So why don't we ever get to see Miles' or Waylon's faces? It'd be one understandable if they were featureless protagonists and the player is meant to insert themself into the role. But the fact that they both have names, backstories, and defined personalities (Waylon even has a family) writes out that possibility.
Because the game is first person perspective and there are no good mirrors.
Okay, but what's the meta reason? Why didn't the developers let us see their faces?
Apparently it's due to technical limitations. Something about "not wanting to spawn a new model every time you died" or something.
You're assuming that a protagonist with a story and a protagonist the player is meant to identify with are mutually exclusive, which is most definitely not true. Besides, unlike Role Playing Games, most people act in the exact same way when put in a dangerous situation - try not to die - so whatever personality either protagonist might have is mostly irrelevant here. You're running away from psychos, not trying to date them.
You can identify with a protagonist without practically being them. And I never said anything about wanting any kind of socialization with psychos. I just wanna see the face of the man I'm playing as if I'm getting to know his name, his backstory, as well as what he thinks of the situation he's in through all those journal entries.
Maybe the developers didn't give Miles or Waylon faces because they didn't want to encourage any disturbing slash fanart featuring the protagonists canoodling with the villainous characters. Judging by the sheer volume of the "Outlast" tag at DeviantArt, this tactic failed miserably.
I believe Red Barrels at one point said that they don't have faces so that the players can have their own headcanons for what they look like.
Why did Rudolf Wernicke think killing Miles was good idea BEFORE they questioned him? There were so many unknown variables to the situation that killing Miles immediately had NO BENEFIT whatsoever. All that occurred from shooting Miles was for everyone else, including Rudolf, being brutally killed.
He didn't know Miles was possessed until it was too late and thought it more efficient to plug a leak immediately, rather than question him, let him go and risk him blabbing about what happened.
What the hell happened to Trager's body to seemingly remove most of the skin from it? We know that being stuck in the Engine makes people develop new tumors but did he get exposed to something Walrider-y that turned him to jerky?
Most likely he did it to himself or an inmate did. It all depends on whether or not you think he's insane to begin with or went insane from the situation around him.
The "executive" that Trager kills mentions that Trager received Wernicke's treatment. Which would imply that Trager volunteered to get put into the Morphogenic Engine himself. Unfortunately for him (and Miles,) it "worked too well."
How is Trager able to stay alive and function normally (I use that term loosely) in his skinless state?
I'm more confused as to how he was back in one piece (albeit still dead) during the events of Whistle Blower despite becoming Half the Man He Used to Be in the main game.
Dr Trager wasn't cut in half when he died, the descending elevator simply crushed his torso. When you see him in Whistleblower, Murkoff troops have just finished pulling him out.
I'm just a little curious about how Eddie's trap backfired on him in Whistleblower. I can't quite see how the struggle turned the situation completely on its head. Can anyone explain it to me, please?
Odds are that Gluskin was attempting to get a better grip on the rope he was using to hoist Park, and so likely wrapped it around his arm. When Park came crashing down, it obviously hoisted Gluskin off the ground - though where on earth the beam he got impaled on came from is beyond me. Perhaps when the rickety ceiling gave way?
It's also likely that his feet, too, got tangled in the rope he was using. Or he had a tight grip on the rope, given that he says how heavy Park is, and when Park went down, Gluskin went up.
It looked like Gluskin had tied the rope over one of the beams supporting the roof, but Waylon's weight was the last straw that broke the camel's back and caused part of the roof to cave in. It seems like your struggling helped break part of the roof, causing some of the other ropes to come lose and grab Gluskin. The metal beam is one of the struts from the roof, now caved in and stabbing him in the chest.
Why? Why does Miles Upshur, a simple freelance journalist, go to an insane asylum without any weapon?! Or any good training? He can certainly run and do some athletic things, like jump and climb well. But why did he not think of taking a gun with him or a knife hidden on his body? Why does he think the best way to enter a place that basically tells you it's full of insane and mentally unstable people is without any means of protection?
He didn't know it had been overrun until it was too late. Mental hospitals confiscate anything the visitors have that could be used as a weapon for obvious reasons, so he would have probably thought the weapon would get taken away from him. He may also not have a gun license or carry permit, and as far as I know carrying a knife for self defense is illegal.
He was going into an insane asylum. Where he went, under the assumption given to him by a tip, that something really, really bad was going on. He had every reason to believe "regular rules" would not be upheld. Also, he went there at night.
The tip said the people running the hospital were treating the patients badly, not 'The patients have taken over and are killing people AAAAAHHHH!'. He still would have assumed normal rules were being upheld and he should try his hardest to look like a normal visitor. Admittedly, going there at night was a bit stupid, but understandable if he got overexcited.
