The Walrider's History
Outlast
When Miles Upshur tries to unlock the Administration Block doors to escape, he is ambushed by Father Martin, who injects him with a sedative. Before Miles passes out, Father Martin shows him security footage from the Underground Lab, which depicts a team of Murkoff PMCs being ambushed and slaughtered by the invisible entity upon entering the lab. While Miles traversed through the prison showers, its silhouette can be seen at the bottom of the stairs before vanishing. Shortly afterward, while walking through a Sewer tunnel, Miles catches a glimpse of the entity as it disappears through a barricade. Soon afterward, two men are heard running from the Walrider, before being caught by it and torn apart. Miles arrives at the scene minutes later, discovering their dismembered remains on the floor. In the Courtyard, it is seen scouring the air, as well as one brief encounter behind the locked gate. Project Walrider was the process of exposing patients to Morphogenic Engine Therapy to create a suitable host for the nanite swarm, for only a person that has seen enough horror can become the host. The aim was to create the perfect host for the Walrider, so that it could become a sentient being, as is evidenced by these notes: Gods and Monsters, Variant Postmortem. It is likely that the Variants are the results of this procedure. Billy was capable of controlling the Walrider thanks to his self-directed lucid dream states; however, because they were only using damaged and unstable minds to experiment on, the situation got out of control. The Walrider managed to escape, slaughtering most of the facility's staff members, which directly led to a massive prison breakout. When Miles reaches the underground facilities, he discovers the bodies of the men he saw being murdered on the security cameras. Miles tries to escape through an open hangar, but the Walrider assembles in front of it, causing the security systems to shut down all exit routes, forcing Upshur to retreat the way he came. As the Walrider gives chase, Miles runs back to the exit, only to be greeted by Chris Walker at the lab's entrance, who tackles the journalist to the floor. Unknowingly having put himself in the path of the incoming swarm, Walker mocks Upshur one last time, but before he can kill his intended target, Chris is grabbed by the Walrider from behind and spiraled away from Miles. The Walrider relentlessly throws Walker against nearby walls, and eventually pulls him through a ventilation shaft, dismembering his body in the process. Before he can recover from his ordeal, Miles is suddenly guided by an elderly voice into a nearby secured office. The voice reveals himself to be Rudolf Wernicke, a presumed deceased former Nazi scientist who explains how William Hope gained control over the Walrider and how he's also responsible for keeping Wernicke alive out of a possible delusional presumption on Hope’s part that Wernicke is his father. Wernicke instructs Miles to disable the power grid for Billy's life-support pod to undo what he has made and murder Hope. After Miles shuts down the life-support pod, the Walrider, now without a host, attacks Miles and fuses itself with his body, taking him as its new host. As Miles limps towards the exit in pain, the door opens, revealing Dr. Wernicke and several gunmen. The mercenaries open fire, seemingly killing Upshur, but Wernicke realizes that Miles has become the sentient host. As the screen fades to black, the Walrider can be heard emerging and attacking the soldiers as they shoot and scream in agony.
Outlast: Whistleblower
The Walrider first appears in the Hospital after Waylon is freed from his restraints, murdering two patients on either side of his glass cell. Upon escaping, Waylon walks down the plastic tarp hallways of the hospital, the Walrider appears and chases him into a room where several patients are stabbing a doctor's corpse on an operating table. While crawling through a vent, Waylon overhears a guard and a doctor discussing ways of dealing with the situation. After the two leave, Waylon drops down and catches a glimpse of the Walrider's silhouette just outside the doorway. After opening a decontamination gate from security control, Waylon finds himself pursued by the Walrider but escapes through the decontamination chamber. In the morgue, Waylon climbs through an opening near the exhaust chimney as he spots the Walrider levitating through the shaft before disappearing. In Prison, Waylon spots a silhouette of the Walrider chasing two inmates down a hallway into another room, where it can be heard killing the two as they scream in agony.In Drying Ground, Waylon spots the Walrider in one of the buildings leading up to the water tower. The swarm completely ignores Park and instead traverses through the grated floor below. After Waylon escapes from Vocational Block, he finds himself in the Male Ward, now swarming with tactical officers instructed to shoot and kill on sight. Avoiding the mercenaries, Waylon overhears two of them requesting immediate backup in the underground facilities as the Walrider, an entity unknown to the PMCs, slaughters their teammates. Upon reaching the Exit, Park discovers an injured Jeremy Blaire as he's resting on the main doorway. Waylon ignores Jeremy's plead for help and attempts to leave, before Blaire ambushes and stabs him with a hidden knife. As Blaire is about to deliver the killing blow, the Walrider emerges and throws Jeremy into the air and across the room, before entering his body and dismembering him apart from the inside.Wounded and exhausted, Waylon hobbles his way through the asylum's gates and enters Miles' abandoned jeep, before noticing through the windshield a dark cloud hovering in front of the asylum. Waylon then picks up the camcorder to look more closely, noticing Miles standing in the midst of it, limping towards the exit. Before having to think twice, he struggles with the gear and attempts to turn the vehicle around. As the car gets surrounded by the nano swarm, Waylon accelerates and rams through the asylum's main gates.
Outlast: The Murkoff Account
In Issue 3, it is revealed that, despite being apparently killed by Miles, the Walrider, possessing Billy's body, later turns up at Billy’s former trailer home, now only inhabited by his mother, Tiffany Hope. The body of Billy was then, after Tiffany was slaughtered by the Walrider, seemingly destroyed by large sonic weapons mounted on several Murkoff vehicles, presumably ending Billy's life for good. It was later shown that the Walrider was not destroyed, rather it had switched hosts for a colony of ants, unbeknownst to Murkoff. Still possessing the ant colony, the Walrider manages to travel all the way to the outskirts of Temple Gate, specifically heading towards the Murkoff radio towers. The ants completely swarm and destroy the towers, causing the microwaves to malfunction and engulf the radio towers in a flash of light.
