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 asylum. 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.
Developer Red Barrels have pointed to the survival-focused gameplay in Amnesia: The Dark Descent as a primary influence on the combat-free narrative style of Outlast. Found-footage horror films like Quarantine and REC also served as influences.
Plot
Freelance investigative journalist Miles Upshur receives an anonymous email 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 officer of Murkoff's private military unit that Mount Massive's deranged inmates, 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 an exit, he is ambushed 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 priest with schizotypal personality disorder, who claims Miles is his "apostle" and sabotages his escape by cutting off power to the front doors. Miles restores power, but Father Martin injects him with anesthetic. He shows Miles footage of "the Walrider", an entity killing doctors, patients, and soldiers 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 escapes through the sewers to the main wards, pursued by Walker and two cannibalistic twins, only to be captured by Rick Trager, a former Murkoff executive driven insane like the other inmates. Trager straps Miles to a wheelchair and amputates two of his fingers with a pair of bone shears, preparing to do the same to his tongue and genitals. However, Miles escapes Trager and flees to the elevator, inadvertently crushing Trager between floors when he attacks him.
Miles ventures further into the hospital and reconvenes with Father Martin, who tells him to go to the asylum's chapel. Reaching an auditorium, Miles learns that the Walrider was created by Dr. Rudolf Gustav Wernicke, a German scientist brought to the United States during Operation Paperclip. Wernicke believed that intensive dream therapy conducted on traumatized patients could connect swarms of nanites into a single malevolent being.
Miles finds Father Martin crucified in the chapel, who gives Miles a key to the atrium elevator that he insists will take him to freedom before immolating himself. Miles takes the elevator, which descends into a subterranean laboratory. Walker attacks him, only to be eviscerated by the Walrider. Miles locates an aged Wernicke, who confirms that the Walrider is a biotechnological nanite entity controlled by Billy Hope, a comatose subject of Murkoff's experiments. He orders Miles to terminate Billy's life support in the hopes that this will destroy the Walrider. Miles accomplishes this task; however, just before Billy dies, the Walrider attacks Miles and possesses his body. On his way out of the laboratory, Miles encounters a private military team led by Wernicke, which guns him down. A horrified Wernicke realizes that Miles is the Walrider's new host. Panicked screams and gunfire are heard as the screen fades to black.
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. Linux and OS X versions were later released on March 31, 2015.
In December 2017, Red Barrels announced that Outlast, including Whistleblower and the sequel Outlast 2, will be coming to the Nintendo Switch in early 2018. The title was released by surprise on February 27, 2018 via Nintendo eShop.
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".
