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“There Are No Observers Here”: The Video Game Gaze in Outlast (2013) and Outlast: Whistleblower (2014)
Abstract
As an emergent medium capable of telling complex stories, the video game gives us unique insight and challenges to established critical theory. This chapter will examine the ways ‘the gaze' is expressed and utilized in video games, particularly the “survival horror” genre. It will discuss some of the ways ‘the gaze' has been shaped by literary and filmic studies before turning to Outlast (2013) by Red Barrels Games as an example of the way the medium can rearticulate our understanding of watching and being watched. Through its player-driven diegesis, immersion and phenomenologically-situated avatar body, and an ability to stimulate emotional response through game mechanics, the video game gaze might be capable of engendering emotional sympathy rather than constructing hierarchical positions of mastery. With its narratives of state control and institutionalization, journalistic distance, and medical invasiveness, Outlast uses critical understandings of ‘the gaze' to ask questions about privacy, complicity, and responsibility.
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