In Case You Ever Needed The Outlast 2 Ending Explained
Outlast 2 is a first-person survival horror. Based on its name, it should come as no surprise to learn that it is an installment in the Outlast series. On initial inspection, Outlast 2 will seem as though it has no real connections with its predecessor. However, this isn’t the case. In fact, once interested individuals learn the nature of the connection between the two installments in the series, there is much about Outlast 2’s ending that will make much more sense.
What Happened in the Outlast 2 Ending?
First and foremost, the protagonist of Outlast 2 is Blake Langermann, a cameraman who works with his wife Lynn. The two have headed out into the Arizona desert for the purpose of investigating the murder of a young, pregnant woman. However, their helicopter crashes, with the result that Blake wakes up with Lynn missing as well as their helicopter pilot having been skinned and crucified. This causes Blake to set out in search of his wife, which leads to him encountering not one but two violent cults. One cult wants to kill Lynn because it thinks that Lynn is pregnant with the Antichrist. Meanwhile, the other cult wants nothing more than to bring about the end of days. The whole thing is made worse by Blake’s deterioration throughout the game, which is made very blatant by his more and more disturbing hallucinations about his childhood as a student at a Catholic school.
In the ending, Blake manages to reunite with Lynn. However, this is rendered moot when Lynn proceeds to die in what seems to have been childbirth, thus resulting in a newborn who Blake holds up before blacking out. Upon reawakening, one of the cult leaders tells Blake that the newborn is the Antichrist, urges him to kill her before it is too late, and then cuts his own throat. Curiously, Blake walks out to see the sun exploding, which would seem to indicate that the cult leader might have had a point.
However, this is not the case. Instead, it is important to note that there is reason to believe that the Murkoff Corporation has set up towers in the region that emit waves that cause humans to hallucinate, which puts pretty much everything that happens over the course of the story into question. For instance, it is clear that the two cults have gone mad because of the hallucinations, thus causing them to believe that the end of days is imminent thanks to the birth of the Antichrist. Moreover, when one thinks about it, there are various reasons to believe that Blake is going mad as well, having been exposed to the same waves as the locals.
For instance, while Lynn dies in what seems to be childbirth, her last words indicate that she doesn’t see a newborn baby in Blake’s hands. Instead, she sees absolutely nothing, which suggests that there is nothing there. Theoretically, it is possible that this means that Blake has imagined even Lynn’s childbirth, but there is an even more plausible explanation thanks to information from the rest of the Outlast series. In short, the first installment plus tie-in materials revealed that exposure to the waves is apparently capable of causing psychosomatic pregnancies in women, which is when women show signs and symptoms associated with being pregnant without actually being pregnant. It is thought that such cases are caused by the sufferer’s endocrine system secreting certain combinations of hormones that cause changes similar to those seen in pregnancy, thus making it very difficult to tell when what looks like a pregnancy is actually psychosomatic in nature. As such, it seems relatively reasonable to say that Lynn wasn’t actually pregnant but rather showing signs of pregnancy thanks to her being affected by the waves as well, which is the scenario that requires the least stretching of one’s sense of disbelief under the circumstances.
Besides this, there are other very clear signs that Blake is suffering some serious mental issues in the later parts of the game. For example, his speech becomes very confused, so much so that he seems to have reverted to a more childish state. Something that is particularly noticeable when one contrasts his later words with his much more rational statements in the earlier part of the game. Likewise, while this might be cheating a bit, there is other material in the Outlast series that states that while Blake managed to survive the whole incident, he became completely catatonic as a result of his experiences. Summed up, while one could believe that Blake actually has a child who happens to be the Antichrist, the likelier explanation is that his time being exposed to the waves has caused him to become mad in the same way as everyone else who has undergone the same.
As for Blake’s hallucinations, those seem to indicate a pretty traumatic incident in Blake’s childhood. Essentially, it seems that Blake had a female friend named Jessica when he was still in Catholic school. Unfortunately, Jessica seems to have had a very troubled home life, which made her vulnerable to a school teacher who predated upon her. In one such encounter, the school teacher seems to have caused her death before covering it up as an act of suicide on her part. However, it is very clear that Blake has at least some understanding of the truth behind the matter, though the hallucinations make it difficult to tell exactly what he knew as well as how well he knew it. After all, Blake seems to have felt enormous guilt over the death of his friend, so much so that when his mind starts breaking down, he seems to project Jessica on not just his wife Lynn but also his newborn child. As such, when one combines that sense of guilt with the effects of the hallucination-causing waves, it is hard to say how reliable those hallucinations happen to be. Still, the general gist of things is clear, thus clearing up that part of the Outlast experience.
On a final note, the ending of the game is still open to interpretation to some extent. As a result, those who are interested in the matter shouldn’t hesitate to seek out fan communities to see what other players have said about the matter. They may or may not agree with what other people say, but engaging in such conversations is a good way to gain a fresh perspective on things.
