Outlast Makes you Feel Helpless in all the Best Ways - Preview
by Karl Koebke , posted on 16 June 2013 / 3,899 Views
I think part of what makes Survival Horror games so much less potent than they once were is not only that the survival aspect of limited resources has been diminished in most, but that you are simply too powerful in games. True horror requires going up against totally insurmountable odds which isn't usually something games are comfortable portraying. This is what makes the games that go against this trend that much more special though. Outlast is one such game.
Outlast isn't the story of some random guy who happens to be a whiz at firing a pistol. It's the story of a reporter who gets a tip about an old asylum. I don't know exactly what that tip was but if it was me it'd have to be pretty damn juicy to get me into a creepy old asylum. Regardless, he decides to check it out, and when he finds the door locked he climbs in a second story window. The only abilities you have are to run, hide, or use your camera. Night vision on the camera is extremely useful but eats up the battery like nobody's business. These batteries serve as the sole resource in Outlast.
Walking around in a crazy asylum in first person is bad enough, but things get worse quickly. I soon came upon a library with a man hanging headless from a rope to greet me. It wasn't long before I found out where that head went either as I found a whole shelf of them and quickly found who probably did the deed as well.
The killer knocked me down a floor and I was knocked out but another inmate apparently came to my aid and said God had sent me. Outlast will have not just enemies in the asylum but other inmates and staff to interact with as well, but the developers are trying to make sure that they keep you on your toes and you never know what to expect when you meet a new person. Once I woke up I tried to be sneaky but was noticed by the killer again. After running past him a few times and getting damaged I managed to hide in a dark room behind some furniture and he eventually vanished. Or so I thought. As I walked forward the killer came out of nowhere and ripped my head off, presumably to add it to his library.
I'm not sure if I screwed up somewhere or if that's just how the demo ends but the developers mentioned they were hoping for the game to last about five or more hours. The developers are a 10 person team formerly from Ubisoft and are now calling themselves Red Barrels Games. With the litany of game releases they mentioned being a part of I don't think there's any reason to worry about this particular indie game. Look for more on Outlast as it releases on Steam in the end of summer and on PS4 in early 2014.
