Characters / Outlast II

The Langermanns

Blake

Blake Langermann

"Find Lynn. Nothing matters but Lynn."

Portrayed By: Shawn Baichoo & Noah Nethercott

The unseen protagonist. Together with his wife Lynn, they go to investigate a desert cult village, with Blake acting as the cameraman and Lynn as a reporter. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

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• Action Survivor: Just an average cameraman pitted against an entire town of psychotic lunatics.
• Ambiguously Gay: Blake is a sexually suppressed man as shown by his four-month Sexless Marriage with Lynn, whom he does love and is clearly devoted to. However, the homophobic slurs during the school segments and the dialogue about Blake being "confused" actually suggest that Blake is gay or bisexual and that his experiences in school have made him terrified of coming out.
• Blind Without 'Em: He wears glasses to correct his extreme near-sightedness. Fortunately, he never loses his glasses for more than a few seconds, and in the second half of the game they seem permanently glued to his face.
• Buried Alive: Buried by Laird in an effort to make him be reborn. He escapes it, though — it helps that the dirt wasn't deep.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: He's quite different from Miles Upshur, the protagonist of the first game. For starters, Blake speaks, whereas Mile never did. They also have entirely different professions and motivations (Miles was a journalist who went to explore Mount Massive Asylum to expose its secrets, while Blake is a cameraman who is in search of his missing wife). Lastly, the game goes in-depth on Blake's background and ties it into the story, while Miles' background is irrelevant to his plot and only ever really mentioned in supplementary material.
• Deadpan Snarker: He has plenty of sarcastic one-liners to drop in response to the insane shit he's submitted to.
  Blake: (stumbling into a giant, grotesque pit of corpses in a barn) "Aw Jesus, should've prayed for refrigeration."
• Dented Iron: Despite being capable of taking an impressive amount of punishment, his appearance shows all the signs of this
• Death Wail: Gives a pretty heart-wrenching one when after all he goes through to save her, Lynn still ends up dying just after giving birth.
• The Determinator: He goes through a lot of terrifying situations for the sake of rescuing his wife, even in the first portion of the game.
• Emotional Regression: By the climax, in his recordings (around "The Storm"), Blake's mind is so shattered by Temple Gate and the hallucinations that he starts wording his sentences like a child, acting like he was in his childhood flashbacks, including talking about finding a "grown up".
• Even the Guys Want Him: Described as beautiful by Laird, though that might be due to being surrounded by grotesque followers.
• The Faceless: As the game's first-person perspective is unbroken, his face is never seen. The most we get are photos of him as a schoolboy, though that was decades in the past.
• First-Person Smartass: Sometimes gets a little snarky when going back and narrating on what he's recorded.
• Fragile Speedster: Just as fast as our previous two protagonists, but just as defenseless.
• Foil: To Waylon Park when you think about it. Both of them are motivated by the love they had for their wives, both got severely injured during their journey that got them incapacitated (Waylon's injury made him limping, while Blake's injuries made him unable to grab ledges), and finally both managed to end up alive at the end of their respective story. However, Waylon's story is about trying to get out of mount massive and goes home to see his wife while Blake's is about trying to rescue his wife from a cult of brainwashed Christians. Waylon's injury forced him to limp for the rest of the game, while Blake managed to heal his injuries and he became good as new (in gameplay at least). Lastly, Waylon managed to go home and reunite with his wife and children, while Blake had to watch his wife died in his arms and was in a catatonic state at the end of his story.
• Groin Attack: He can be the victim of this in a few of the death animations.
• Handwraps of Awesome: After getting crudely crucified, Blake has to wrap his hands in bandages out of necessity.
• Made of Iron: Dear god this guy is tough, even compared to other outlast protagonists he can take some real punishment. The list of things Blake can apparently survive (and still have all of his functions) include.
  • Falling several hundred feet in an elevator without so much as a broken foot
  • Being nailed to a cross and freeing himself by ripping his hands off the nails (his hands work perfectly well after wrapping them in bandages)
  • Taking at least several blows from Marta's giant pickaxe as well as being stabbed and slashed by many other weapons
  • Having his head literally split open early on in the game (it only takes about an hours rest to recover)
  • Being buried alive
  • And finally even when he's killed in a death animation, his killers usually take at least a couple attempts to successfully stab and/or hack him to death
• My Greatest Failure: It's clear through the school segments that he feels responsible for being unable to prevent the rape and murder of his childhood friend Jessica.
• Nice Guy: Hard to tell through most of the game, since he's going through hell and losing his mind, but he cares deeply about the people he loves and is relatively polite when given the chance.
• Oblivious to Love: In his youth, he seemed to fail to pick up on hints that both Jessica and Lynn were interested in him.
• Parental Abandonment: He mentions his mother died and his father soon follows after one month.
• Pretty Boy: Laird is concretely convinced Blake is the Scalled Messiah the second he lays his eyes on him, and if you read the Gospel of Knoth, he specifically describes that the Messiah will be a man more beautiful and pure than any woman could ever be. The validity of Laird's standards are shady at best, though, seeing how he and all of his peers are freakish monstrosities.
• Rape as Drama: He gets raped by Val when he finally reaches Lynn.
• Sanity Slippage: Due to speaking this time instead of Miles' lack of speaking aside from yelling, it's made more obvious to the player that Blake is really losing it. Just listen to his commentary on the recordings, which begin as perfectly sane and normal and devolve into insane ramblings, and often lead to discussions about his personal life, and he seems to realize his growing insanity as early as "Why You Have to Die". His final recording, "She Will Never Die", seems to imply that the death of his wife and the birth of his child shocked him back into reality somewhat, as he claims that at the very least he has his daughter and that said daughter will grow up. Then you consider that the baby possibly only exists in his mind and that, actually, he's fallen off the deep end and is just as delusional as everyone else in the town... As revealed in the epilogue to Outlast: The Murkoff Account, he was rendered completely catatonic, and sent off to have what he knew taken from him forcefully.
• Sexless Marriage: He and Lynn haven't had sex in months. Which makes her sudden pregnancy all the more disturbing.
• Sir Swears Alot: Just like his wife, he has one hell of a sailor's mouth. Literally over a half of his dialogue is a swear in response to the situation.
• Sole Survivor: As confirmed in The Murkoff Account, he ends up the sole living person in Temple Gate, at the cost of any ability for thought whatsoever.
• Survivor Guilt: Blake retains a heavy dose of guilt from Jessica's apparent suicide. This is the primary motivation for his hallucinations, and made worse as they go on.
• Through the Eyes of Madness: It's made clear early on that the school segments are not really happening, and are a result of Blake going crazy because of the microwave signals. By the end of the game, he's so far gone it turns him into an Unreliable Narrator at best.
• Uncertain Doom: Given the heavy use of hallucinations, it's unclear if Blake dies in the ending, or is merely hallucinating. This was clarified in Outlast: The Murkoff Account: he is not dead, but completely catatonic, and Murkoff takes him away to dig through his brain, and decidedly not gently.
• Unreliable Narrator: The hallucinatory nature of the school segments is obvious from the beginning, but when elements from those visions start bleeding into the real world, that's when you realize that Blake's entire perceptions have been distorted by the Murkoff signals.
• Would Hit a Girl: Completely and utterly justified, as the women in question are trying to kill him. Which is why he isn't afraid of kicking an old woman in the chest, he kicks Marta in the face a few times too.

