Line #34 NightmareFuel/Outlast


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7	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/56339287dae90_outlast.jpeg]]
8	[[caption-width-right:350: They say nothing is scarier than something. They evidently haven't heard ''this guy'' say "Little Pig" as he hunts you.]]
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13	->''"I know I've said it before, but fuck this place."''
14	-->-- '''Miles Upshur'''
15
16	This game has a huge amount of things to be scared of. Whether it's due to seeing piles of intestines and gore, or running away from the crazed inmates, there's something here to scare everyone. And now there's [[VideoGame/OutlastII a sequel]].
17	----
18	!!Main Game
19	* This game's graphics provide plenty to be afraid of. The detail put into the blood and gore is good. Unfortunately, [[SceneryGorn it's a little too good at points,]] to where just standing around and looking is sure to make you [[NauseaFuel queasy.]]
20	* Many of the other inmates are [=NPCs=] that have already [[SanitySlippage mentally gone far past the point of no return,]] sitting by themselves and [[MadnessMantra whispering random gibberish]], each of them with FacialHorror all their own. What's worse? Some of them attack you. Most don't. [[ParanoiaFuel You'll never know which one's which until it's too late]].
21	* Opening the door to the library will result in a nasty JumpScare involving a hanging corpse. It gets worse when you enter the library and discover shelves of severed heads and an impaled man [[LastWords urging you to get out of the asylum]] before dying - just to make it worse, he's been impaled ''through the arse and up out of his right shoulder!''
22	* The huge, monstrous inmate, Chris Walker (pictured) is enough to make any player afraid to look around the corner. [[EstablishingCharacterMoment The first time we see him,]] he calls Miles a "little pig" and throws him through a window with little effort, whereupon Miles lands on top of a pile of LudicrousGibs, [[OhCrap and slowly comes to the realization of what he's on.]] Getting caught by him later will likely result in Miles's head getting literally ripped off from his shoulders if you're not quick on your feet and can find a good place to hide. It makes [[AlwaysABiggerFish the Walrider's]] [[CurbStompBattle effortless killing of him]] all the more terrifying.
23	* Being discovered by the enemies makes things a really fast and intense game of cat and mouse. It's scary because you have no idea where you are going, where's safe to hide, and where the items are.
24	* The courtyard level is one of the creepiest areas of the game. It is pitch-black, save for the brief flashes of lightning. You will get several sightings of the Walrider including a nasty JumpScare when it charges after you when you open a door in the shack. [[FromBadToWorse It gets worse when Chris Walker shows up to hunt you down.]]
25	* Early on, you are met with the lovely sight of a [[ILoveTheDead necrophiliac]] inmate having his way with a beheaded body in the form of an effective JumpScare. And, when he sees you, he calls ''you'' the sicko. Miles himself isn't unaffected: "Necromantic," the note you get by filming that, has a very revolted tone.
26	-->'''Miles:''' Seriously, just fuck this place. Dying keeps moving lower on the list of the worst things that could happen to me here.
27	* Father Martin's death. He crucifies himself while his followers burn him alive. Witnessing his flesh being charred while he screams in agony is very chilling. Miles comments on it in a note if you record it.
28	-->'''Miles:''' I can't believe Father Martin one-upped Jesus Christ in shitty ways to die.
29	* One of the inmates is trying to clean another... [[BloodBath in a bathtub full of blood,]] [[DissonantSerenity softly whispering to him]] like a newborn baby. ''Shudder.''
30	* In one room, you find a guy in a straitjacket, gagged and blinded. He follows you. Slowly, not saying or doing anything, but no matter where you go in the room, he just follows you.
31	* One of the rooms in the sewers is a massive underground reservoir, so large it renders the camera's IR pretty much useless. Far on the other side, you see a little speck of light. The sheer size of the reservoir is foreboding in itself, but it's not long before you hear the clinking of Chris Walker's chains. And the echoes in the room make it nearly impossible to find out which direction the sound's coming from, forcing you to walk through chest-deep water towards the light and pray that he doesn't find you. He loves to hang right around the stairway and ladder, too, and will immediately find you once you're there even if he wasn't looking at you before.