This actually explains why he doesn't have a weapon; he KNOWS that the asylum was mistreating it's patients and possibly have armed guards. If he had a weapon, of any kind, he would have been shot on site. He had to appear as though he was just a normal, law-abiding citizen to not draw attention to the fact that he was probably going to break into many restricted areas. He might have also not salvaged a melee weapon because most of these men seemed to be able to overpower him at close range (and most of the violent ones are now indifferent to pain, so just nicking them wouldn't be effective at all). It still doesn't explain why he doesn't salvage a gun though, either he didn't know how to use one or maybe they were all out of ammunition.
Yeah, but he entered at night. Even if there was no overrun of inmates or any catastrophe going on, most asylums or institutes do not allow visitors at night, not even reporters for interviews. There's no way Miles could approach the asylum at night without looking highly suspicious.
This also makes the assumption that all people kept in an mental institution are inherently or even commonly violent, which is not true. To say otherwise is incredibly rude. Obviously, these inmates WERE violent - but they were turned violent due to the practices inside the asylum, which Miles thought was the only thing going on. He also didn't know the extent of these practices. As a troper above mentioned, any weapons would have been confiscated, so there was no point in bringing one as it possibly would have just made the corrupt practitioners more suspicious of him. He had no idea what he was getting into - but seriously. Why go at night?
It's Mount Massive Asylum for the Criminally Insane. So in this case, it's a fair assumption that the patients there are violent without being offensive to mental patients in general.
If it's a hospital for the Criminally Insane, all the more reason not to bring a weapon in case a patient managed to overpower Miles and take it.
Perhaps Miles went at night because he is actually Criminally Insane, too.
The reason Miles didn't bring a weapon is because it would not matter to a player. Picture the first ten minutes of the game, but with a gun involved. Every bullet, or a blade if you like, would almost certainly be wasted on Chris Walker, leaving the point moot as it's an asylum and there aren't going to be bullets laying around like in Silent Hill. The game is about running and hiding, and ultimately, justifying a weapon and why you can't use it would've been more trouble than it was worth.
So after the inmates were released, Eddie Gluskin made his way to the Vocational Block and set up shop, fashioned himself a tux (general consensus is that he made it himself), as well as designed wedding dresses, and killed many many many many many many men. And he didn't just chase victims down and murder them. He dragged each one back to his little torture area where he mutilated and feminized them, including slicing and sewing their chests into breasts. And he dragged each corpse to the gym (all the ones he didn't use as decorations, anyway), where he strung them up on the rope and pulley system he had made. He gained a reputation among the other inmates as The Groom, and they were terrified of him. One would expect his reign of terror had been going on for weeks at least. But apparently he accomplished all of that in the space of an hour or two? Plus another 12 or so while Waylon is unconscious, but still.
The clothier equipment was already there, implying that inmates were making clothes as therapy before funding for non-invasive treatments got cut, so Eddie only had to put on an old suit and dig up any white gowns he could find to have "wedding clothes". He isn't the only killer on site, he probably scavenged most of his corpses when everyone moved on from his "territory". His feminization is for the most part limited to genital trauma and peeling back the skin on the chest to put stuffing inside, and only a few bodies display it. Only like two guys actually call him by his "title", or are close enough to him to know what he is capable of. His presentation as hyper mass murderer and torturer extraordinaire is just us conflating his instances of on-screen depravity onto the the gore fest that is going on in the background of every environment in the asylum without him. Even the pulley system is more slapdash and limited than it first appears, most of those bodies were just hanged from the rafters.
How did the security forces get so overrun? The on-site security forces were apparently only lightly armed, so I suppose it's understandable that they were killed, but Murkoff's tactical teams were equipped with automatic weaponry, flak jackets, etc. The Walrider killing them is understandable, but the patients should be a piece of cake to kill with that much firepower. Even the stronger ones such as Chris Walker shouldn't be too difficult to take down.
You answered your own question. The security forces couldn't get to Chris, the Twins, etc because they were too busy dealing with the flying invisible super-strong science demon.
Would Waylon really have to spend the rest of his life hiding from Murkoff after exposing what they were doing at Mount Massive? After all, what Murkoff was doing is likely to be the kind of PR nightmare that could run them out of business. Even if they try to track Waylon down themselves rather than send assassin's, they could probably burn through whatever money they had left pretty quickly depending on how much they spend trying to find him.
Peacock mentions that Murkoff has access to resources Waylon is "too moral to imagine." They likely have a bunch of different fronts and slush-funds setup that they can pull from should their main enterprise be exposed. They would only be a fraction of the organization they used to be, but as the second game shows they still have a bunch of different research sites and well-funded projects going on. Hiring a mercenary group to track down the guy who destroyed their reputation would be a simple task for such a syndicate.
