(Give it to me baby, uh huh, uh huh)
Y'all know Outlast is my favorite game franchise. I'm a Red Barrels fangirl. I follow their Twitter. I played their demo. I want all the things Outlast.
So when three people let me know that I would not be able to play Outlast 2 without being majorly triggered, well, that sucked.
But on the flipside, I don't ever want game designers to hold back.
Hit me with the gnarly, gritty, nasty guts and bits. The blood, the gore. The heartbreaking decisions that make me feel like an awful person. The jump scares, the shock, the rotting, pitted underbelly of humanity and horror.
Now, some people are under the impression that trigger warnings are a bad thing. That they are somehow enabling for the spoiled, weak generation that can't cope.
stfugtfo.
Trigger warnings exist so that folks who have, oh, I don't know, lived through a very real trauma, don't have to spend the next day or week in a dark place due to an unfortunate surprise. If that person isn't you, don't worry your pretty little head about it. Just listen to your fellow gamers. Watch out for your peeps. Give 'em a heads up and offer to take over the controller for a bit. Have their back. They'll have yours, should you ever need it.
It would be RAD if there was a collectively used, dedicated space for gamers to alert each other to the triggers in various games, since they're not all blatantly obvious. Maybe there is, and I just don't know about it. But in the meantime, I'll stick to relying on alerts from my amigos while I get my survival horror on.
Is it gonna stop me?
Hell to the naw.
But if it stops you, know that you aren't the only one, and I gotchu.