32	* The Male Ward chase scene is one of the most panic attack-inducing sequences in the game. Miles drops from a vent into a room with a [[OhCrap man tied to a chair who wakes up and immediately begins screaming in terror]]... and then a bunch of vicious, cannibalistic patients start banging down the door, and you're forced to watch their progress as you (excruciatingly slowly) move an obstruction out of the way so that you can escape. Cue even ''more'' patients that start bursting through doors to chase after you, and as one pursuer so threateningly puts it, ''you can't hide'' -- unlike the stealth elements of the rest of the game, you ''must'' [[RunOrDie keep running]] and timing your jumps and climbs correctly, or they'll hack you to pieces. Mercifully, it's difficult to get lost in this section (you'll find yourself at multiple forks in the path, but it's easy to determine which way you're supposed to go), but the intense musical score and bloodthirsty threats from your pursuers make it feel all the more harrowing. Worse yet, Miles's escape leads him to a dead end, and the final moments show that if the dumbwaiter hadn't come, he would have been ''seconds'' from death. [[FromBadToWorse Not that the rescue was a blessing...]]
33	* The infamous ColdBloodedTorture scene is skin-crawlingly sickening. The FauxAffablyEvil [[MadDoctor Doctor Trager]] straps Miles to a wheelchair, taunts him by showing him an open window that Miles could clearly escape the asylum from, then brings him into a disgusting "lab," AKA a public restroom, complete with urinals. The [[SarcasmMode good doctor]] proceeds to [[{{Fingore}} cut off a finger on each of Miles's hands, the pointer finger on the right hand and the ring finger on the left hand]] even punching Miles to keep him from passing out. Once Trager leaves, presumably to find something else to torture Miles with, Miles manages to get himself free, only to violently throw up immediately after It becomes worse with a dash of FridgeHorror: it's [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/9/9e/12.png/revision/latest?cb=20130909202742 implied]] that after the fingers he was going to go for the [[GroinAttack groin]] and [[TongueTrauma tongue]] next, had Miles not escaped.
34	** Trager's KarmicDeath is not a lovely sight either. Being crushed to death by an elevator, complete with the realistic bone-crunching sounds, is enough to send a chill down anyone's spine. Miles writes a very acerbic wrote about it should you record it.
35	--->'''Miles:''' How to make Trager juice. Step 1: Squeeze.
36	* The Variants' many examples of BodyHorror. [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/b/b1/Patient2_perspFront.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20140317185515 This]] [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/5/50/Patient3_perspFront.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20140317185553 is]] [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/f/ff/Patient4_perspFront.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20140317185714 beyond]] [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/1/19/Patient5_perspFront.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20140317185755 inhumane:]] [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/8/8d/Patient8_perspFront.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20140317191437 it's]] [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/4/4a/Patient9_perspFront.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20140317191552 just]] [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/3/39/Patient10_perspFront.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20140317191658 evil,]] [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/7/7f/Patient11_perspFront.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20140317191818 plain]] [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/e/e2/Patient13_perspFront.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20140317192052 and]] [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/9/9b/Patient12_face.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20140317191944 simple.]] If you're squeamish, [[YouDoNOTWantToKnow don't click on these links.]] [[SincerityMode Seriously, don't.]] You ''have'' been warned.
37	* A mix of this and TearJerker with the surprisingly comprehensible Variant you find in the burning room around mid-game. He just sounds [[DespairEventHorizon so defeated]] that everything around him has gone to hell, including himself, and he rightfully says that the whole asylum just needs to burn. Him attacking you a little later in the game implied that taking the fire away from him was all that was needed to turn him into a complete mess.
38	* At one point, Mile's messes up a jump and has to watch as his beloved camera, his one tool against the monsters hounding him and his only friend in the entire asylum, plummets to shadows below. He reaches for it as it falls, but eventually drops his arm, and you can just tell that he's realized how screwed he is. Navigating the darkness without your light source makes things a lot more nerve-wracking.
39	* Chris Walker's death. The player should feel relieved that he's off their back, but just watching how the Walrider kills him is just as disturbing as the others. First, Walker is thrown around like a rag doll but then he's pulled into the air vent and diced up by the fan. And the worst part: that could have happened to Miles! In a disturbing way, it was a VillainousRescue by The Walrider, but one that you probably won't come away from feeling good about.
