Outlast is one of the scariest survival horror games ever made. The sequel is even scarier. Set in a remote and seemingly abandoned North Arizona village, Outlast 2 experiments with increasingly uncomfortable themes that thread a fine line between horrific and straight-up weird.
It doesn’t help that you can’t defend yourself while playing this game. Oftentimes, the only real defense is either running away or hiding someplace — in both cases you always feel helpless, with sweaty hands gripping your controller or mouse and keyboard. The masochists among us might want to experience this doozy of a game on one of its harder difficulties.
10 Play On Normal First
Nightmare mode in Outlast 2 is rather self explanatory. The game is already scary enough to be a literal nightmare, upping the ante with this difficulty only makes life considerably more frustrating.
You can expect considerably faster and smarter enemies, as well as fewer resources. Luckily, this isn’t Insane mode where permadeath is in place. However, the AI doesn’t get any tougher than the one in Nightmare, so if it’s your first time playing the game, you might want to enjoy it and take in the atmosphere on the standard difficulty setting.
9 Learn Dangerous Encounter Areas
The key to getting away from dangerous encounters is to learn where and how they take place. Going in blind will do you no good, hopefully you’re playing Nightmare because you would like to revisit the game before The Outlast Trials comes out.
It’s been a while since Outlast 2 released back in 2017, so it’s a good idea to relearn the gameplay loop and tactics. If you’re playing for the very first time, give yourself the space to exercise some good old trial an error. This title isn’t especially forgiving or kind to newcomers.
8 Always Keep A Mental Note Of Hiding Spots
Always, always, always know where the heck you’re going. The worst thing that can happen is getting chased by someone, or something, and mistakenly getting stuck in a wall because you thought that a locker was a hiding spot.
Knowing where all the hiding spots are is essential to beating Nightmare. Some are less obvious than others; sometimes you might be able to quite literally crawl under a bed, while other times crouching beneath an old truck might do the trick. It’s hard to know exactly what’s going to work, so keep your eyes peeled for details in the environment, which might be scarier than the Resident Evil monsters.
7 Save Your Bandages
You won’t find many of these. Enemies are able to stagger you and inflict a critical state (that prevents sprinting away) in just about one hit. If they’re also chasing you, that pretty much means you’re dead. Nevertheless, Blake gets hurt during scripted sequences that can’t be completed without taking damage.
That’s what bandages are for. Keeping the sprinting ability always ready is, perhaps, the deciding factor that makes the difference between reaching the next checkpoint and restarting from the previous one.
6 Watch Some Streamers For Strats
The only guaranteed method to approach Outlast 2 like a football game is to watch streamers, especially speedrunners. Even though you don’t have to complete the game in less than three hours, you can still pick up some pointers from watching someone else go through a specific section of the game.
All this comes handy if you haven’t played the game in a while, but you already know what generally happens. Speedrunners use the best strategies to, seemingly, breeze through entire areas, sometimes avoiding enemies altogether. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could do that too?
5 Get Familiar With Audio Cues
Some people only want to rely on their own abilities when it comes to beating challenging games. What’s the point of getting your hand held by a guide when you could figure things out yourself? Unfortunately for all the pro MLG gamers out there, Outlast 2 isn’t about shooting monsters.
However, you can still pull crazy jukes that’ll have you scream off the top of your lungs. The best way to do this is to know exactly when an enemy is going straight for your guts. Generally, when the music really picks up it’s time to start running.
4 Make Do With Little Battery Life
Battery lasts considerably less in Nightmare mode. Considering most of the game is spent in literal darkness, this added difficulty measure makes things remarkably more frustrating.
The camcorder’s night vision and directional mic drain the battery pretty quickly, avoid using both at the same time if you want to avoid getting stranded in creepy high school hallways. There’s a trick to navigating safe areas without using your camcorder: simply crouch and look at the ground, or stand by a wall — you’ll be able to see the immediate area in front of you.
3 Look Up Where Batteries Are
Not only do batteries last less when playing Nightmare, but they also spawn less. This makes them a rare commodity. However, the spawn areas shouldn’t change. You can do a quick search on YouTube to check out where to find batteries in each chapter.
If you’d rather rely on your treasure hunting skills alone, keep in mind that most batteries are located inside buildings and before very dangerous areas. Sometimes lighting cues in the distance indicate a battery’s position, but be weary of the possible stalkers that might prowl about
2 Cheese Some Areas With Max Brightness
When things get unfair, apply extra brightness as needed. Every horror game lets you toy around with the gamma settings. Turning the whites to the max and the blacks to the minimum produces a rather flat image, but hey, that’ll get you through just about anything.
Do this only if you don’t care about breaking the game’s immersion and turning the gameplay into one big round of tag. Outlast 2 does rely on its atmosphere to build up suspense and terror, so if those are important to you, cheesing with max brightness might ruin the experience.
1 Allow Yourself To Fail (Over And Over)
Ultimately, you should never play any game on Nightmare difficulty if you’re not prepared to somewhat struggle. This especially applies to Outlast 2. There are times where some areas seem explicitly unfair, especially closer to the endgame.
Should you manage to beat Nightmare, and still not be satisfied with this achievement, you have the required clearance to attempt Insane mode. This final, and hardest, difficulty setting works just like Nightmare in pretty much every aspect, save for the permadeath component.
NEXT: 10 Best Survival Horror Games For People Who Scare Easily
