Outlast 2 has been horrifying the public ever since it launched a little over a week ago, with the game's campaign introducing new mechanics, new enemies, and plenty of new ways to scare those brave enough to play it. Outlast 2 is one of the better horror games to come around in recent years, though many playing through the campaign on normal difficulty or higher may have felt the game to be quite unforgiving, even for a survival horror experience. Developer Red Barrels evidently agreed, and has made some tweaks to ensure the game is a little less punishing. The studio has now released a patch that tones down the difficulty across settings.

The PC patch has released today, though gamers slugging through the experience on consoles will have to wait until the respective PS4 and Xbox One updates are released at a later date. While Red Barrels didn't declare a specific day it will come forth, the studio did promise that the respective patches would be arriving soon. Along with the difficulty balancing, plenty of bug fixes and subtle optimizations have been included as well.

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Here are the full patch notes from the latest Outlast 2 patch:

  • Global rebalancing of the game difficulty.
  • Microphone no longer uses extra batteries.
  • Increased the size of subtitles.
  • Fixed an issue on Intel HD 4000 cards where most dynamic lights were missing.
  • Fixed an issue where flickering black squares appear in the center of the screen at some specific resolutions.
  • Fixed an issue with alternate controller mappings and the camcorder UI.
  • Fixed an issue with double doors where one of them is locked.
  • Fixed an issue causing lost save games when Steam somehow fails to initialize.
  • Fixed some heretic sound effects.
  • Fixed multiple minor gameplay issues (collisions, crawling, tutorials, etc.)
  • Fixed multiple rare crashes.
  • Added a “-refreshrate 60” command-line parameter to specify a preferred refresh rate (replace 60 by the desired refresh rate).
  • Added a “-notexturelimit” command-line parameter to remove texture size limits based on VRAM amount.
  • Added a “-borderless” command-line parameter to use borderless fullscreen and not have to edit INI files.

Of course, Outlast 2 brings with it a level of horror that not every gamer is willing to commit to, so Game Rant has taken the liberty of compiling some of the best jump scare moments from the game. This way, those who want to experience the horror without all the suspense and character development in the middle can do so. If those same people eventually build up the courage to complete the game themselves, we've also explained the game's deceptively straight-forward looking ending.

Red Barrels has confirmed that after the first week of sales for the title has recouped the entire cost of the game's development, meaning more horror-filled goodness has likely been secured in the series' future. Only time will tell if history will remember Outlast 2 as one of the best horror games in modern times, though the game has certainly delivered a very memorable experience - and every patch like today's does its part to help polish the title just a little bit more.

What do you think about Outlast 2, Ranters? Are you brave enough to face Sullivan Knoth and his followers?

Outlast 2 is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.