- "Il cultive la culture. (It cultivates the culture.)"
- ―The Heretics speaking on behalf of their acts
The Heretics are an antagonistic faction in Outlast 2 that are led by the lustful Val. A satanic splinter group who were once residents of Temple Gate, they are in opposition with the Testament of the New Ezekiel, as they believe the Antichrist should be birthed, a complete polarization of the Testament's views. They predominantly live within a mining site somewhere along the outskirts of the town.
Story[]
The Heretics are first seen kidnapping Lynn Langermann and attacking her husband Blake right after she escapes from the Testament's clutches. For most of the game, the Heretics and Lynn are in the mines, preparing for the birth of "the Antichrist".
While Blake travels across the river by raft to reach the mines, the Heretics begin to stalk him from afar. They later give chase and assault Blake by hurling rocks at him in an attempt to halt his arrival to the mines. This results in Blake's raft being broken in half, but the journalist remained unscathed.
Once Blake reaches the mines, he is constantly hunted and attacked by the Heretics both on ground level and within them, until finally stumbling across Lynn amongst a graphic blood orgy where he is sexually assaulted by Val. The orgy is interrupted by attacking Testament followers, however, who begin to slaughter the Heretics present in the mines. Despite the Testament winning the civil war and destroying the Heretics, their goals are ultimately accomplished as Lynn delivers the baby, which leads to the Testament wiping itself out and leaving Temple Gate empty.
Characteristics[]
In most, if not all instances where the Heretics are encountered, they are shown to be completely insane to the point of being almost animalistic. They persistently pursue Blake in large numbers throughout the mines while maniacally screaming, growling and chanting incoherently. Some Heretics also seem to communicate with each other in broken English. Despite their feral behavior, they are all shown to be completely loyal to their leader, Val.
Perhaps the most notable abilities the Heretics share among each other is their agility; being able to leap across crevices effortlessly and dropping down from large heights unharmed, to which they use to their advantage to perform surprise attacks on Blake, making them extremely dangerous to anyone. Much like the Testament followers, they are very capable of carrying out unspeakable atrocities (e.g. mutilating and flaying their victims and stringing up their remains, as well as burning people alive and dumping their bodies into the river), further proving that they are no better than their rivals. The Heretics also seem to engage in heavy sexual activities as seen during their orgy ritual.
Physical descriptions[]
All of the Heretics appear to lack any clothing except for strange masks made out of twigs and mud with blood markings painted on them, which obscure most of their facial features. Their bodies are coated in mud and blood, the latter most likely being their own or their victims'.
Notable Members[]
Player death animations[]
- A Heretic when attacking Blake from the front will slash Blake across the neck with their bone knife.
- A Heretic when attacking Blake from behind will slash him across the back with their bone knife, causing him to fall over. The Heretic will then hold Blake's head still and slash him across the neck.
- In The Lake, if Blake takes too long to dislodge the raft, a Heretic will lunge at Blake and wildly hack him to death with their bone knife.
Trivia[]
- The Heretics' overall design was inspired by Olivier de Sagazan's artwork and performance.[1]
- Although most hostile Heretics are male, a few Female Heretics do exist as in-game enemies, but they only appear twice in the entire game. One appears during the last part of the Blake Against the Machine chase (this was before the patch that removed that particular chase, but can be restored with a mod) and then three appear during the first chase in King of The Hill. Due to the game's dark lighting and that they only ever appear during chases which afford the player little time to get a good look, it can be easy to miss them. They stand out though due to their darker colourings and different builds. (Their spawning in these chases are also not randomized as they always appear in the same spots regardless of replays or checkpoint restarts)
- Also of note is that while the heretics "dialogue" of broken English when they manage to land a hit on Blake have the correct male and female voices for their gender, the actual sound effects for their various snarls, growling and screaming are actually randomized which can result in either gender sometimes having the incorrect voice. This is either an unresolved glitch or potentially an oversight on the developers' part.
- The female heretics also have a slightly odd behaviour when they are spawned. Unlike the males, they never sprint or run after Blake. At best, they only seem to walk at a brisk pace and it can be easy to outrun and escape from them. Whether this too is a glitch or simply their AI doesn't work properly is unknown. A possible and unfortunate theory, given this issue, their sound effect bugs and the fact that they only ever appear in two chases, is perhaps that they were added as enemy types to the game a bit late in production and their AI and scripting either just wasn't finished in time or has bugs that the devs never fixed. Cut content could be a culprit too since an unused model for a different type of heretic exists in the game's files, suggesting that perhaps the females were intended to have slightly different behaviour or gameplay purposes but were never realized.
References[]
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