Outlast

Gameplay

In Outlast, the player assumes the role of investigative journalist Miles Upshur, as he navigates a dilapidated psychiatric hospital overrun by homicidal patients. The game is played from a first-person perspective and features some stealth gameplay mechanics. The player can walk, run, crouch, jump, and climb over objects. Unlike most games however, the player is unable to attack enemies, and instead must hide in lockers, sneak past enemies, hide behind crates and barrels, or hide under beds and tables. Alternatively, the player can attempt to outrun their pursuer. If the player dies, the game will reset to the most recent checkpoint.

Most of the hospital is unlit, and the only way for the player to see while in the dark is through the lens of a camcorder equipped with night vision. Using the night vision mode will slowly consume batteries, forcing the player to scavenge for additional batteries found throughout the building. Outlast makes heavy use of traditional jump scares and audio cues, which alert the player if an enemy has seen them. If the player records specific events with their camcorder, Miles will write a note about it, providing further insight into his thoughts. Documents can be collected, which offer backstory and other supplementary information about the hospital.

Plot

Freelance investigative journalist Miles Upshur receives an anonymous tip that inhumane experiments are being conducted at Mount Massive Asylum, a private psychiatric hospital owned by the notoriously unethical Murkoff Corporation. Upon entering, Miles is shocked to discover its halls ransacked and littered with the mutilated corpses of the staff. He is informed by a dying SWAT officer that Mount Massive's deranged patients, known as "variants", have escaped and are freely roaming the grounds, butchering Murkoff's employees. The officer implores him to leave, but Miles finds he cannot return the way he came and must press on.

As Miles searches for exit, he is surprised by a hulking variant named Chris Walker, who hurls him through a window into the lobby, knocking him unconscious. While incapacitated, Miles encounters Father Martin Archimbaud, a self-anointed, schizoaffective priest, who claims Miles is his "apostle" and sabotages his escape by cutting off power to the front doors. Miles restores power, but Father Martin ambushes and injects him with anesthetic. He shows Miles footage of "the Walrider", a supernatural creature killing doctors and patients alike, which he claims is responsible for the asylum's ransacking.

Regaining consciousness, Miles finds himself trapped in a decaying cell block filled with catatonic and demented patients. He manages to escape through the sewers to the main wards, pursued by Walker and two cannibalistic variants, only to be captured by a former Murkoff executive Rick Trager afflicted similarly as the other inmates. Trager straps Miles to a wheelchair and amputates two fingers, and is preparing to do the same to his tongue and genitals. However, Miles manages to escape when Trager leaves him alone for a moment. After fleeing to the elevator, Miles activates it and inadvertently crushes Trager between floors.

Miles ventures further into the hospital and reconvenes with Father Martin, who tells him to go the chapel. Reaching an auditorium, Miles learns that the Walrider was created by Dr. Rudolf Gustav Wernicke, a German scientist brought to the United States for Operation Paperclip. Wernicke believed that intensive dream therapy conducted on psychologically-traumatized patients could connect swarms of nanites into a single malevolent being.

Miles eventually finds Father Martin crucified and self-immolated in the chapel, leaving Miles a key to the atrium elevator that he insists will "take him to freedom". After evading Walker in the hallways, Miles takes the elevator, descending into a basement-level subterranean laboratory, where he finds the Walrider, which chases him until Walker arrives to kill Miles, only to be brutally murdered himself by the Walrider. Miles then finds an aged Wernicke, confirming that the Walrider is a biotechnological nanite entity controlled by Billy Hope, a comatose subject of Murkoff's experiments. He orders Miles to terminate Hope's life support to hopefully disable the Walrider. Miles does; however, just before Billy dies, the Walrider attacks Miles and enters his body. Murkoff operatives led by Wernicke then enter the laboratory and kill Miles. A horrified Wernicke realizes that Miles is the Walrider's new host. The Walrider attacks him and the operatives.

