REVIEW – You think you’ve seen everything? Nightmare on Elm Street is only a sweet dream for you? Saw doesn’t saw your nerves? You didn’t fear anything in a video game since Silent Hill 2? Then turn on your PS4 late night, and visit the sick and twisted asylum of Outlast full with nightmarish lunatics and mangled corpses! This is the kind of a horror game, during which we guarantee that in an empty house you will not dare to go out to the kitchen just to drink a glass of water!

Mental hospitals aren’t a good thing. Especially not when you got there sane, trapped as an investigative journalist, and the patients are all horribly disfigured face and almost all of them tries to kill you. And the icing on the cake: in this game, you cannot fight back. You either run away or hide, or you are dead! That’s it, no other way around.

Survive if you can!

As the game’s title suggests, the Outlast is a survival horror at its best. Although the old mental hospital, where all hell broke loose isn’t the most original of horror scenes, since we had our share already of horrific asylums already in movies and games alike, still the games succeeds to be original thanks to the developers adding a good deal of tension to the horror scenes, while disgusting, horrifying figures are chasing us.

From the files and records we are finding the game it’s quickly revealed that the patients have been subjected to brutal chemical experiments (a bit like in Jacob’s Ladder), but – as it often happens – the subjects have become too strong and massacred the nurses, guards in a horrific way at the beginning of our journey we encounter decapitated, mangled corpses. While some of the horribly disfigured patients are harmless, we will soon meet with those who’d like to immediately slaughter our journalist hero. Resistance is hopeless: all we can do is to hide and escape or die.

You are helpless

Probably that’s the reason why Outlast is really nerve-racking: we cannot fight back, defend ourselves and destroy the ghosts like even in the most fearful of survivor horrors we could do so. If you are caught, the only thing you can do is watch as your head starts to spill blood, or to watch our own body from our ripped head while swinging in the hand of our crazy killer. Yes, the rating Mature isn’t an overstatement here and you need really strong nerves to continue on playing even during the day.

Of course, the question arises that if in a game we cannot fight back, but can only escape, how can we win the game? Well, Outlast invites you to explore your environment and to always find your way out or else… you die.

It’s the best on PS4

And it’s really worth the keep hiding and running from those monsters since Outlast is one of the best looking games on the PS4. The new generation console brings you the visuals of the old, dilapidated mental hospital and its horribly disfigured inhabitants in glorious 1080p and 60 frames per sec without a hitch. Ok, so seeing all those horrors it would be kind of strange to say that “the graphics are nice,” but they are sure to be extremely detailed. And you will also appreciate those 60 FPS when you run from monsters like hell, and you turn your head in every direction possible to find your way out. The DS4 controller is also perfect to lead our hero: you can run with the top left buttons and with the R2 button you can take a peek in a normal stance, or look back frantically while running, whether you are still chased or not. Thanks to the first person view the immersion is guaranteed.

The degree of fear

Outlast isn’t recommended to everyone. If you can stand deep psychological horror then skip the game. But if you are a fan of the genre, Outlast is really is a must, even if the story is a bit sloppy and is using the usual clichés. If Outlast were a beverage it would be double Scotch, dry, only for adults and those with strong nerves.