Lynn

Lynn Langermann

Portrayed By: Erika Rosenbaum

An investigative journalist and the wife of Blake Langermann. Lynn, alongside her husband, go to investigate the murder of a Jane Doe, who was found eight months pregnant on the side of the road.

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• Action Survivor: She's just a normal reporter in way over her head who escapes two even worse hells than Blake, albeit off-screen. She also seems more willing to put up a fight than Blake.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: She had a couple of bruises in her face when blake found her the first time, but that didn't take away most of her looks. Averted, in their second reunion, where she's covered in mud, all over due to being subjected in the Heretics ritual.
• Damsel in Distress: She's captured when the helicopter crashes, resulting in Blake going into the town to save her.
• Damsel out of Distress: She manages to escape from the cult before being taken again by a different faction. She also manages to rescue herself from that faction, albeit just barely thanks to being heavily pregnant and about to give birth and needs Blake’s help escaping.
• Death by Childbirth: She dies after giving birth to her child near the end of the game. But only thanks to Your Mind Makes It Real.
• Distaff Counterpart: Surprisingly enough, to Miles Upshur. They're both journalists who go to investigate a run-down location that turns out to be hell on Earth, swamped with dozens of lunatics who want to kill them or worse, forcing them to survive without anything to defend themselves with.
• Exact Words: When the cultists arrive to recapture her and Blake, she threatens them that the first person to touch her will lose their eyes. The man who first restrains her does lose his eyes—but the perpetrator is Val, who shows up for a Villainous Rescue moments later.
• Intrepid Reporter: Just like Miles.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's abrasive, but she loves her husband and isn't really a bad person.
  Lynn: "I swear to fucking Christ, the first person who touches me loses their eyes."
• Lady Swears-a-Lot: Most of her few appearances have her swearing up a storm.
• Rape as Drama: All but stated that Knoth sexually abused her.
• Religious Bruiser: Not as obvious as Blake, but it's very likely she's a devout Christian like him, as they went to the same Catholic school.
• Sanity Slippage: Downplayed. She clearly has it together more than Blake does at the end but she does believe that the baby is real, and Blake is the father — until the actual birth happens, and she realizes that "there's nothing there."
• Sexless Marriage: She and Blake haven't had sex in months. Which makes her sudden pregnancy all the more disturbing.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Her surprise pregnancy is implied to be psychosomatic a.k.a not real at all, induced by Murkoff's microwave signal, much like the effect the Morphogenic Engine had on female patients in Outlast, which resulted in fatal "miscarriages". She seems to realize this before she dies.

Testament of the New Ezekiel

In General

Testament of the New Ezekiel

A huge cult based at the remote Temple Gate town and founded and led by the insane preacher Sullivan Knoth.

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• Ax-Crazy: They're so disconnected from reality that they make the Variants look sane. Unlike the Variants, however, there are even less exceptions to the rule, and Insane Equals Violent is far more in place.
• Baby Factory: Women are encouraged to breed frequently. The discovery and death of a pregnant cult victim is what leads the Langermanns to investigate.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In truth, they are the product of another experiment from the Murkoff Corporation. Knoth and his entire flock are under the influence of mind-altering microwave signals from towers placed in the desert.
• Cult Colony: A town-wide Religion of Evil.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Clearly inspired by Jonestown, right down to a document mentioning that several members like drinking Grape-aid. They even commit mass suicide at the end.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: More like Equally Condemnatory, but Knoth's rhetoric puts just as much shame on male sexuality as female, and his followers hold Blake equally as culpable as Lynn for being the "tainted stem" that conceived The Antichrist, wanting them both dead so that neither has the chance to go and breed a new one if they manage to abort the current one.
• Hillbilly Horrors: An extremely backwoods Cult Colony.
• Machete Mayhem: Cultists that are searching for Blake use machetes in conjunction with flashlights.
• Meaningful Name: Ezekiel was a major Biblical prophet whose apocalyptic writings seem to form the basis of New Ezekiel's beliefs. Specifically, he foresaw the destruction of Jerusalem and the devastation of Israel's enemies as punishment for their corruption, followed by a renewed and blessed Israel and a new age of peace.
• Religion of Evil: Judging by all the corpses and blood, it's very clear they're not a religion of peace.
• Would Hurt a Child: The core of their faith revolves around killing their own children, for they believe The Antichrist might be born among them. And they've been performing such acts for years.

