Outlast: Bundle of Terror

Genre: First-Person Stealth / Horror Game

Players: 1

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Review:

Outlast is a Horror game where players take the role of a reporter entering an insane asylum to dig up dirt after getting an inside tip that bad things are going down inside the facility. Before long, it becomes clear that sneaking into a shady facility full of murderous mentally unstable people may not have been the smartest move.

Outlast originally came to Windows in 2013, and was subsequently ported to multiple platforms. This version of the game, the Bundle of Terror, contains both the original game as well as the Whistleblower DLC that follows the story of the man who leaked the story of the asylum to the protagonist of the base game.

While this game isn’t going to impress anyone graphically these days, it looks solid on the Switch. The port from other platforms is relatively unscathed, dropping the framerate down to 30FPS but leaving the resolution at a clear 1080p in docked mode (720p in handheld mode). Generally speaking, the game has aged pretty well in the last decade, although there is one caveat – I simply did not find the character models of enemies in this game especially scary.

That’s not to say that this game is lacking scares, though. While I’m not impressed by this game’s character models, I am impressed by this game’s sound design, which does a fantastic job of keeping players’ pulses pounding. The game’s creepy sounds and soundtrack are great, but the really nice touch here is the protagonist’s breathing, which gets out of control as horrors unfold in front of him, and it’s surprisingly difficult not to feel your own breathing pick up the pace alongside it.

As for the gameplay, this is a game that flat-out makes it clear that you are a wimp with no capacity to fight the horrors of the asylum, and instead you must hide from enemies when they get close. As if that wasn’t enough to ratchet up the tension, many areas are poorly lit and players must peep through the night vision mode on a video camera to see… with the batteries getting sapped away as you do it.

The gameplay mostly works pretty well, but there are details that can lead to frustration. The control scheme, for one, is a bit awkward, and I repeatedly found myself jumping when I meant to crouch. More frustrating than this is the control mechanism to open doors, which seems to have two settings – slam the thing open or shut loudly, and struggle with your attempt to open it more slowly.

Still, frustrations aside, Outlast is a solid horror game with some really good qualities, and the port to the Switch is a pretty good one. Fans of the genre should definitely give it a look.

tl;dr – Outlast is a Horror game where players take the role of a reporter entering an insane asylum full of murderous inmates, with gameplay that has players hiding from enemies instead of fighting them. The game has some control issues, but overall this is a pretty good Horror game and a solid port to the Switch.

Grade: B

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