I recently got my hands on Red Barrels’ Outlast (finally). Thanks, Humble Bundle! I remember watching PewDiePie play this game back in 2013. Thankfully I only watched the beginning. No spoilers, nothing. This was my first experience.
I really was not ready for this. “This is just not for me”, I kept getting this unwanted feeling, “Fuck it, just a game.” I turned off the lights, the door, wore my headset and increased gamma to the maximum. (welp)
The main menu was creepy, really really atmospheric, and I was not even in-game. (lol) The slow, menacing orchestral music humming in my ears gave me shivers; and for the next 5 long hours, I immersed myself into the nightmares of Mount Massive Asylum.
This game relies heavily on tension-building and gore. It is scary, atmospheric, tense and unsettling. The jumpscares are well-placed and scared the shit out of me.
Time by time, I realised how defenceless and weak my character was. There were only two options – Run or Hide. Coming out of the locker and navigating in the pitch dark under constant fear of being ambushed by the madmen was the worst feeling.
I had a hard time gathering courage to come out of my hiding place. Many times, I spent a ridiculous amount of time hiding, doing nothing, yet being terrified in the background and hearing the sounds of the monsters patrolling every spot in the nearby area. Especially, hearing the sound of chains rattling in the ground completely broke my ‘what-so-ever’ courage. By the sound of these movements, I would go totally mad and just run out screaming YOLO!!! and random slangs…. only to get chased by the Chain Baba (Chris Walker aka Little Pig). T_T
However, as I kept moving on, progressing the story, things became less scary – in better words “similar”. Yeah, this game doesn’t have the variety to maintain the same level of horror. Luckily, the story slowly starts to unfold by this time, and believe me – It is awesome! We get to know the origins of all of this madness, we start to understand the characters and their motives. The game sheds more & more light on the story. The story is linear, yet managed to motivate me to keep playing, to uncover the truth. Reading the documents placed at random places, and the notes, which Miles Upsher wrote based on the events in-game helped me to get a clearer view and understanding of the game.
5 hours spent well playing this brilliant piece of work from 2013 and it was a new and good experience for me. Outlast perfectly does its job, i.e. scaring the players. All you need is some courage, handful of toilet papers and a pant near you (just in case… XD)
Honestly speaking, Outlast surpassed my expectations and is one of the best survival horror games out there. If you have this game on your Steam Library, and still haven’t played it yet or left it unfinished – well you are losing a shit ton of perfect horror experience.
Side note – Wish me luck, I’m going to play the Whistleblower DLC now.