Knoth

Sullivan Knoth

"Fear God, give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come."

Portrayed By: Vlasta Vrána

Part of the Big Bad Ensemble of Outlast II; founder and leader of the sick cult called the Testament of the New Ezekiel.

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• Affably Evil: He'd probably be Faux Affably Evil if he wasn't driven insane by Murkoff. As a result of this knowledge, any of his politeness towards Blake and Lynn can be taken as genuine.
• All for Nothing: At the end of the game, Knoth realizes that everything he'd done to prevent the Anti-Christ's birth was all for naught as the Murkoff tower starts to explode and kill everything.
• Antiquated Linguistics: His vocabulary is very old-fashioned, as befitting the nature of the cult and his own status as a Messianic figure from days gone by.
• As the Good Book Says...: Knoth constantly quotes the Bible... his own Bible, that is: The Gospel of Knoth.
• Ax-Crazy: He leads a cult that have been committing infanticide for years.
• Big Bad: The most prominent villain in the game, every bad thing that happens can be traced back to his actions. Or Murkoff's.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With the Stalker, Laird, the leader of the Scalled, and Val, the leader of the Heretics. Though he successfully has her and her followers killed, and Laird is killed by his own men, leaving him as the true Big Bad.
• The Corrupter: Knoth has made an art of persuading members of his cult to keep going whenever they start questioning things. He's repeatedly guilt-tripped Marta into continuing her murderous ways, and convinced Laird that the Scalled colony would get no further supplies from him because the first cache they got was "what God intended". Didn't exactly work with Val however.
• Dirty Old Man: His self-published gospel apparently serves partly as a vehicle for him to create his own harem from the wives of faithful townsmen. Sometimes, he takes their daughters, too.
• Driven to Suicide: At the height of his insanity, he believes that "God does not hear dead men, but [he] expects he answers them," and kills himself with his own knife.
• The Extremist Was Right: In a way. Blake and Lynn's arrival precedes the end of Temple Gate, as he feared, but it is hinted prior to this that the tower relays sending the mind-altering signal were damaged by an electrical storm, and their effect has been worsened, so chances are they were all doomed either way.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He refuses to kill any child that isn't his own, and commands the rest of the cult to do the same in order to stave off guilt. True to his word, he can't kill Blake's kid at the end of the game, and instead pleads for Blake to do it so the world won't end.
• Evil Old Folks: 80 years old.
• Evil Sounds Raspy: His weathered and raspy voice can be heard quite frequently throughout the game as he broadcasts sermons and torments his victims.
• Expy: Of Jonestown leader Jim Jones.
• Eye Scream: Cut his left eye when ordered to by "God".
• Fat Bastard: The guy is BIG, and plenty unpleasant.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: This delusional lunatic with an entire town of other delusional lunatics under his rule was once a shoe salesman.
• Kick the Dog: He does a lot of horrific things without blinking, like his murder of two heretics, a husband and a wife by Racking one of them to death and axing the other in the skull.
• Non-Action Big Bad: Since he is overweight and old, he doesn't play much of an active role in the story compared to his enforcer Marta or his rival Val.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Half the reason he's the way he is is because he genuinely believes that the things he's doing are necessary to prevent the Apocalypse (that, and his mind has been severely screwed with by Murkoff's brainwashing signals). The other half is because he's a sick pervert leading a cult to apotheosize him so he can rape with impunity and kill anyone who doesn't bend to his will. Rather than mourn Val's defection, he hastily records a gospel entry that essentially villainizes Val into a Judas-like figure who was surely an evil conspirator the whole time.
• Offing the Offspring: By the time the events of the game take place, he's killed every single child he's sired with the women of his cult. He laments on this at the end when it turns out to have failed in preventing the Anti-Christ, having done it all on the strength of his faith and yet ultimately that faith went unanswered.
• Older Than They Look: With his skin being largely unwrinkled and his hair lacking any sort of greyness (from what can be told with the poor lighting), Knoth looks relatively young for an 80-year-old man.
• Pet the Dog: It's clear that underneath his layers of total insanity, he has the ability to care at least somewhat. He sends Laird some treats for Nick, for example.
• Serial Rapist: Knoth isn't above donating his own "seed" for the cause.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: He does an awful lot of talking with overly long words in person, but it's also highly present in his "gospel" chapters that you find scattered around (these being written in an emulation of the actual Bible).
• Sinister Minister: Though he isn't a Catholic minister (or ordained by any officially recognized religion), he borrows the rhetoric and social standing of one as a cult leader.
• Slashed Throat: Does this to himself.
• Sophisticated as Hell: He speaks in Antiquated Linguistics yet peppers it with "fucks" and "cunts".
• Southern-Fried Genius: Downplayed example, but for a nondescript shoe salesman turned self-proclaimed prophet after being driven insane, he's got a surprising amount of background knowledge on religion. He references all three Abrahamic faiths in his sermons, including referring to Muhammad by full name and title at least once, as well as Amerindian legends and some relatively obscure early Christian edicts. Not to mention his previously discussed eloquence. Seeing how much legitimate knowledge of Scripture and charisma he's able to draw out in his writings, it becomes a little more understandable how he could have attracted so many people to Temple Gate in the first place, at least back before it went all the way to Hell.
• Tragic Villain: He was once a simple shoe salesman who lived his adult life in fear of poverty due to financial issues and was going to lose his home to unaffordable debt. When he desperately turned to a late-night Evangelical radio station to find solace, he was accidentally exposed to Murkoff's microwave towers, which drove him insane. This resulted in him hearing the "voice of God", which told him to commit all the horrible actions in this game.
• Universally Beloved Leader: Other than the Heretics, every resident of Temple Gate sees Knoth as the equivalent of Jesus Christ himself, and treat him with unconditional love and respect almost as much as they do God himself.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He murders children, tortures heretics, and rapes members of his cult through his position, and that's not even all of his crimes. But he's fully convinced that if he doesn't, the Anti-Christ will be born and destroy the world. He is suitably devastated when he realizes all his efforts are for naught.
• Would Hurt a Child: He murdered all of his own children, and encouraged members of his church to do the same with their own.

