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[Mictlantecuhtli]

How scary is Outlast?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vcgdl4xQ18

Pretty goddamn scary.

Contains spoilers!

I want this. Badly.

Hell is an experiment you can't survive in Outlast, a first-person survival horror game developed by veterans of some of the biggest game franchises in history. As investigative journalist Miles Upshur, explore Mount Massive Asylum and try to survive long enough to discover its terrible secret... if you dare.

  Synopsis:
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.

Outlast is a true survival horror experience which aims to show that the most terrifying monsters of all come from the human mind.

  Features:

• True Survival Horror Experience: You are no fighter - if you want to survive the horrors of the asylum, your only chance is to run... or hide
• Immersive Graphics: AAA-quality graphics give players a detailed, terrifying world to explore
• Hide and Sneak: Stealth-based gameplay, with parkour-inspired platforming elements
• Unpredictable Enemies: Players cannot know when - and from where - one of the asylum's terrifying inhabitants will finally catch up to them
• Real Horror: Outlast's setting and characters are inspired by real asylums and cases of criminal insanity

http://redbarrelsgames.com/games.html

On steam too! Didn't see a topic for this yet, so I went for it. This game looks thoroughly awesome. Will be picking it up sometime this week since I haven't had any good horror itches scratched in a while.

Oh, and keep spoilers spoilered, please, it's one of those kinds of games.

[nenjin]

For $20 I might take the plunge. Been a while since I've played a straight up horror game.

That said....man, mental asylums as the locales for horror games are becoming so cliche.

[Chattox]

That said....man, mental asylums as the locales for horror games are becoming so cliche.

Having been to an abandoned mental asylum in real life I can tell you with the utmost certainty that they are fucking terrifying.

[nenjin]

That said....man, mental asylums as the locales for horror games are becoming so cliche.

Having been to an abandoned mental asylum in real life I can tell you with the utmost certainty that they are fucking terrifying.

Yeah, we have one here too. Just because something is terrifying in real life doesn't mean you don't become inured to it through constant exposure.

Just about any abandoned building is scary in the right context.

[GlyphGryph]

Having been to an abandoned mental asylum in real life I can tell you with the utmost certainty that they are fucking terrifying.

I dunno, the one I used to hang out in was actually sort of chill. There were a few scares - that on time we found a single, completely hole, upright "strap 'em in" chair in an otherwise trashed room. (I proceeded to strap myself into the chair for GREAT FUN and my friends proceeded to leave me strapped in for an UNCOMFORTABLY LONG period of time for the same reason), or the time we discovered the ceiling hatch we had tied our descent ropes around as our entry to the building actually contained a MASSIVE BEE HIVE (while hanging from the rope still 8 feet above the floor).

But other than that the places were mostly kind of neat and not very scary.

[Slayerhero90]

PTW

[Gamerlord]

Is it actually out?

[Gamerboy4life]

Is it actually out?

Yup.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/238320/

[Stworca]

It's not nearly as good as you think.
The game suffers terribly from insane repetitiveness. You encounter the same, obstacle-blocked, scripted enemy in about 15 encounters in a 4 hour game. Special animations for jump scares and character behavior are limited to a point where you see the exact same animation of a person waving his arms and then crawling under a bed in three different locations.
The AI is broken by a twig.

It has SOME good moments, and a single segment is really well made and memorable, but this should be a 1 hour game, not a 4 hour one. It has unique content for exactly one, and then it repeats everything for three more.
The first two-three chases are great, atmospheric, hbpm increasing. The following 15 are not.

The reactions in the video were all to jump scares, and if jump scares defined horror games, that one flash maze troll animation would be the greatest horror of all time.

I still find it a better horror game than the first Amnesia, but in Dark Descent's defense, it was a pioneer of sorts...
..and no, this is no pointless bickering to make myself sound tough and bash a poor indie developer. I've recorded my entire run of Outlast, and aside from the initial "WOAH" and a surprising "OH MY..!" a few hours in, i could recite Shakespeare's works during those.

To add some plus sides, the music is well made, the game looks gorgeous, and the characters are well made.
The AI and level design branches of Red Barrel have A LOT of work to do, though.

They perhaps should've filled the game with puzzles and / or more lore, instead of yet another dozen chase segments.

Edit : Also, stealth is completely unnecessary. The enemies truly are retarded, and you do not die to a single hit. Furthermore, enemies take A LONG time to swing again.

Spoiler: An enemy that you meet early, also within the video (click to show/hide)

Chris is the worst of all.. Tic Tac Toe has more interesting and unique moments than the 3,5 hours of Chris on the screen.

I have hopes that Red Barrel will improve upon this game, and make another one. They have potential to make something truly remarkable. Outlast just wasn't it.