Night Hunter

Night Hunter
Career	Specialist Ex-Pop
Affiliation	Ex-Pop
Status	Alive
Attributes
Gender	Male
Appearances
The Outlast Trials Police Station Orphanage Fun Park Courthouse Toy Factory The Docks Mansion
Game Information
Equipment	Machete Night Vision Goggles Infrared lamp Modified car battery
Voiced by	Karl Graboshas
Gallery • Dialogues

 

"You can't hide,
you sure can't hide,
from the man with the x-ray eyes."

―The Night Hunter singing to himself.

 

The Night Hunter is one of the antagonists in The Outlast Trials. He is a Specialist Ex-Pop equipped with a pair of night vision goggles, allowing him to see Reagents in the dark.

Background

As revealed in the Night Hunters Ex-pop classification file, Night Hunters are the result of a military experiment to augment soldiers with night vision abilities. The project was the result of a late war development dubbed "Vampir" by the German military. The experiment was a tortuous ordeal requiring the subjects retinas to be physically restrained beforehand so their eyes would adapt to the hardware. The Night Hunters during this process were often told stories that exacerbated their delusions of grandeur with many of them considering them superhuman and a form of evolved humans. Exposure in particular to one Operation Paperclip scientist, who told them Teutonic fairy tales and ghost stories, also caused them to develop both supernatural delusions and Slavic accents despite their American origins.

Characteristics

Like Grunts, the Night Hunter patrols areas in the Trials environment to look for and kill Reagents. He is primarily drawn to Reagents by sight and noise, can traverse through small spaces, and can grab Reagents to deal significant damage by stabbing them with a machete repeatedly. Unlike the garden-variety Grunts, the Night Hunter wears a pair of night vision goggles rigged to never turn off. Being able to see in the dark at all times, the Night Hunter can easily spot Reagents as long they are within his line of sight and is agile enough to pursue them in a prolonged chase, making it very difficult to hide from him. Additionally, he often crouches and frequently waits around corners to ambush any unsuspecting Reagents passing down a doorway.

Despite night vision being his greatest advantage, it is also his greatest weakness. The Night Hunter is blinded by bright areas when lured out of darkness, leaving him only to rely on sound to seek out Reagents. This can allow Reagents to sneak around him undetected while he is blinded. It also allows an opportunity for Reagents to deliberately lure him into light as a way to distract him. The Night Hunter's goggles have bright lenses that can be easily seen and distinguishable in the dark alongside the sparks of blue electricity around the top of his head. Despite his seemingly stealthy nature, the Night Hunter is also loud and frequently rants to himself, making grunting noises and audible electrical sounds that give players an early heads-up to telegraph his presence.

Physical description

The Night Hunter appears to be an emaciated Ex-Pop who goes slowly and bent over until he spots a Reagent. He has an average build and is dressed in brown boots and khaki jeans. He doesn’t wear a shirt instead strapping a spherical infrared lamp to his chest using leather straps that wrap over his torso and his shoulders. His right upper arm is covered in crimson red, rash-like streaks that extend to his head, possibly due to the electrical burns from his faulty equipment. Similar to the Reagents, his face is mostly obscured by a visor. That said, his night vision goggles are studded with several cables and rods that run through his scalp and portions of his exposed scalp. The Night Hunter's face is also shown to be heavily damaged, either by his experience in the "War" he mentions or by Murkoff's experiments, with his lips being completely gone, leaving his remaining bloody teeth exposed.

He is prominently encountered in dark locations, where he is normally found unless lured out, thanks to his night vision goggles creating a glow and the rods on his head emitting a blue, electric glow. The car battery that powers his equipment is worn like a backpack on his back, with the power supply being visually identical to the power pack worn by Coyle with virtually no differences.

Personality

This Ex-Pop's demeanor changes depending on whether he is in the dark or the light. He will hide and sneak around in the dark. His demeanor demonstrates that he is confident in his talents. His voice lines are focused on his ability to see in the dark, which he appears to delight in. He openly mocks the Reagents with his equipment, calling them 'glowworms', and telling them they couldn't hide in the dark, followed by a giggle. He notes how he wished he had this new equipment during the battle and wonders what idea "they" would come up with next.