40	* The documents you find contain all sorts of horrid details about what just happened, but perhaps the most disturbing ones are those referring to the US government and the very much real secret experiments the CIA tried out to control the minds of others, like MK-Ultra and Bluebird. We're told of several experiments of cruel nature, like hypnotizing a woman into killing another by shooting her despite [[DoesNotLikeGuns hating guns.]] And those experiments, and the test subjects, were provided and executed by Murkoff. In other words, a huge amount of the horrors of the game happened because they were promoted and subsided by the CIA itself. Miles and Waylon were not just facing a big corporation, but also the very U.S. government and secret services. The guy at the end of ''Whistleblower'' was not kidding when he said Waylon and his family would be ''in danger'' after he released his recordings to the public.
41	* The [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/9/90/Walllrider.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130921121429 glimpses]] we get of the [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/c/c1/Walrider1.png/revision/latest?cb=20131209215535 Walrider]] are nothing short of [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/3/3d/Walrider2.png/revision/latest?cb=20131210014845 terrifying]]. You'll catch a short glimpse of it in the Prison Block, but your first real encounter with it will be in the Courtyard. Faced with a locked gate, you cross the raining, pitch-black grounds with your infrared on and collect a key, only to turn around and see a glowing black silhouette ''standing right there, looking at you'', before it flies up and off around the grounds, turning into a formless mist as it goes. Only a moment later, you'll have a bad encounter with it when you discover it on the other side of a door--poor Miles will get slashed as it passes, but it will leave you alone then...at least until the end of the game. This part also introduces [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6P9Zo2pOD4 "Swarm Ambience"]], which plays specifically for glimpses of this apparition.
42	* The video being shown to Billy in the final part of the game. It has no sound, is in black and white, and is playing on several TV screens. It's essentially a mash-up of various bizarre images. The footage in the movie is live action, not done with game graphics, which makes it even more jarring, and all of the images are jittery. And Billy is being forced to watch it all the time.
43	* You think Chris Walker is scary? Well, [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/1/11/ChrisWalkerEarlyConcept.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140504091549 he could have been]] [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/outlast/images/6/6c/ChrisWalkerVariationModel01.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140504091942 a lot worse]]...
44
45	!!''Whistleblower'' DLC
46	* At the beginning, Waylon is forcibly institutionalized after attempting to reveal the abuses going on at Mount Massive Asylum. While this is horrifying by itself, it leads to the question of [[FridgeHorror just how many people were institutionalized like Waylon?]] According to [[http://outlast.wikia.com/wiki/Persecutorial_Delusions this]] document from the first game, at least one orderly could have been.
47	* The DLC starts out with the intensely stressful chase sequences in the vanilla game's last level, with you having to intermittently flee from a pissed-off Walrider who will shred you in seconds if you don't reach a decontamination chamber fast enough.
48	* Just like its predecessor, ''Whistleblower'' does not let up on the scares. Let's start off with Frank Manera, that cannibal who's bent on carving you up and roasting you in an oven.
49	** Your very first encounter with him is walking in on him standing naked in the kitchen and messily butchering a body, with pots of blood and severed limbs boiling on the stove beside him. When you exit the room and pass the window, you see he's using a buzz saw, has dried blood caked to his beard, and has apparently shoved his victim's head in a microwave and exploded it. Then he throws his saw at you, ''snarls'' like an enraged animal, and [[IAmAHumanitarian starts violently ripping off strips of meat from the body with his teeth.]]
50	---> '''Frank, revving up buzzsaw:''' [[MadnessMantra FEED ME! FEED ME! FEED ME!]]
51	** Another thing about meeting the Cannibal is that if you listen carefully while approaching the kitchen before meeting him, you can hear his saw revving up and somebody ''screaming in agony.''
52	* There's a moment Waylon will remark on when he's trying to make his way through the labs. A man will bang on the glass of the decontamination chamber, begging for help and initially saying he's part of staff...before noticing Waylon's getup and switching his story to say he's a patient. It's ultimately moot as a Variant kills him in short order, but the chilling thing is, you can't tell which is true: was he a patient trying to survive by claiming to be an orderly, who then switched his story when he saw a fellow victim? Or was he a Murkoff employee who knew full well that the hideous things they'd been doing to patients would earn him no sympathy from Waylon?
53	* The doctor who licks your face in the beginning. If you put on some headphones for that scene, you'll hear [[NoYay moaning that is too low to hear otherwise.]]
54	* In one hallway a guy follows you very slowly, telling you that you look so silky and he needs to tell you a secret. No thank you! I don't need any secrets, please!