Marta

Marta

"O, that you would slay the wicked, O Lord; O men of blood, depart from me."

Portrayed By: Tamara Brown

"I hate them with complete hatred; I count them my enemies."

A prominent antagonist and Testament of the New Ezekiel cultist who pursues Blake throughout Temple Gate. Appears to work as Knoth's enforcer, slaughtering those deemed as heretics and sinners in their midst.

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• Ax-Crazy: Redundant, as all cult members are, but God, just listen to her dialogue.
• The Brute: Don't be fooled by her sickly thin build, she's just as towering and dangerous as Chris Walker.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Being Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by the church cross. Though as far as some of the other deaths in the game go, this one was rather tame.
• Dark Action Girl: She's the first female in the franchise to act as an enemy, wielding a huge pickaxe and acting as Knoth’s personal enforcer.
• Distaff Counterpart: Basically a female equivalent of Chris Walker from the first game.
• The Dragon: Marta is Knoth's right-hand woman and his most loyal and competent follower.
• Dragon-in-Chief: Knoth is too overweight and old to be much of a physical threat, so that's where Marta comes in.
• The Dreaded: All the other cultists fear her, and with very good reason - Her presence means someone's going to die, and it's impossible to stop her.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Just look at her picture.
• Fan Disservice: She has a low neckline, shows off her legs and she doesn't look half-bad by the standards of the franchise, looking, at worst, haggard. That said, she's still an impossibly tall Ax-Crazy woman who will stab you in the groin with a pickaxe. In graphic detail.
• Final Boss: She's the last enemy you face in the game. Fortunately, it doesn't last long at all.
• Groin Attack: One of her kills involves skewering Blake right in his crotch with her weird pickaxe, right before impaling him in the torso.
• The Heavy: Marta may not be the Big Bad, but she is one of the most prominent of the people who chase you down during the first portion of the game and acts as the Final Boss for Blake and Lynn.
• Hell Is That Noise: The absolutely deranged and hate-filled scream she lets out whenever she sees you.
• Hidden Depths: Scattered letters reveal Marta used to constantly question the righteousness of her actions, with Knoth having to "reassure" her over and over.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: She dies when the chapel's cross falls after being hit by lightning and skewers her. For added irony, her last words are "God loves you".
• Implacable Man: Marta will pop out of literally nowhere, and once she appears there's nothing you can do to stop her. Luckily, she doesn't pursue you into the forest or the mines, content to stick around the town.
• Kick the Dog: Ruthlessly slaying the one Nice Guy in the entire Outlast universe.
• Lean and Mean: Almost as tall as Chris Walker, but while his nickname was "Strongfat", hers may as well be "Strongtwig".
• Lightning Bruiser: Her attacks are absolutely devastating, and she's actually faster than Blake, and can keep up with him until his breath runs out from sprinting.
• Madness Mantra: "GOD GIVE ME VOICE. GOD GUIDE MY HAND."
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Despite being inhumanly lanky, she's so physically powerful she can bust through walls like Nemesis from Resident Evil.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Much like Chris Walker, Marta has a tendency to just suddenly reappear out of nowhere in different areas of the game. Though when compared to Chris, the open-ended setting combined with her ability to bust down walls doesn't make the possibility of Marta being able to more easily navigate around the town completely out of the question.
• Powerful Pick: Wields an odd, almost fantastical pick as a weapon.
• Screaming Warrior: Whenever she sees you, she lets out an angry wail.
• Sophisticated as Hell: She speaks like a (batshit insane) preacher, but isn't above randomly dropping f-bombs.
• The Unfettered: Nothing will sway or stop this woman from carrying out the will of Father Knoth in her pursuit of Blake, nothing. It takes some good old fashioned divine justice to bring her down.

Ethan

Ethan

Portrayed By: Carlo Mestroni

A villager who helps Blake.

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• The Atoner: He admits to letting Knoth get away with doing a lot to his family, but when told to kill his grandchild by slitting his daughter's belly, he figured now was the time to start acting like a father.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: For refusing to give up Blake's location, he is beaten and impaled with a pickaxe by Marta.
• Heel–Face Turn: He was a dues-paying member of the cult, allowing Knoth to rape his fifteen-year-old daughter, Anna Lee. But when it came time for Ethan to kill his grandchild, he couldn't go through with it and helped Anna Lee escape.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Blake himself lampshades this after his death.
  Blake: You didn't give me up to her. Even though she... Thank you.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Courtesy of Marta.
• Let Them Die Happy: Blake didn't plan for it that way, but him saying that his pregnant daughter is still alive ends up this way.
• Nice Guy: The man shows nothing but kindness toward Blake.
• Only Sane Man: Played for Drama. Though he wasn't always like this, he's the only nice, rational person in all of Temple Gate.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: The only person the player meets in Temple Gate who isn't crazy and sincerely wants to help Blake. So of course he dies shortly after.

Anna Lee

Anna Lee

Portrayed By: N/A

A pregnant woman who escaped Temple Gate.

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• The Ghost: She is never seen in the game, since she was murdered prior to the events of the story. However, she does appear in the prequel comic, which shows her escape and death.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Her death was ruled a suicide, but she was actually murdered by Murkoff officer Pauline Glick.
• Posthumous Character: She was murdered in a hospital prior to the events of the story and her death is what causes Lynn and Blake to investigate further. Averted in The Murkoff Account, which shows her escape from Temple Gate and eventual murder by Pauline Glick.
• Rape as Drama: As Ethan mentions, Knoth forced himself on Anna when she fifteen years old.

