Game Review: "Outlast"

- by Ninja Ross, 9 October 2013

How’s your October going so far? Getting a daily dose of horror? Are you too scared to go outside? Too scared to turn any lights off? Are you curled up in the corner of the room begging God for forgiveness?!? Not quite? Let "Outlast" change that for you.

Outlast, developed and published by Red Barrels, follows an ambitious independent journalist named Miles Upshur as he tries to expose crimes against humanity in the once abandoned Mount Massive Insane Asylum, now home to the Murkhoff Corporation and their “Research and Charity” division. Acting on a tip from a man on the inside, he arrives on a dark, stormy night, camera at the ready.

He arrives to find the place... Quiet. Nobody’s at the front gates to greet him, nobody is in the security booth and there’s no sign of life from outside. So, it’s going well, so far...

Being a good journalist, Upshur decides to break in and sneak around looking for a story. This... Doesn’t work out so well for our hero. Not at all. The inmates, clearly used for experimentation, have broken loose and taken over. A crazy huge guy wants to rip your flesh off and another nut job wants you to record everything for his gospel.

What’s nice is, the second things begin to go wrong your objective changes from “be an awesome journalist and record stuff” to “get out get out get out get out!” It’s always a pain when the protagonist of a horror decides going into the dark, creepy basement is a GOOD idea. Miles here wants to get out as soon as he hits the library! Which is full of hanging bodies and heads lining the shelves.

This is the scariest game I’ve played since Amnesia: The Dark Descent. It uses jump scares in a more effective way than the majority of horror games and films, which creates a tense, claustrophobic atmosphere. It’s like a drinking game but instead of drinking whenever something jumps out at you, 
you go get new trousers instead.

While insane asylum horrors rely heavily on clichés and harmful stereotypes to make “those nutty inmates” look “scary” this game genuinely works with those clichés and ditches the stereotypes to paint enemies as victims, rather than generic crazy monsters.

Sorting through the files littered around in the game and listening to the conversations, obsessive mutterings and the screams will give these patients a history. So they may be trying to wear your skin but at least you know they have a good reason to be in such a bad mood.

But just because you feel a bit sorry for them, doesn’t mean you won’t be running around screaming. These guys are genuinely frightening. Not so much in their design or even their actions, but rather thanks to the protagonist’s inability to do much of anything.

Upshur can’t attack anyone and he can’t really defend himself at all. The only thing you can do is run through the corridors and hope you can find a locker to hide in or a gap to crawl through. Even then, you’re not safe. These guys will search lockers and, if they’re close enough, they’ll try to pull you out of any gaps you’re trying to slip through.

Your only advantage is your camera, which you can use to record key events and see in the dark, thanks to the night vision feature. However, you’ll find yourself running out of batteries pretty darn fast. If you’re brave enough to explore as many rooms as possible, you should be able to find enough batteries to make your way through the dark corridors and cells.

You’ll have to rely on stealth to avoid the patients; hiding under desks, waiting for them to pass, peeking around corners to see if they’re coming your way, and so on are all necessary for survival in Outlast.

While this makes the game tense and scary, it can also be its downfall at times. It can get frustrating having to keep running away from enemies, which diminishes the impact the enemies in the area have.

Another downside is how predictable the missions get after a while. You’ll often find yourself stuck in an area patrolled by one or two patients while you need to flick three switches before you can turn something on. Since stealth game’s supposed to be slow, these can seem to drag when you need to keep running away from the enemy and virtually starting again.

But despite that, the game’s atmosphere and creative uses of jump scares makes the game one of the best horror games I’ve ever played. It’s certainly not a great stealth game, by any means, but it’s well worth your time and money for the horror alone.


Have you played "Outlast"? Planning to give it a try? Let us know!

Tagged: video games, Reviews.

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