However, his almost giddy, predator-like demeanor changes to frustration as soon as he walks into a bright area. His praise for the technology turns to mockery as he tries to shield his goggles from the light. The Night Hunter also sometimes shows panic when hit by Reagents, often warning them to "Watch the equipment" or even exclaiming to himself that Reagents might kill him. Occasionally, when hit The Night Hunter can become extremely angry or irritated at his equipment being damaged by the Reagents. During the chase, he sometimes makes rants about his equipment by calling it 'garbage' or blames its heavy weight. After losing track of the Reagents, he blames his shortcomings on the equipment or mocks the people that tried to boost his confidence. In one of his dialogues, he appears to have confused his night vision equipment with an X-ray, which functions differently, as he cannot see Reagents through walls or objects. There is also a hint he may be a pervert, as he wonders if there is a night vision for looking through clothes made by Murkoff.

According to their classification file the Night Hunters suffer from a manic-depressive disorder and narcissism as a result of their augmentation. It is noted that they consider themselves superhuman and a step above other humans.

Player death animations

• The Night Hunter can stab a Reagent in their groin before slitting their throat. The sequence shares the same death animation with one of the machete-wielding Grunts.
• The Night Hunter can disembowel a Reagent by slashing them open from their abdominal region to their groin. The sequence shares the same death animation with one of the machete-wielding Grunts.
• The Night Hunter can use the tip of their machete to repeatedly stab a Reagent in the throat before slashing their neck open. The sequence shares the same death animation with one of the machete-wielding Grunts.
• The Night Hunter can repeatedly stab a Reagent in the face with the tip of their machete. The sequence shares the same death animation with one of the machete-wielding Grunts.
• The Night Hunter can jump onto the Reagent, sitting on their body, and repeatedly stab them on the abdomen, then their head.

Balance Changes

October 26, 2023 (Early Access Update # 3 / Program Geister) All enemies are more lenient in chases, thereby diminishing the likelihood of them miraculously discovering Reagents' whereabouts attempting evade detection by breaking visual contact with them. Slightly diminished the AI's sensitivity to footsteps. December 13, 2023 (Early Access Update # 4 / Winter Kills) Updated his lunge attack animation. (Undocumented) March 5, 2024 (Full Release) Updated Night Hunter's reactiveness. (Undocumented) September 10, 2024 (Countdown) Increased Night Hunter's persistence on following the noises even when blinded in bright area. (Undocumented)

Trivia

• The Night Hunter's overall design seems to be inspired by this historical photograph of a prototype for Soviet infrared goggles from the early 1940's.
  • As revealed in the Night Hunters' Ex-Pop file, their night vision goggles are based on Zielgerät 1229, better known by its codename Vampir, an experimental infrared device originally developed for Wehrmacht and as an attachment for their Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifles during World War II, intended primarily for combat at night. Since its development came very late in World War II, this Wunderwaffe never made it to the Army trial and only 310 units were produced.
    • It is also stated that the technology for the Night Hunters' augmentations were developed in cooperation with Aribert Heim, an Austrian SS doctor working for the Nazi Germany. During World War II, Heim served at the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Mauthausen, where he was infamously known by his moniker Dr. Death and Butcher of Mauthausen for committing atrocities on several prisoners. This includes skinning one of his victims alive and the direct injection of toxic compounds into the hearts of his patients, including gasoline, to see how they would react to the substance and die.
• Alongside Leland Coyle, he is one of the few characters that have a noticeable regional dialect or accent. It is not clear where exactly the Night Hunters are from, but the manner in which they roll the R's in their speech suggests that their native tongue may be Slavic. However, as revealed in the Night Hunters "Ex-Pop Classification" file, they are indeed of American descent, and their accents were adopted due to their exposure to a Slavic scientist during their augmentation.
  • Due to their exposure to said Slavic scientist, Night Hunters' minds were influenced by eastern European and Teutonic folklore and fairy tales, leading to them developing delusions that due to their augmentations they themselves are in fact mythical nocturnal hunters.
• Unlike the Reagents, the Night Hunter cannot remove his night vision goggles.
• Both the Night Hunter and Imposters are the only Ex-Pop equipped with night vision goggles.
• Cornelius Noakes stated that his goggles can be pulled off because they are "slapped together with duct tape and chewing gum".
• The Night Hunter's night vision goggles appear to be older due to their large size.
  • Furthermore, it is possible that the Night Hunter's goggles may also be a form of thermal vision. This could explain the need for a larger power supply and why the Reagents "glow" as described by the Night Hunter.
• He is the only enemy in the entire game (aside from the Pusher) that can see the player in the dark from medium to long distances, even when they are in pitch black and are completely silent.
• As revealed in the "All but One" evidence file, the Night Hunters initially lacked a Ex-Pop classification file due to them being taken for research before the mole could copy and plant the files within the trials. However, the leak has managed to release the file into the trials since Season 2
• According to his unused dialogues, it is implied that his real name is Jack.

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