Corgan

Corgan

"Father to the beast. I'll bleed you in the yard."

Portrayed By: Graham Cuthbertson

A member of the Temple Gate.

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• Bald of Evil: Has a bright clean-shaven dome.
• Driven to Suicide: Took poison like the other cult members.
• Machete Mayhem: Wields a machete.
• Memetic Mutation: "Consume the flesh, spice it well."

Lydia Degan

Lydia Degan

Portrayed By: N/A

A wealthy and high-ranking follower of the Testament of the New Ezekiel, who allowed the cult to stay on her ranch.

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• The Ghost: Only mentioned as part of Knoth's backstory and the beginnings of the cult, never seen in the game proper.
• The Team Benefactor: Provided the original cult with land to operate on.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: It was mentioned that many of the cult's members were arrested, implying she was one of them.

Heretics

In General

Heretics

A splinter group of New Ezekiel on violent resistance against Knoth and those loyal to him, with the belief that The Antichrist should be born.

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• Ax-Crazy: Save for their leader Val, they have even less going on upstairs than the other cultists, almost coming off as feral.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Subject to the same Murkoff signal brainwashing as their enemy cultists.
• Demihuman: Even if they are humans, they are very animalistic. Their insane behavior, gibberish, and physical appearance make them barely human.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Attack Blake while dressed in nothing but mud and twigs.
• Laughing Mad: Their insane babbling is mostly composed of feral laughter.
• Malevolent Masked Men: They wears masks made out of branches that give the impression it's their real face.
• Naked Nutter: All of them go around naked and quite filthy, with strange headdresses woven out of branches, and nobody could argue that they're not insane.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: They are often seen falling from large heights unharmed.

Val

Val

Portrayed By: Claudia Besso

Part of the Big Bad Ensemble of Outlast II and a former deacon of New Ezekiel who now leads the Heretics.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: It doesn't take a genius to tell Val's love isn't exactly reciprocated by Blake.
• Ambiguous Gender: Despite presenting as a female and usually being referred to with female pronouns (and being voiced and modeled as a female), she clearly has a male chest and uses mud to form makeshift breasts and female genitalia, Knoth repeatedly refers to Val with male pronouns, and one of her notes mentions she's unable to bear children of her own. The most logical conclusion is that Val is a transgender woman, but when asked about it, the developers have simply answered Val is Val.
• Asshole Victim: Murdered along with the rest of the heretics by Knoth's men.
• Ax-Crazy: As insane as the rest of the Temple Gate residents, and just as unstable and violent.
• Big Bad Ensemble: With Knoth, Laird, and the Stalker.
• Blasphemous Boast: A lot, her introductory line is saying that her Father raped the cult's god as she kills him.
• Boyish Short Hair: Adds to her androgynous appearance.
• Dark Action Girl: She's just as physically formidable as the rest of the psychos.
• Depraved Bisexual: If you look closely, she starts digging into Lynn first before moving onto Blake.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Val is a full out aversion of this trope. The moment she sexually assaults and rapes Blake is shown as outright horrifying and disgusting.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: Val has grown to revel in the feelings of inappropriate lust she experienced engaging in the cult's depraved killings. Fittingly, she talks in a slurred, husky drone, as if on a perpetual high.
• Eye Scream: In her first appearance, she brutally, slowly gouges out a Christian's eyes with her thumbs.
• Fan Disservice: A naked, fairly attractive woman who is utterly insane and wants to have sex with Blake, whether he likes it or not.
• Full-Frontal Assault: She wears no clothing while chasing down Blake in the mines.
• Hate Sink: Even more so than Laird, at least he didn't rape Blake.
• Hypocrite: She criticizes Knoth for being a rapist. Has no problem being one herself.
• Ignored Epiphany: Tying into the above, she originally wanted to leave Temple Gate because she was horrified by what she found herself doing in Knoth's direction. By the time she actually managed to leave, the Murkoff microwaves had made her more sadistic than Knoth ever could be.
• Lecherous Licking: She gives plenty of big, wet ones to the Langermanns in her Establishing Character Moment.
• Love Freak: In the most horrible sense. Both her and her followers unabashedly embrace the sexual desires plaguing their dreams and visions. Which seems to be a common effect of Murkoff experiments
• Naked Nutter: Val usually wears a cassock to distinguish herself from her followers; however, in the climax of the game, she strips naked and daubs herself with mud for the apocalyptic festivities.
• Sanity Slippage: It seems that Val's slippage occurred slower than most. While she, along with the rest of the cult, swallowed what Knoth was preaching for a time, she eventually renounced him for exactly what he was: a raping, child-murdering lunatic who used God as a prop. However, by the time you meet her, she's succumbed to Murkoff's brainwashing waves just as badly as Knoth has and has become a deranged cult leader in her own right.
• Serial Rapist: It's heavily implied that she raped Blake while he was suffering from a hallucination, and both she and her followers appear rather obsessed with "pleasure" in general.
• Stalker with a Crush: "God doesn't love you. Not like I do."
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Val just seems to disappear after Blake undergoes one of his school hallucinations, and is nowhere to be seen when he wakes up...but considering he awakens to Knoth's followers killing Heretics, she is likely dead as well. In addition, some unused dialogue from her, Marta, and Blake imply that she originally had a death scene where Marta strangles her to death.
• Would Hurt a Child: In her time at Temple Gate, she slaughtered countless babies, born and unborn, for Knoth. She allegedly felt extreme guilt over this at the time, but then another document recounts her having wet dreams about it.

Josiah and Mary

Josiah and Mary

Josiah Portrayed By: Graham Cuthbertson

Mary Portrayed By: Claudia Besso

A married couple among the Heretics. They are captured by Father Sullivan and receive brutal torture.

