

For instance, many survival-horror games employ tricks that you expect, but only see once in a while. There aren’t enough of these, though.Įarly sections of Outlast are far more memorable than the later ones. There are a few white-knuckle moments when enemies are onto you, forcing you to run for your life, looking for a spot to hide. If they do see you, that’s when the game is at its best.


Once you realize this, there is very little to fear if you’re patient. They may look different, but they all follow patterns. Moving through the darkened hallways, trying to quietly sneak past enemies that could slaughter you, can make for some exceedingly tense moments. Miles’ inability to fight creates an element of stealth gameplay, during which the game is at its best and worst. Sound is an integral part of the game’s design, and without surround sound you’ll be missing out on important audio cues. If ever there was a game that required a surround-sound system, it is Outlast.

It isn’t just the cries of people that want to kill you – and in some cases eat you – it’s the music that screeches at you, the creaking boards telling you someone is nearby even though you can’t see them, the booms of a giant inmate named Walker that can rip you apart with his bare hands. The design of the levels is properly claustrophobic and oppressive, but the sound is what really makes the game work. Navigating a pitch-black hallway full of screaming inmates with only the night vision is nerve-racking, to say the least. Regardless of their attitude, they are all disturbing, broken, and mutilated beings. The game does a lot with that narrow view.Īs you push through the darkness, you’ll encounter inmates that run the gauntlet from mad to homicidal to sad. Your objectives are simple and the levels are linear. The game is less about story than atmosphere (at least until the end when the “big reveal” occurs and things change). The bulk of the story is told through documents you find lying around though, which paint a picture of human experimentation and supernatural involvement. You pick it up in bits and pieces – one patient tells you his story before trying to burn himself to death, while a “doctor” casually fills in some of the gaps as he tortures you. The deeper Miles gets into the asylum, the more evidence he finds that something horrible happened, and is still happening. The best upcoming PS5 games: 2023, 2024, and beyond
