Outlast Intrigue

I've dived back into the dark world of the Outlast series. I recently bought Outlast 2 and Outlast Trials. The two games were missing from my Steam list. I must be careful, I've spent forty dollars on games. I need to save money, not spend it. Let me say that I won't be spending any more this month on games or fast food. That should boost my bank account. 

Going back to the Outlast games is a little hard because the games are so gory. In one instance, if you get caught by this giant of a man, he'll rip your head off. The game is set in a first person angle meaning that you'll see your body on the floor as your head dies from decapitation. Both the first and second games have lots of other disturbing moments including implied necrophilia, cannibalism, and insane religious devotion. The first game has the player infultrate an insane assylum thanks to a whistleblower email sent anonymously. Armed with only your camera's night vision as a form of light, you descend into the deep bowels of the assylum seeking answers and an exit. There's a lot of lore behind the game that's fleshed out in notes left by the staff and scenes the player can capture with their camera. The developers went even further with comics that explain what happened before and after the events of the first game. I was initially drawn to the game for it's found footage style gameplay. Found footage has alwasy been a guilty pleasure of mine so this game already had it's hooks in me. After many trials, the player is confronted with the truth the assylum is beneath a lab that's experimenting on the patients. They're trying to find a way to get one of them to control a nano machine weapon they call The Wallrider. It's a mix of scifi and religious horror as the name implies that there is some folklore to the weapon's name. After confronting the weapon and it's creators, you're released from the assylum, a few fingers missing (don't ask) and greet the dawn as the host of a nano machine weapon. What happens next is explained in the comics which feels like homework to me. It's interesting how the games can be played without any context of the comics but it limits how much the player knows about the world without doing more research. It's similar to the Rick and Morty comics that were released a few years ago, they technically aren't cannon but are written in such a way that the show never needs to acknowledge them. It frustrates me a bit when storytellers don't provide a way to have access to all the knowledge. The comics should come free with the games, at least that's how I feel.

Going back to the first game, my friend introduced me to the series when I was taking game design clasess in community college. He claims it's the best horror game made, I reserve that honor for Amnesia, The Dark Descent which I'm playing again. I'm going back to the Outlast series because I thought it would provide some inspirationg for KIY. I can see people abusing the magics and technology behind the Cthulhu mythos as a possibility in my world. It's something that's similar in the Bloodborne world, a group of hunters that use Eldritch techniques to combat the darkness. The same can't be said for the Outlast series as they are focused on madness without the cosmic entities. Instead they focus on human evils, the evils born in Germany during the second world war. The evils of science without restraints or a moral compass. I'll read the comics later after I play through the first game again, however long that takes. In the meantime, I've got plenty of research and writing to do with my Cain story.