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• Alas, Poor Villain: They are deranged cultists who wish to bring about the birth of what they believe to be the antichrist. Their deaths are nonetheless portrayed as bizarre and horrifying.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Josiah gets physically and psychologically tortured on the Catherine Wheel before Father Knoth finally finishes him off, while Mary gets stretched to death on the Strappado.
• Eye Scream: It's difficult to tell in the poor lighting, but both of Josiah's eyes have been gouged out.
• Fan Disservice: Josiah and Mary are both topless while being brutally tortured by Knoth and his followers.
• Forced to Watch: Josiah having to watch Mary be tortured is what broke him. Though considering his eyes have been gouged out, it would more accurate to say he had to listen to Mary being tortured.
• Mercy Kill: Josiah begs Blake to kill him to prevent Knoth from hurting Mary.
• The Mole: They pretend to be part of Sullivan's faction, but are actually loyal to the Heretics.
• Unholy Matrimony: Are a married couple and are devoted followers of the Heretics.

The Scalled

In General

The Scalled

Cultists that have come down with a horrifying, disfiguring disease (hinted to be some manner of STD, probably Syphilis or Gonorrhoea if the letters are to be believed) and thus been exiled to the forest. While largely left to rot, they still follow Knoth and wait for the arrival of a "Scalled Messiah" that will bring them salvation.

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• Animal Motifs: The Scalled Messiah is said to born from locust wings. Unfortunately for Blake, he fell into the quarantine when he was bombarded with a swarm of locusts.
• Body Horror: All of them are in an absolutely wretched state, riddled with sores and deformities, coughing and vomiting constantly.
• The Dividual: Laird and Nick have this dynamic, Laird is the brains and leader of The Scalled whereas Nick is the brawn and is used by Laird as transportation. When The Scalled decided to vengefully kill Laird, Nick was killed as well.
• Fate Worse than Death: Their bodies and minds are mangled beyond salvation, they can barely move or speak, and they can't go five seconds without vomiting their guts out. They're basically just-sentient zombies, hovering on the edge of death.
• I'm a Humanitarian: They intend to eat Blake, believing that he is the "Scalled Messiah" they've been expecting and will cure them of their maladies through the consumption of his flesh. But not before they crucify him and bury him alive afterwards, believing he has to be "reborn" for his flesh to be able to heal them.
• Nothing but Skin and Bones: Many of them look practically skeletal in appearance.
• The Plague: The Scalled are suffering from STDs like syphilis and gonorrhoea. The Testament of the New Ezekiel believes that those diseases are caused by a sickness of the soul and simply exiled them to the forest. Their diseases have worsened and drove them deeper into their insanity.
• STD Immunity: Averted! The cult believes their sicknesses are of spiritual origin. When in reality, they've been left to die in the forest for having various STDs like syphilis and gonorrhoea.
• Tragic Monster: Aside from a Fate Worse than Death, they're forceful outcasts from their own society and are ruled by a murderous, abusive Jerkass who hates them with a seething passion.
• Uncertain Doom: Apart from Laird and Nick, we're never shown or told what happens to the Scalled during the game's ending.

Laird

Laird Byron

Portrayed By: Carlo Mestroni

Part of the Big Bad Ensemble, a deformed midget designated by Knoth to lead the Scalled. He wields a flaming bow and arrow.

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• 0% Approval Rating: His underlings hate him for his physical and verbal abuse. They get so fed up with him they eventually decide to kill him and Nick.
  Sic semper evello mortem tyrannis (Thus always to pluck up the tyrant's death)
• Affably Evil: Only towards Blake, whom he literally treats like the messiah. This involves nailing Blake to a cross and burying him alive.
• Arc Villain: He's the main threat of the forest.
• Arrows on Fire: All of his arrows are lit aflame.
• Ax-Crazy: Even more so than the other Big Bads; at least they never kill their underlings at random.
• Bad Boss: He has a tendency to lose his temper and kill his Scalled underlings. This bites him in the ass later.
• Believing Their Own Lies: He wrote "Gospel of the Scalled Christ" which sets the guidelines on how to recognise The Scalled Messiah. Laird himself is the most devoted to the idea.
• Berserk Button: He openly admits he can't even stand the presence of his own Scalled peers thanks to their physical and mental rot, explaining why he's so viciously abusive of them.
• Big Bad Ensemble: He's the Arc Villain of about a fourth of the game, whilst Knoth, Val, and the Stalker cover the rest.
• Brains and Brawn: The brains to Nick's brawn.
• Big Guy, Little Guy: The little guy to Nick's big guy.
• The Bully: To the Scalled. If he isn't relentlessly chewing them out for the slightest failure or having Nick beat them half to death, he's straight up murdering them for no reason.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: It's pretty clear Laird wrote "Gospel of the Scalled Christ" due to the number of spelling errors, self-glorification and how it looks nothing like Knoth's writing.
• Depraved Dwarf: He's an Ax-Crazy little bastard.
• Disney Villain Death: When some Scalled seize their opportunity to get rid of him, they push Nick off of a wooden shack at a cliffside. Laird falls with him and smashes into the wood below.
• Establishing Character Moment: His first scene has him being informed of Blake's presence by an underling, then he proceeds to kill that underling for no reason.
• Flowery Insults: "YOU HALF-WIT DOG'S CUNT!" being the best example.
• Freudian Excuse: He might be a Hate Sink but he is a Scalled, which means a freakish outcast barely clinging onto life thanks to an awful illness. His dwarfism definitely doesn't help.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: His own underlings are his Berserk Button.
• Hate Sink: Outside of Nick, he's merciless in his verbal and physical abuse of every single person he comes across, including his own men, who are already suffering a Fate Worse than Death.
• Hypocrite: One of the reasons he hates his Scalled subordinates so much is because of their hideous appearance, despite having such an appearance himself.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: He can shoot Blake at night, in the woods, in fog with pin point accuracy no less.
• Jerkass: He is extremely verbally brutal to his underlings, best exemplified the few moments before his death where he ruthlessly tears into them for failing at capturing Blake. He'd definitely qualify as The Sociopath if it weren't for Murkoff's brainwashing.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: After spending a fair amount of time belittling, bullying and even killing the Scalled, two of them seize the opportunity to push him to his death.
• Morality Pet: He's very kind to Nick, being the only time he's kind to anyone.
• The Napoleon: A Depraved Dwarf with a Hair-Trigger Temper.
• Punny Name: Laird Byron? Sounds like a certain famous poet.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Blake can find a note in the forest that seems to be the Scalled introductory greeting, explaining their situation. The end blatantly states Laird should be treated above Knoth and God themselves, despite just being a deacon outcast, making it obvious Laird himself wrote it.
• Villainous Friendship: With Nick. Nick is treated rather well by Laird, a sharp contrast to how he treats all of his other followers. Likewise, Nick is the one follower who genuinely respects Laird.
• You Are What You Hate: Hates the Scalled despite being one himself.

