Welcome to our review of Outlast, a horror game that keeps true to the original genre! Out now on Nintendo Switch!
Explore Mount Massive Asylum and try to survive long enough to discover its terrible secret… if you dare.
Continue to explore the dark world of the Murkoff Corporation with the included Outlast: Whistleblower DLC. You will play as Waylon Park, a software engineer under contract with Murkoff and the man who emailed journalists around the world – including Miles – at the beginning of Outlast. Spending a couple of weeks at Mount Massive, during which he was unable to even talk to his wife and son thanks to strict security protocols, Waylon developed a deep-seated distrust of the profit-motivated scientists and doctors leading dangerous and irresponsible experiments on their patients. Identifying with those poor souls fueled Waylon’s anger, and set the stage for his unmasking of Mount Massive’s rotten core. Although Whistleblower tells the story that led to Outlast, it will actually stretch past the events of the first game to show the final chapter in Mount Massive Asylum’s story.
In the remote mountains of Colorado, horrors wait inside Mount Massive Asylum. A long-abandoned home for the mentally ill, recently re-opened by the “research and charity” branch of the transnational Murkoff Corporation, the asylum has been operating in strict secrecy… until now. Acting on a tip from an anonymous source, independent journalist Miles Upshur breaks into the facility, and what he discovers walks a terrifying line between science and religion, nature and something else entirely. Once inside, his only hope of escape lies with the terrible truth at the heart of Mount Massive.
You arrive at the asylum in your car, the atmosphere is already set from the start. Nobody is around and you need to find your way inside the mansion. It is clear that there is very little tutorial to be given, the game handles this in a near perfect way, instructing you along the way. What I loved about it, it did not overdo things or give you the impression that you needed to do too many things.
You finally found your way in, it becomes clear quickly that something horrible has happened. The atmosphere becomes more tense real fast. What happened here, is what I thought to myself, not being able to just go into any place, this game brings a variety of horror game mechanics to the table.
First off, the inability to see everything, solved by giving you a camera with night vision. That camera is used to record events and you pick up batteries along the way. Be sparse with your battery life though as it will eventually run out.
Second, the overall atmosphere created by the game. Not just the heavy breathing or the background noises but literally everything. The bodies drenched in blood, the flies surrounding said bodies sometimes, …
Third, the “holy f” feeling, this game is so good at scaring you or making you jump up, it is almost unbelievable how great the atmosphere is.
Sadly there are also bad things about this game, at least, I thought so. I would have liked some more guidance in the easiest mode. The entire time you are on your own to find your way, while it is a more typical approach to the genre, a little help for those new to the genre would be appreciated. One example being the front door, it was clearly locked and still being the tutorial area, it could have given a clue or something.
I know I am nitpicking here, but I consider some unusual facts here. A lot of players on Switch are among the youngest and while this game is not for the faint of heart, the official PEGI rating sets it at 18 and I strongly advise to follow this guideline.
In conclusion, this game is pretty much everything it set out to be, a great horror game that reminds us of several of the greats, like Resident Evil, … It brings a lot of exploring and adrenaline to the player and succeeds near perfectly in a genre that seems to be getting more and more games lately.
My rating stands at 80%
8/10
Tested on Nintendo Switch