55	* When you are exploring the attic, you overhear what appears to be four people talking to each other, but you can only see one person. Later, you come across a document describing a patient named Dennis with a dissociative identity disorder. Then it hits you, Dennis is the person you hear in the attic, and the other people you hear talking is really just him talking to his alters. A more subtle horror is just how dismissive the doctors are of his illness, saying he's faking it and doubting the disease even exists, which is obviously untrue considering Dennis is talking to his other personalities while completely alone. And their response to his 'attention-seeking?' ''Electroshock therapy.'' Then, you see his face, and it looks like it's been fried...
56	* One of the most terrifying parts of the DLC is Eddie Gluskin, who is dressed as a groom, thinking you're his "bride" with whom he's supposed to marry and start a family with. He's so persistent in chasing you that he could give Chris Walker a run for his money. Not to mention the creepy way he sings the American Quartet's "I Want a Girl"; you'll never be able to listen to that song again without thinking of him!
57	** The worst part is when you can hear him singing somewhere nearby, [[ParanoiaFuel but you can't figure out where he is.]]
58	--->'''Eddie:''' When I was a boy, my mother said to me, 'Get married, son, and you will see how happy you can be...
59	** When he finally does capture you, he [[UndressingTheUnconscious strips you]] and stuffs you in a locker, and through the slits you can see him [[CripplingCastration sawing off the genitals]] of several other Variants (who are all male) and what's worse is that he gets ''very'' close to doing the same thing to you, all while tenderly stroking your skin, telling you how beautiful you'll be once he removes everything "vulgar," and how he plans on getting you pregnant. Luckily, another inmate comes to your rescue before the saw can even touch you, but the thought of him doing that to you will make players shudder from remembering that scene with him, [[ShareTheMalePain especially male gamers]].
60	** And who could forget that SlasherSmile he gives you when you first meet him?
61	--->'''Eddie, standing completely still, looking through the door's window''': ''Darling.''
62	** Before Waylon even enters the Vocational Block, Eddie can be briefly glimpsed in an extremely unsettling moment. Just by the building is a document, and it simply reads, [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled "Kill us. Burn the building.]] [[FateWorseThanDeath Worse than death here. Kill us. Kill us."]] Looking through the window of the building reveals a figure (Eddie, unknown to Waylon and the player at this point) walking down the hallway, who suddenly stops, turns, and just ''stares'' at Waylon for a moment before continuing on.
63	** His MoodSwinger attitude is pretty terrifying as well, going from soft-spoken and polite to ''furious'' in a split second.
64	** Before encountering Eddie himself, you can find one of his pieces of…well, macabre "art". It's a mutilated male corpse with the head of another man sticking out of an opening carved into his taint, in a gruesome mimicking of childbirth. Just to give [[NauseaFuel the full extent of gruesome,]] that includes the man's chest sliced open and stuffed to resemble female breasts, the belly sliced open and stuffed with other bits to show pregnancy, and a severed head stuffed where the nether-regions were messily removed. [[YouDontWantToKnow Do not]] look for an image; it's absolutely full of '''[[BrainBleach nope]].'''
65	** Later, Waylon enters a gymnasium… and finds that the gym ceiling is covered with the hanged, mutilated corpses of Eddie's victims. There are easily ''dozens'' of them. And not only do you see hanging corpses, but there are also his decapitated victims, whose heads were placed on mannequins scattered around the room.
66	** It's more of an emotional nightmare than a gory one, but finding [[https://outlast.fandom.com/wiki/Project_Walrider_Patient_Status_Report_of_Eddie_Gluskin this document detailing Eddie's background]] sheds a horrifyingly sad light on what made him the man he is. [[RapeAsBackstory He was sexually abused by his father and uncle as a child]] in a, quote, "traumatically violent" way, also detailing that it was ongoing, meaning it happened for ''years.'' They even ''took pictures.'' He's dissociated so much and is in such a hardcore denial about it that he vehemently insists that he actually grew up in the show ''Series/LeaveItToBeaver''. When the interviewer in the document showed him the photos of his abuse, he "responded with a mixture of laughter and anger," and became violent to the point of needing physical restraints. It makes you wonder just what exactly they did to him as a child for him to get such warped views on fatherhood and masculinity.