Nick

Nick Tremblay

Portrayed By: Carlo Mestroni

Laird's mentally handicapped servant that he rides on.

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• Big Guy, Little Guy: The big guy to Laird's little guy.
• Brains and Brawn: The brawn to Laird's brains.
• The Brute: He is tallest of the Scalled and the strongest by far. While most Scalled look like walking corpses, Nick is the most physically imposing character in the game.
• Disney Villain Death: Two Scalled eventually get sick of Laird's abuse and push Nick off of a wooden shack at a cliffside, taking Laird with him.
• Mighty Glacier: He knocks down locked doors with a single swing, but it's not that hard to outrun him. The real issue is being able to avoid Laird's arrows.
• The Quiet One: He says very little, presumably due to his mental handicap as well as his disease.
• Trademark Favorite Food: According to Knoth, salted crickets of all things. Crickets are actually a delicacy in Mexico, suggesting that Nick is from near the border, or even from Mexico.
• Villainous Friendship: With Laird. Nick is the only one of Laird's followers who genuinely respects him. Likewise, Laird treats Nick much better than his other followers.

St. Sybil's Preparatory (Unmarked Spoilers)

Jessica

Jessica Grey

Portrayed By: Teale Bishopric

Blake and Lynn's old high-school friend who apparently committed suicide.

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• Abusive Parents: Her father has been described as a man with a "big" personality, and in computer emails and chats you can read in the school, which mention a troubled home life, you can see her asking someone online (this person had just brought up being beaten by her husband) if you can "call the police on them if they're family?" She's also even denied access to school functions, seen as when she's forced to forge his signature on a permission slip for a field trip.
• Accidental Murder: Her death at the hands of Loutermilch is fairly ambiguous, but it doesn't appear that he intended to kill her. He's still responsible for her death, however.
• Driven to Suicide: Subverted. Her suicide by hanging turns out to be a cover-up by Father Loutermilch after he raped and murdered her.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: She and Lynn were best friends during their school years, but an adult Lynn admits that she hasn't thought about her in years.
• The Lost Lenore: To Blake. While she was friends with both Lynn and Blake, Blake is the one who feels personally responsible for her death, to the point that it continues to affect him even into adulthood. His guilt gets so bad that by the time he's in the mines and the Morphogenic Engine being broadcast through the radio tower really gets to him, he mixes up Jess and Lynn's names and begins referring to Lynn as Jess. When he's carrying Lynn's baby out of the church, he projects Jess onto her, saying that she'll be able to grow up this time.
• Missing Mom: A school email states her mother had died, implied to also be a result of suicide.
• Motifs: Hanging, due to her death being ruled as a suicide. However, her death was actually far more sinister than it actually appears to have been.
• Plucky Girl: In life, she was a smart, playful, strong-willed girl who loved teasing Blake.
• Puppy Love: She's has an unrequited crush on Blake, which Lynn teases her about in a note that hangs in Jessica's locker. They even hold hands when walking down the hallway together.
• Rape as Drama: She was raped and killed by a school teacher as a child. Blake blames himself for not stopping it, and it still haunts him to this day.

Loutermilch

Father Loutermilch

Portrayed By: Karl Graboshas

A teacher at St. Sybil's, which was Blake, Lynn, and Jessica's Catholic school.

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• Accidental Murder: His murder of Jessica at least seems to be accidental; he was trying to catch her and she fell down the stairs. This is up for debate, as Blake only sees the aftermath. Whatever the case, he was still responsible for her death and covered it up.
• The Bad Guy Wins: His fate after Jessica's death is never revealed, meaning he's gotten away with raping and (accidentally) murdering her.
• Bald of Evil: He's a balding sex predator.
• Faux Affably Evil: He tries to assure Jessica and Blake that he is only trying to be friends with them, and they can avoid punishment if Blake leaves and Jessica prays privately with him. It's clear from the outset that something is very wrong, and when they resist he becomes domineering and authoritative.
• Greater-Scope Villain: A lot of Blake's... more personal issues, can be traced back to him. He also can be blamed for The Stalker's existence in Blake's psyche.
• Hate Sink: While the antagonists you meet in the present are evil, they're inflicted with corruption by Murkoff's brain-wave signals, and all grotesquely, over-the-top insane. Some of them even come across as sympathetic at times. Loutermilch doesn't even have a connection to any of the cults or an explanation for his depravity; he's just a sick, disgusting bastard.
• Heteronormative Crusader: If his "diseased cocksucker" line is anything to go by.
• Hypocrite: He shames Blake for having feelings for Jessica but his own sexual feelings for Jessica are far, far worse.
• Karma Houdini: Everyone bought his suicide cover-up of Jess's murder except for Blake, who was seconds from witnessing the murder firsthand.
• Never My Fault: As revealed in the school "recordings" when played backwards, he refuses to accept he murdered Jessica, claiming she had it coming and even thanking God for doing it in his place.
• Pedophile Priest: He was a teacher at St. Sybil's; he used his authority and Jessica's fear of her father to corner Jessica and rape her. From the way she reacts to the prospect of being left alone with him and numerous hints found throughout the game, it's clear that the abuse was ongoing. He'd been raping her for some time, and when she'd had enough and tried to escape, he killed her while trying to capture her.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: A hallucination of Loutermilch calls Blake a "cocksucker" over the phone, suggesting he's homophobic as well as pedophilic.
• Rape as Drama: Raped and killed Jessica.
• Red Right Hand: He has a large red birthmark on his forehead.
• Scarpia Ultimatum: He catches Blake and Jessica together and threatened to abuse Blake when Jessica didn't tell him why she wasn't alone.
• Sinister Minister: Raping and murdering a fourth-grade girl sure qualifies.
• The Sociopath: A disgusting pedophile who raped and murdered an innocent girl after tormenting her friend, then made it look like a suicide.
• Stalker with a Crush: He's possessive of Jessica, frequently isolating her from her friends and abusing her friends so he would be alone with her.
• Would Hurt a Child: Rape, beat, and kill one too, adding a staged suicide for good measure.

