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The Outlast series has been popular since the release of the first game in 2013. The series thus far consists of two horror games, both based around a character in a survival situation that necessitates the use of a camcorder night vision setting to be able to complete tasks and navigate the dark settings. In the first game, an investigative journalist named Miles gets trapped inside a psychiatric hospital, AKA asylum, being overtaken by deranged and murderous patients of inhumane experiments. One such patient is Father Martin Archimbaud who believes himself to be a prophet and Miles to be an apostle sent to him. It turns out that Father Martin worships an entity inside the asylum known as the Walrider, a horrible creation born of an experiment upon one of the patients. The Walrider, a being composed of nanites controlled by one of the patients, is the primary antagonist of the game. Father Martin, on the other hand, acts as both an ally and a minor antagonist to Miles throughout the game; despite hindering his escape towards the beginning and sedating him at one point, he leaves blood-stained paths throughout the asylum to help Miles find his way around and does not seem to want anything bad to actually happen to his "apostle". In the end though, Father Martin is seen crucified inside a chapel and then sets himself on fire as a sacrifice to the Walrider. Miles kills the patient controlling the Walrider but ends up possessed by it himself. The religious themes of Outlast are pretty evident here, yet it's the game's sequel that offers more controversy regarding religion.

In Outlast 2 you play as a journalist named Blake who, along with his wife Lynn, was flying over the Arizona desert as part of an investigation into the murder of a pregnant teenager. A mysterious flash of light causes their helicopter to crash, and when Blake wakes up he finds Lynn missing and the helicopter pilot horrifically murdered. This begins the chain of events in the story of Outlast 2 which revolves around Blake rescuing his wife from an exiled Christian cult and an offshoot of the cult, as well as a subsect of the cult consisting of those who were exiled once again.

The game's cult, called Temple Gate, is led by a man named Sullivan Knoth. Knoth is a self-proclaimed preacher of the Testament of the New Ezekiel, his version of the writings of Ezekiel from the Bible, and believes that as the leader of Temple Gate he alone has full salvation from God. Temple Gate believes that their settlement lies on top of the entrance to Hell and, as a result, Knoth has come to believe that the anti-Christ will be born to someone in the settlement. Where Knoth used to insist upon his followers procreating and having kids, once he determined that a prophecy had told him about the anti-Christ, he resolved to kill any and all children - including fetuses - inside Temple Gate to prevent the anti-Christ being born. It turns out that Knoth and his cult kidnapped Lynn from the crash and they believe her to be pregnant with the anti-Christ despite any initial visual indications of her being pregnant. On the other hand, an offshoot of the cult led by a woman named Val is determined to bring about the birth of the anti-Christ. Throughout the game, Val and her followers are determined to kidnap Lynn themselves and ensure that she carries the baby to term and brings about the end of the world. This is the primary timeline of the game.

The secondary timeline of the game concerns flashbacks of Blake's time in a Catholic school as a child. Throughout these flashbacks, the player learns that Blake's friend Jessica was being sexually abused by a priest in the school; one day inside a stairwell Jessica resisted being taken by the priest, which led to her falling to her death at his hands. In order to cover up his association in her death, the priest staged her body to look like she'd hanged herself. Blake finds her body. Earlier in the storyline he and Jessica had been running around the school after hours when they were caught by the priest, and when the priest threatened to tell Blake's parents, Blake left while Jessica begged him not to leave her alone with the priest. This leads to the final events including her death. This storyline speaks to Blake's experiences and trauma with religion and exemplifies the issue of Catholic guilt that is often instilled from a very young age: we are all sinners.

The religious themes and critiques in Outlast 2 had much heavier tones than its predecessor and left a lot more to be considered. On the one hand, you have a cult leader who seems to be crazy, though by the end of the game you're left wondering if he perhaps was right after all about the baby being the anti-Christ; on the other hand, you have a storyline addressing the all-too-known pedophilic accusations regarding the Catholic church. While many horror games that utilize religious elements do so to make a point more along the lines of, "religion is bad and religious people are crazy" without much of an explanation why, Outlast takes a more nuanced approach to the subject and gives it more depth. One could certainly walk away from these games feeling anti-religious - the games don't send a very pro-Christianity message by any means - but I think it's also important to analyze the religion in these games in the context they're in. How these people and groups ended up with their seemingly delusional beliefs is just as important as what they believe when it comes to understanding the games in their entirety. The examinations you can make on religious extremism and Catholic guilt from Outlast 2 are quite deep.

The Outlast series still remains immensely popular as far as horror games go. The third installment, The Outlast Trials, is set for release in 2022 and already has high anticipation from gaming communities.

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Ojos de Dios. 2016. Tejido con hilo y madera 57 x 50 x 42 cm. apróx.

Un Ojo de Dios, o Sikuli según los wixárica (o huicholes, una cultura indígena del noroeste de México) es una herramienta ritual, un objeto mágico, un símbolo cultural y significa “el poder de ver o entender cosas desconocidas”.

Usé estos objetos como acto simbólico inaugural y catártico para una residencia dedicada a explorar las escenas de arte independiente de Berlín y la Ciudad de México. La pieza consistió en registrar mediante pasos las medidas de los tres espacios expositivos de la galería Neurotitan y posteriormente usarlas para realizar tejer tres distintos Ojos de Dios entrelazados.