Red Barrels' scare fest Outlast 2 may stand as an indirect follow-up to its forerunner it s set in the same universe, but breaks from the first s show-stealing Mount Massive Asylum setting and follows a different cast of characters but a new five-issue comic book series aims to bridge the narrative gap between the first and second outing, the developer has announced.

Following the exploits of the unscrupulous Murkoff Corporation, issue one focuses on how Chris Strongfat Walker wound up with superhuman strength and a disliking for pretty much everyone and everything that crosses his path.

Walker, you may recall, is the recurring brute that stalks Miles Upshur in Outlast (and Waylan Park to a lesser extent in its Whistleblower DLC) but, besides scant info gleaned from the odd document scattered here and there within the hospital, the player is offered little explanation as to how he became this way.

This is where the comic comes in, and how all of this ties to Outlast 2 s narrative will undoubtedly become clear as the comic series unfolds. Outlast 2, by the way, promises things like walking over charred baby pits and crotch-stabbing. Do read on at your peril.

The first Outlast, the way we saw it, was that it was going to take your physical integrity, Red Barrels' Phillipe Morin told Tyler in the following video interview. In this one we want to take your mental integrity as well.

Outlast 2 is due to launch later this year, however issue one of The Murkoff Account can be read for free here.

I was burned out on Humble Bundles after the first couple. In part it was because my cup runneth over with games I've never installed and bundles contribute to Steam library shame in a big way. But there's also the fact that the quality is highly variable from one bundle to the next. Humble Indie Bundle 16 is obscenely well endowed.

You can pay what you want for Retro City Rampage DX, Never Alone (a lesson in Inuit folklore) and horror spectacular Outlast along with 80% off its Whistleblower DLC. For paying above the average ($6.17 at time of writing), you'll unlock Trine 3 and Door Kickers, which was one of 2014's tactical surprises. The bundle comes just as Door Kickers 2 has been announced. Coincidence? Well, no, not at all, but it's still a great opportunity to see what the series is all about.

It's $2 above the average price that the bundle goes from great to stupendous. Those two dollars get you Else Heart.Break(), which Andy raved over in our review, and Sunless Sea, which I rave over if you stand still long enough to listen. It's a bundle packed with personality, and if you don't already own the standouts, it'll fill a gaping void in your collection.

Outlast, from Montreal-based indie studio Red Barrels Games, was a pretty good horror game: Vaguely Amnesia-like at first blush but faster-paced and more overtly gruesome. It was successful enough to warrant a sequel, which Red Barrels confirmed last year is in development. So when I say the studio is teasing something on Twitter, it's not the conventional sort of "What could it be?" tease, but rather the promise of a proper reveal and, hopefully, a goodly portion of details.

pic.twitter.com/DdTu1opJ4j

— Red Barrels Games (@TheRedBarrels) October 28, 2015

The tweet isn't the only thing hinting at action on the Outlast 2 front. The entire Red Barrels website is now just a grey page emblazoned with the studio's logo, an email link, and the words, "Coming soon... Things are going to get bloody!"

Red Barrels hasn't revealed much about its plans for Outlast 2, although it did say when it announced the sequel that it won't be set in Mount Massive, the crumbling asylum that was home to the first game. More recently (as in, yesterday) it said on Twitter that it hoped to have it ready for release sometime in 2016.

Thanks, OnlySP.

Outlast, the indie horrorfest about an unlucky journalist stumbling through a crumbling, not-at-all-abandoned insane asylum, did pretty well for itself last year. "Is Outlast scary?" our review asked, in the rhetorical way reviewers like to. "Hell yes." And so it's not surprising (but still very good news) that developer Red Barrels has finally confirmed that a sequel is in the works.

The news came from Red Barrels co-founder Philippe Morin, who told Bloody Disgusting that while it will be some time yet before the game is ready, the studio is working on it. "After shipping the Xbox One version of Outlast, we took some time to analyze our situation and we quickly realized we had at least another horror game in us," he said. "So, yes, we are working on Outlast 2."

Morin didn't reveal anything in the way of details, saying that "part of the fun of playing a horror game is the sense of discovery and progressively understand wtf is going on," but players won't be returning to Mount Massive in the sequel.

"The game will be a survival horror experience and it will take place in the same universe as Outlast, but it will have different characters and a different setting," he said. "We might go back to Mount Massive Asylum one day, but for now we have new ideas and themes we d like to explore and we think we re cooking up something special."