The Stalker

The Stalker

Portrayed By: Karl Graboshas

A horrific, multi-armed, humanoid male being that stalks Blake during the latter half of the school segments, making him a fourth addition to the Big Bad Ensemble.

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• Allegorical Character: In-Universe, The Stalker represents Father Loutermilch's sexual abuse towards Jessica, as he had been molesting her repeatedly and Blake blamed himself for not acting on his suspicions or helping his friend during this time. When Jessica died, Blake was the one who found her body and Loutermilch was never brought to justice since her death was framed as a suicide.
• Arc Villain: During the school segments.
• Ax-Crazy: This thing is very, very unstable, and will kill Blake at the drop of a hat.
• Big Bad Ensemble: While Knoth, Laird, and Val are the main antagonists, the Stalker is the Arc Villain of the school segments, which make up about a fourth of the game.
• Body Horror: It's covered in groping hands, and is jawless and lipless.
• Domain Holder: The creature seems to have total control over the school, given that it constantly warps the surroundings and ambushes Blake numerous times. One gets the impression that it's toying with Blake.
• Evil Is Visceral: It leaves thick, veiny Meat Moss everywhere it goes.
• Faux Affably Evil: Its "let me help you" if you stick around in the river for too long. Not to mention what it says if you answer the phone.
  Hello! Hello, oh thank God you're alive. I need you to stay calm. We're going to get you help, we'll get you out of there. I want you to find a place to hide, someplace safe where you can remember the taste of her kiss when you felt her neck break, you diseased cocksucker.
• Humanoid Abomination: Its very presence causes the world to warp around it, even behind walls. In fact, this is used to solve a puzzle when the player is forced to hide inside some bathroom stalls. Even behind the plastic doors of the stall, the strange "warping" effect can be clearly seen.
• Invincible Boogeymen: The purest example of this in the franchise - he cannot be killed or fought in any way whatsoever; the fact that it's actually a representation of Blake's childhood trauma brought out by Murkoff's brain-warping radio signals doesn't help.
• Mental Monster: It is a representation of a truly despicable person, whose predatory nature manifests in the demon as a dozen grabbing hands, a lascivious Overly-Long Tongue, and an exposed penis. That it shares the same birthmark with Loutermilch confirms the two are connected.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: It's extremely hard to see most of the time, but it's actually covered in groping hands.
• Nothing Is Scarier: It's implied that it is the thing dragging Blake into the water during the river segment in the game, but since it's a hallucination, what exactly is Blake being killed by? Though this could be a case of Your Mind Makes It Real. Furthermore, not all of its appearances are heralded with a Scare Chord, meaning it can appear before the player even realizes it's there.
• Offscreen Teleportation: It jumps around extremely quickly, and appears just as fast as it leaves.
• Off with His Head!: Its only attack is catching Blake and spearing his head off his shoulders.
• One-Hit Kill: Any contact with this thing will guarantee an instant game over.
• Overly-Long Tongue: Its other most distinguishing feature. That it constantly employs said tongue to harass Blake throughout his hallucinations almost certainly symbolizes its true nature.
• Red Right Hand: What links it to Loutermilch. Both have the same birthmark on the exact same place on the top of their heads.
• Rule of Symbolism: The Stalker is a representation of Blake's trauma over Jessica's death as well as Blake's overall view of sex. Loutermilch was sexually abusing Jessica and she died when she fell down the stairs and broke her neck, whether it was an advantageous accident or he pushed her is unclear. Loutermilch disguised the death as a suicide and was left unpunished. Combined with the Catholic school's views on sex and abstinence, Blake developed a warped and fearful view of sex, as well as an intense guilt for not acting on his suspicions. The design of the character gives strong themes of molestation, due to the excess amount of arms, long tongue, exposed penis and invasive attacks.
• Sinister Nudity: Is always naked, though it's a little difficult to recognize at first given that he's missing a good deal of his skin and sporting numerous additional limbs, and the fact that he rarely gives Blake a chance to get a good look at him before he goes on the offensive. As it turns out, the Stalker is naked because it's a Mental Monster representing the sexual abuse that Jessica suffered and Blake couldn't prevent.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: As Blake's school hallucinations stop for the most part after the Mill, there's no resolution to his appearance or what relevance he holds for Blake, though if the player examines some crucial clues such as the birthmark on his head it's easy to deduce that he most likely represents how Blake views Father Loutermilch — a shambling, molesting monster.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Possibly this trope, as if he gets to Blake, he will kill him, despite being a hallucination. However, it could also be taken that the Stalker represents real life enemies who are chasing Blake while he's hallucinating, which would explain how it appears able to teleport.