Whistleblower

Waylon Park is a software engineer working at Mount Massive Asylum for Murkoff. His job entails maintaining the Morphogenic Engine, which controls lucid dreaming in comatose individuals. After several experiences working directly with the Engine and uncomfortable torture, he sends an anonymous e-mail to reporter Miles Upshur to expose the corporation. Shortly afterwards Park is summoned to the underground lab's operations center to debug a monitoring system. When he returns, his supervisor, Jeremy Blaire, subjects him to the Morphogenic Engine after discovering his email. However, after the Walrider unleashes the catastrophe, Park escapes and takes a camcorder. He roams the increasingly decrepit facility as surviving guards and medical personnel try to evade the newly freed patients, all the while searching for a shortwave radio that he can use to contact the authorities. During this time, he has to consistently elude a bearded cannibal named Frank Manera, who wields an electric bone saw and unsuccessfully tries to murder him in many ways, including trapping him in a furnace. Just as Park manages to find a working radio transmitter, Blaire appears and attacks Park, destroying the transmitter. He begins to choke Park with a baton while berating him for not keeping his mouth shut. Upon hearing Chris Walker coming, Blaire leaves him to die, but Park escapes Walker through a window.

Park eventually jumps into the asylum's attic, where Dennis, a dissociative Variant, plots to capture and offer him to Eddie Gluskin, whom he calls "the Groom". Park escapes Dennis, and initially eludes Gluskin, but falls down an elevator shaft and injures his leg, reducing him to a limp. This ultimately allows Gluskin to capture Park, who then witnesses Gluskin sexually mutilate men because he seeks to create "the perfect bride". Park is tied up to a table for mutilation when another prisoner attacks Gluskin, granting escape. After killing the other prisoner, Gluskin returns to hang Park in a gymnasium with his other victims, but during the struggle, he becomes entangled in his pulley system and impaled by a loose metal bar.

At daybreak, Murkoff's paramilitary teams arrive at the asylum, intent on killing anything they see. Park slips past them and hightails it for the main lobby. There, he finds a gravely wounded Blaire, who stabs him suddenly, insisting that no one can know the truth about Mount Massive, but the Walrider kills him before he can finish Park off. Park then stumbles out the open front door and towards Miles Upshur's jeep, which is still idling near the main gates. He puts the jeep into gear and drives through both gates as Miles, now the Walrider's host, helps him escape.

In the epilogue, Park is sitting at a laptop with the videos ready for upload to expose the Murkoff Corporation. An associate informs him that it will be more than enough to ruin Murkoff, but is warned that they will then seek to destroy him and his family. Despite hesitation, Park uploads the file and closes the laptop.

Release

Outlast was released on September 4, 2013, for download through Steam, and it was released on February 4, 2014, for the PlayStation 4 as the free monthly title for PlayStation Plus users.

The downloadable content, Outlast: Whistleblower serves as an overlapping prequel to the original game. The plot follows Waylon Park, the anonymous tipster to Miles Upshur and shows the events both before and after the main plotline. The Microsoft Windows version of Whistleblower was released on May 6, 2014, worldwide, the PlayStation 4 version was launched on May 6, 2014, in North America and on May 7, 2014, in Europe, and the Xbox One version launched on June 18 in North America and Europe.

Reception

As of October 19, 2016, Outlast has sold over 4 million copies.

Outlast received positive reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the Xbox One version 80.00% based on 3 reviews and 80/100 based on 5 reviews, the Microsoft Windows version 79.95% based on 37 reviews and 80/100 based on 59 reviews and the PlayStation 4 version 77.16% based on 19 reviews and 78/100 based on 33 reviews. It has been received with a number of accolades and awards from E3 2013, including the "Most Likely to Make you Faint" honor, and one of "Best of E3".

The PC gaming website Rock, Paper, Shotgun gave Outlast a very positive review, noting that "Outlast is not an experiment in how games can be scary, it’s an exemplification." Marty Sliva of IGN rated the game with a score of 7.8, praising the horror elements and gameplay while criticizing the environments and character modeling.

Gamespot gave the game a positive review as well stating that "Outlast isn't really a game of skill, and as it turns out, that makes sense. You're not a cop or a soldier or a genetically enhanced superhero. You're just a reporter. And as a reporter, you don't possess many skills with which you can fend off the hulking brutes, knife-wielding stalkers, and other homicidal maniacs who lurk in the halls of the dilapidated Mount Massive Asylum. You can't shoot them, or punch them, or rip pipes from the walls to clobber them with. You can only run and hide".

Sequel

On October 23, 2014, in an interview with Bloody Disgusting, Red Barrels revealed that due to the success of Outlast, a sequel is in development. It is set to release in late 2016 but delayed to early 2017. It is set in the same universe of the first game, but it features brand new characters and a new region set in the Arizona desert. It was announced that the official release date is on April 25, 2017.

On March 6, 2017, Red Barrels announced that a physical bundle called Outlast Trinity would be released for Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on April 25.