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Outlast
Developer(s)	Red Barrels
Publisher(s)	Red Barrels
Writer(s)	J. T. Petty
Engine	Unreal Engine 3.5
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4
Release	Microsoft Windows September 4, 2013 PlayStation 4 NA: February 4, 2014 EU: February 5, 2014
Genre(s)	Survival horror
Mode(s)	Single-player

Outlast is a survival horror video game developed and published by Red Barrels, a company founded by people previously involved with video games such as Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell and Uncharted. ^[1] It was released on September 4, 2013 for Microsoft Windows and on February 4, 2014, for PlayStation 4.

Outlast is a first-person survival horror game set in an asylum. The main character, Miles Upshur, is incapable of combat, except for certain scripted sequences in which he pushes enemies away. To navigate the environment, the character is able to climb to ledges, vault over low obstacles, crawl, and slide in narrow gaps. Except for vaulting, enemies are incapable of any of these maneuvers, which gives the player a certain edge. In addition, the player can survive encounters with the inmates by hiding inside lockers or under beds, although certain enemies may search the room and attempt to locate the player for a short time before moving on.

Since much of the asylum is dark, the player must use Miles' video camera to see, thanks to its night vision function. Using night vision consumes batteries, replacements of which are scattered throughout the environment.

When injured, Upshur must avoid taking any further damage for a while, which will allow him to recover.

Miles Upshur, a freelance journalist, receives a tip-off from an anonymous source, known only as "The Whistleblower", about Mount Massive Asylum, a psychiatric hospital owned and operated by the Murkoff corporation. Upon gaining entry to the asylum, he finds the bodies of the asylum's staff strewn about the hallways, and the now escaped inmates, known as "The Variants", roaming the grounds. Progressing through the upper dormitories, he encounters an impaled SWAT officer, who in his dying moments tells the journalist to get out of the asylum while he still can. Exiting the dormitories, Upshur is attacked by a powerful inmate named Chris Walker, who throws him through a window, and down to the atrium. Upon regaining consciousness, he encounters "Father" Martin, an inmate who believes he is a priest. Martin says Upshur was sent by God to be a witness to his cult and has to stay in the asylum, and then departs as Upshur passes out again.

Awakening, Upshur starts his attempt to find a way out of the building, while avoiding attacks from Walker and the other inmates. However, as he attempts to unlock the main doors from security control, he is ambushed and sedated by Martin, who again states that he must remain at the asylum and witness the events there. Martin shows him footage of the asylum's security forces being slaughtered by a mysterious, seemingly supernatural entity known as the Walrider before transporting a now-unconscious Upshur to the asylum's holding cells.

Upshur is forced to work his way upwards through the sewers after encountering a pair of inmates, the Twins, who express a desire to kill and eat him. However, the duo abstain from attacking for the moment, as Martin has asked them not to harm the journalist. Upshur makes his way through the sewers, while avoiding attacks from Walker and other hostile inmates, before finally reaching the asylum's showers.

While attempting to escape through the showers, however, he is attacked yet again by Walker, and escapes through the vents. Progressing further through the building, Upshur is soon chased into a corner by several inmates, but escapes through a dumbwaiter, only to be captured by one of the Asylum's now psychotic doctors, Dr. Richard "Rick" Trager, who collects body parts of the inmates. Trager imprisons Upshur, strapping him to a wheelchair, and slices off two of his fingers using a large pair of shears. Upshur manages to escape and a chase ensues, followed by a struggle when Upshur pulls Trager into a moving elevator and crushes him between floors.

Encountering Martin again, Upshur exits onto the asylum grounds, but he is chased back inside by both Walker and the Walrider, revealed to be a ghost-like being which Upshur can only see with the naked eye and while using his camera's night vision. He is forced to circumnavigate the ruined stairway to access different floors of the building by following a trail of blood Martin left for him to follow. Upshur finally locates Martin in the asylum's chapel to witness the latter's death, self-immolation on a crucifix, and being chased by Walker once again before taking the now-repaired primary elevator down. Martin tricked Upshur, however, and instead of taking him to the exit, the elevator takes him to an underground military facility beneath the asylum. While searching for an exit, Upshur is attacked and incapacitated by Walker one final time. However, before Walker can kill the journalist, the Walrider attacks and brutally kills the inmate before leaving. Upshur proceeds into the facility and meets Dr. Wernicke (originally believed to be dead), the scientist in charge of the entire experiment known as "Project Walrider".

Wernicke explains that the Walrider is the result of nanotechnology experiments conducted on an inmate called Billy Hope, and that the Walrider is controlled by Hope. Wernicke orders Upshur to find Hope in the laboratory and kill him by shutting off his life support system, thus killing the Walrider. After accomplishing this task, Upshur is caught by the Walrider who brutally beats and possesses him, as only a person who has experienced great psychological pain can sustain it. Limping towards the exit, he is confronted by Wernicke, who is accompanied by several armed guards who repeatedly shoot Upshur. As Upshur collapses to the floor, dying from his wounds, the screen fades to black and Wernicke's voice is heard as he realizes Upshur has become the Walrider's new host. Panicked gunfire, screams and mauling sounds are then heard briefly before the credits roll.

