs, with a significant neck injury.

In the scene where Blake and Jessica are in trouble, Loutermilch dismisses Blake to be left alone with Jessica, but she starts screaming and attempts to run away. In the game, it is strongly suggested that Father Loutermilch had a history of abuse with Jessica, with the implication being that he molested her. Now, there is some dispute as to what actually happened at the end of the Catholic school flashbacks. More or less, Blake and his friend Jessica were caught breaking the rules at school, and then one of the priests, Father Loutermilch, apparently beat Jessica for her transgressions, resulting in her later committing suicide by hanging herself at school. As players experience these Catholic school flashbacks, they should be able to piece together the gist of what happened.

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