French-Canadian developers trying their hand at extremism with some extremely dated sexual psychosis and edgy jump-scares to round out the Outlast experience wasn't entirely what I was expecting... then again, how could this expansion be anything but? No evolution of the base game's tired formula, meaning that at half the runtime, Whistleblower feels decidedly longer. You'll still be using the old trial-and-error technique of running to different corners of the game's arenas looking for an exit in pitch black while awful analogies for trauma and emasculation chase you at a snail's pace. Any ideas the game wants to communicate are overshadowed by this clunky, one-trick design philosophy and the equally eye-rolling shock value horror that would've seemed progressive if The Ballad of Gay Tony hadn't beat the polygonal cock and balls routine by half a decade.

At my most cynical, I think calling these games Outlast was a surefire way Red Barrels could milk a potential franchise, as its meaning is just vague enough to sort of apply to the events of games under its banner. "Outlast" as a recognizable IP and a game means nothing. A poor excuse for intelligible horror catering to people who think Martyrs "is really deep, actually."