Outlast is a horror game created and released by Red Barrels on September 4th, 2013 (on Microsoft Windows), and later released for PlayStation 4 on February 4th, 2014 and Xbox One on June 19th, 2014. The game is about a journalist named Miles Upshur who took up an investigation to discover the truths of a psychiatric hospital named Mount Massive Asylum.

[SPOILERS]

When the player first starts the game, there is a note that explains who the main character is and what the player must do to release the truths of this asylum. It proceeds to say, “Stay alive as long as you can, record everything. You are not a fighter; to navigate the horrors of Mount Massive and expose the truth, your only choices are to run, hide, or die.”

The player is then in a car driving to Mount Massive Asylum. As soon as the main character stops the car, he picks up a piece of paper that the player has to read. In that paper, it explains what this person has seen in this asylum “Terrible things happening there. Don’t understand it. Don’t believe half the things I saw. Doctors talking about dream therapy going too deep, finding something that had been waiting for them in the mountain. People are being hurt and Murkoff is making money.” (MURKOFF is a Psychiatric System Facility in Mount Massive.) Throughout the game, the player will have a camera that will need batteries and will need to record to collect information along with collecting folders that hold a lot of information. 

During the time that I played Outlast, I can say that I really liked the game! It has scary jump scares, the storyline flows very well which helps me understand what’s going on in the game, and lastly each character each has their own feelings and opinions on this spooky setting. What I personally disliked was how hard and tricky the game can be. Sometimes while playing, the player must hide due to mutated people, but those people can easily find the player if they don’t hide carefully. Also the objective can be quite difficult to complete.

The game features seem very smooth for a game that was made in 2013. It also looks very realistic; the characters, the surroundings, and how smoothly the jumps are, along with the running and hiding. 

The playing style is also very smooth. Throughout the game, players are assigned objectives to get out of this asylum, which are often a bit tricky, and, to be honest, can be quite difficult to figure out (which, personally, I dislike a bit.)

The graphics on the game seem to be very high quality and are not terrible for, again, a game that was made in 2013. Famous Youtubers, such as Pewdiepie and Markiplier, have played this game telling the audience that it features incredible gameplay, along with many other positive traits.

The creators of this game also released a DLC (Downloadable Content) add-on, called The Whistleblower, which serves as a prequel, while also wrapping up the cliffhanger from the ending of the original storyline.