There is a particular irksome nature with modernist doctrine. It is more rooted in a zealotry and political determination to undermine the power of the church than ever was to uphold its own principles of rationalism or empiricism. From it was born a particular strain of German thought that all experiences and reality as we know it are constructed in the brain.
Though this has been debunked a century over it never the less is the core mechanic of Outlast’s plot, which is made painfully awkward after Project Often the CIA project Outlast 1’s lore is based around and falsely called MK Ultra had along with other projects proved the paranormal very real leading to a desire to, in fact, weaponize it.
You’ll have to look towards the annals of conspiracies and whistle blowers with a grain of salt to discover how successful those efforts were. What is publicly available is some projects in remote viewing, astral projection, and intuition bore fruit, but others allege far more successful projects were undertaken and plagued with oversight that either dogmatically opposed said projects on religious or atheistic terms.
Regardless the stories surround these projects would and have made for some exceptional thrillers, horrors and many a creepy pasta stories over the years. Some of which have made their way into games like Psi Ops and Metal Gear.
With the announcement of the multiplayer/cooperative experience The Outlast Trials we are once again are going to be subjected to another inane too smart for you horror experience. As quoted in Gematsu…
“The world of Outlast is a true survival horror experience which aims to show that the most terrifying monsters of all come from the human mind… and Red Barrels! Whilst not a direct sequel to the other critically acclaimed Outlast titles in the series, The Outlast Trials will be set in the same thrilling universe: more precisely, right in the middle of the Cold War era. The Outlast Trials will allow players to face the horrors of the trials by themselves or cooperate with up to three other test subjects. After all, it’s always better to shit your pants with some friends!”
“The Outlast Trials is still in the early stages of production and more news will be announced soon. Red Barrels has been working on developing the title for months and is now ramping up the production process.”
Fundamentally mental illness, while tragic in real life and horrific for those that experience a life afflicted with hallucinations and episodes, it is a living nightmare to be sure. For the medium of video games it is banal and uninspiring, because much like at the core of the individual experiencing the aforementioned a consciousness resides able to wrestle with the dissonance caused by the affliction we are very much sane as far as we can prove anyway. Now imagine if the insane were able to turn their insanity off and on. Their underlying horror and unsettling nature of the condition becomes less tragic and existentially threatening, and more an annoyance best left to rot in obscurity.
Mental illness plots only conclude one of three ways. Though, I am Weebstrodamous the one true geek prophet, my predictions are far from clairvoyance. Either the plot resolves with nothing actually happened because you’re insane or, surprise, you’re not insane after all. In a rare amalgamation a competent creator will merge the two creating a delicious sense of doubt of the experience that in itself can be enjoyable.
Thus when Outlast concludes with all you thought happened outside the actions of people didn’t really happen, there’s little engagement to be had with it. Much like the meta narrative of this is only happening because you’re playing the only win solution is to not play.
The original game was able to get away with subverting expectations with its moronic ending because of a drought in any decent horror experience. This allowed it to sell 2.8 million units on Steam. Despite fridge logic rendering the developers own understanding of their plot mechanics demonstrably vapid.
If Wallrider is comprised of modified nanomachines that are developed and produced in the human brain as a result of trauma, torture, and suffering then this would not be an unknown phenomena. It would have been be discovered, documented, and fairly well understood by the 1800s, not some revelation developed by a corporation off of Nazi research in secret. As much of German thought was based around research into the brain under a modernist “there is no soul or approximation thereof” lens.
When the developers attempted to push this “too smart for you” narrative with Outlast 2 they did so in an atmosphere with considerably less starved audience. The result is a game that only sold 387,821 units as of last year. Now they’re returning with a tripling down of the same formula without getting that it isn’t a good narrative device.
For the single reason, if it isn’t real it can’t interact with you in the objective world. It may haunt you, it may cause you to harm yourself, but anything manifested in our head and projected into our conscious interpretation of the world cannot actually harm us. Thus those that have gone insane are terrifying opponents; actually going insane is a lousy mechanical ploy at appearing to be smart. The very first moment a hallucination charges you stand there do nothing and it can’t do squat against you.
What then is there to overcome in The Outlast Trials? Just walk past it. Or better yet just ignore this game and look towards other competent horror experiences in development.