67	** Knowing his horrible past also makes his ''very'' first scene where you meet him, when he's still somewhat sane and lucid, [[FridgeHorror sickening in retrospect.]] The orderlies, two large men, are dragging him into the Engine kicking and screaming; they've stripped him down to his underwear; and what does Eddie do when he briefly slips free? Desperately plead Waylon for help ''and screaming that the orderlies are going to rape him.'' In a first playthrough, this merely sounds like Eddie Gluskin making a desperate attempt to elicit help from someone, ''anyone'', by screaming the worst crime he can think of; [[RewatchBonus watching it again knowing the very real horror this behavior stems from is bound to leave you with a sick feeling in your stomach]].
68	* BigBad [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Jeremy Blaire]] himself may not be a deformed mental patient, but he is arguably one of the scariest enemies in the game, due to his utter indifference to the abuse and exploitation happening at Mount Massive, his willingness to do terrible things to you (even kill Waylon ''and'' his family) [[LackOfEmpathy without feeling any remorse,]] and his attempts to keep you from spreading the truth about Murkoff above anything else. He even tricks Waylon into thinking he's trying to help him escape at the end, then stabs him in the back (well, the stomach, but still). He gets a gruesome but [[KarmicDeath well-deserved death]] from the Walrider. Almost everyone else has the excuse of being, well, ''insane'' or a WellIntentionedExtremist; Blaire is just [[HateSink an asshole with zero redeeming qualities]]. In the comics, we see how "Dr." Trager ended up at the Asylum; having been committed there by none other than Blaire himself. With Blaire doing it with the utmost glee. There is absolutely ''no one'' that's safe from this asshole, not even his "buddies."
69	-->'''Waylon, in a note, should you record him bleeding out by the front door:''' Jeremy Blaire. My supervisor's supervisor, a man who'd see me skinned, salted, and raped for a promotion and a few martinis.
70	* Early in your escape attempt, the first blocked hallway makes you duck into an operating room. Inside the room is a large group of Variants who have killed and started dissecting a doctor. The leader invites you to join in and cut out the heart, stating that unless one expresses themselves, they'll have a much more destructive blow-out later. When you make no move to participate, he starts stabbing the knife into the corpse's chest in a fit of rage and shouts at you to get out before he decides to use you as the next stress dummy. What makes it worse is that if your first instinct is to turn back to the hallway, you'll see that a new and particularly deformed patient has entered behind you and is blocking the doorway, and when you walk around to the second entrance, ''everyone'' turns to glare at your retreating figure.
71	* Ever wonder why all the Variants are male? As it turns out, a document explains that the Morphogenic Engine caused at least seven of the female employees to suffer from phantom pregnancies, and then miscarried about halfway through... and in the majority of the cases, ''[[YourMindMakesItReal they died because of it.]]'' It's actually worse if you listen to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etg3ITqTT28 the downloaded audio files containing some of the used (and unused) scientist's dialogue.]] It turns out that any woman exposed to the Morphogenic Engine will develop a severe autoimmune response, causing her womb to fall out after 24 hours of exposure. Yeesh!
72	* At the end of game, you get a couple of the documents that talk about the transfer of three patients: 14306-8, 14279-1, and 14868-1. Why is that so frightening? Because apparently they are referred as [[YourMindMakesItReal 'lucid dreamers']], and they make Billy Hope look like a ''partial success.'' [[FridgeHorror If that means what it sounds like it means]] and considering Miles' survival as the new Walrider, [[FromBadToWorse then things]] [[SerialEscalation could get]] [[ThisIsGonnaSuck a lot scarier.]]
73	** One document notes that Murkoff employees think that Wernicke missed the three new Lucid Dreamers because he was too preoccupied with Billy's success. As we see by his actions at the end of the game, ''he realised how bad more than one could be'', given the chaos Billy causes, so didn't say anything.
74	* Due to a quirk of the game design[[note]]the fact that the developers didn't want to have to respawn a different model every time the main character of the game died[[/note]], neither Miles nor Waylon have heads. There's just a bloody stump where their necks are located. They do have non-textured, invisible heads located atop their necks so they can cast a full shadow, but they don't have visible head models. A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXhOtMeoeWo third person view of the characters shows how creepy they look]]. You can occasionally see the bloody neckstumps in game, when you ease through tight spots, crawl into Trager's dumbwaiter, or climb out of a sewer tunnel.
75	* It's easy to miss, but one of the inmates cowering in a bed in the Prison Block has a [[AssShove syringe lodged up his anus.]] You have no idea whether the inmate himself put it there or some other Variant did, but it's a moment of subtle horror that may very well be more effective than the game's more bombastic and spectacle-ridden scares.

Context NightmareFuel / Outlast