Without a doubt, Red Barrels Studio's upcoming survival-horror title Outlast 2 is far and away one of the most highly anticipated video games of 2017 thanks to its ability to immerse players into a unique and terrifying world full of tense enemy encounters and severe scares. For those who have yet to get a handle as to what the fright-fest is all about, the fine folks over at Polygon have now posted 10 minutes of gameplay footage from a gameplay preview with the title to give fans a better idea on what's to come in the sequel to the 2013 original.

As seen in the gameplay preview video below, Outlast 2 carries over a lot of the characteristics from the first game, as players will have the ability to control the freelance journalist Blake Langermann, who is on a quest to investigate the murder of a pregnant woman, Jane Doe, in a dilapidated rural area in Supai, near the Sonoran Desert. After a helicopter crash that separates Langermann from his wife, Lynn, players will be forced to travel through a village cut off from society containing an overly zealous religious sect that believes doomsday is near.

Much like in the the initial installment in the series, Outlast 2 will have players scrambling for their lives, as Langermann can only hide in lockers, crouch, run, jump, walk, vault, and climb. As far as items are concerned, he only has a camcorder with the option for night vision–making further use of the found footage angle of the original–but the camcorder's batteries become drained when night vision is used. Dissimilar to the first Outlast, however, Langermann has a much better camera in his possession, as it depicts the environment with a crisper view and zoom capabilities, and it even has an audio detection system built into each speaker for the detection distant footsteps and other noises.

As far as the graphics are concerned, the visuals in Outlast 2 are leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessor, as a lot of the environments come off as photo-realistic representations of the world, with Red Barrels Studio able to make the most out of Unreal Engine 3. Plus, speaking of the game's settings, it seems as if players will have much more expansive areas to explore in the sequel, as opposed to the original's more confined spaces.

Those that wish to get a taste of Outlast 2 for themselves should be able to do so now, as Red Barrels Studio made a demo available several months ago. Taking all of this into consideration, it will be interesting to see if Outlast 2 manages to meet or best the thrills available in this year's most unnerving release yet, with Capcom's survival-horror game Resident Evil 7.

Outlast 2 is set to launch on April 25, 2017 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

Source: Polygon – YouTube