• Miles Upshur – The main protagonist, a freelance journalist who is tipped off to possibly illegal activity at the Mount Massive Asylum, run by the Murkoff Corporation. He is the only character who never actually speaks, instead simply screaming, grunting, and breathing heavily during intense sequences, and whose thoughts are instead expressed by handwritten notes. Despite the trouble he experiences at the asylum, he maintains a firm determination to complete his objectives, utilizing his pathfinding skills to find new routes, and even has a slight but dark sense of humor. At the end of the game, Upshur is shot, possibly to death, by SWAT officers under the orders of Dr. Wernicke to prevent him from reporting the asylum's illegal experimentations to the public. He could've survived thanks to the Walrider having possessed him, but whether he did survive or not is currently unknown. His status will be revealed in the Outlast: Whistleblower expansion pack. Voiced by Shawn Baichoo.

• Father Martin Archimbaud – A former patient at Mount Massive who, as a result of his insanity, believes himself to be a priest, even reconfiguring his patient’s clothes into a sort of frock. He believes Upshur to be a prophet sent to him by God, to record the events within Mount Massive and to “spread his Gospel” to the outside world. He maintains a firm control over most of the other inmates, using this control to save Upshur from several attacks, primarily by the Twins. He serves as one of the major driving forces in the game, constantly appearing to Upshur from afar and ordering him to follow him deeper into the asylum. In one of the final scenes, believing himself to be the second coming of Christ, he has his servants burn him on a cross in the asylum’s chapel. Voiced by Andreas Apergis.

• Chris Walker – One of the major, and perhaps most persistent, antagonists of the game, Walker is a former soldier with the United States Army who served several tours in Afghanistan. He is a massive man who uses his sheer strength to rip people’s heads right off of their bodies, doing so in order to contain the threat of the Walrider by eliminating potential hosts. Shortly after Upshur enters the underground military base, Walker attempts to attack him one final time, only to be killed when the Walrider drags him through a metal grate, shredding his body to pieces. Voiced by Chimwemwe Miller.

• Dr. Richard “Rick” Trager – A former executive with the Murkoff Corporation who eventually went insane and began acting as a doctor, mostly performing experiments and mutilations on patients and other former executives. He also played a role in keeping a lid on the illegal activities by ordering the institutionalization of potential whistle-blowers such as David Annapurna so that they could be experimented on until death. He maintains a consistent and very dark sense of humor, even as he mutilates Upshur by cutting off two fingers. He also has a low opinion of Father Martin and his “holier-than-thou Bible-thumping,” claiming that the man just might be “a little crazy.” He is the first major character to die, when he fights Upshur in a downward-moving elevator and pushed out the door, where he is crushed to death as it passes between floors. Voiced by Alex Ivanovici.

• The Twins – Two naked, cannibalistic twins who pursue Upshur with meat cleavers with the intent of eating him. Several times, they are held back by Father Martin’s orders, but occasionally chase after Upshur regardless. They are the only major characters who do not die, and are last seen opening the chapel doors for Upshur and allowing him to leave after Father Martin dies.

• Dr. Rudolf Wernicke – A former Nazi scientist who performed similar experiments with production and control of nanotechnology under Hitler’s Germany. After the war, he was brought to the United States as part of a program that sought to utilize foreign scientist’s skills for their own needs rather than allow their enemies to recruit them. He first worked at Los Alamos before being transferred to Mount Massive, which was secretly under the control of the government under the guise of an insane asylum. His death was faked in 2009, and he continued his research for the government, in alliance with the Murkoff Corporation, up until the events of the game. He tells Upshur that the only reason he is still alive is because the Walrider’s host, Billy Hope, sees Wernicke as his father and thus chooses to let him live. Wernicke is last seen sitting in his wheelchair alongside the six soldiers after the Walrider is released by Upshur’s death at the end of the game. Voiced by Marcel Jeannin.

• William "Billy" Hope – A twenty-three-year-old patient who lives inside a glass orb, kept alive by life support in the underground military base at Mount Massive. He is the Walrider’s host, despite his limited physical capabilities, and thus controls the Walrider’s actions. He views Wernicke as his father, even though Wernicke is simply using him as a test subject. He is killed as Upshur’s final objective, when Upshur shuts off his life support system and drowns him in his own blood.

• "The Whistleblower" - An anonymous man who tipped off Upshur about the illegal activity at Mount Massive Asylum. As shown in his email to Upshur, he holds an intense hatred for the Murkoff Cooperation for its illegal experimentation on the asylum's patients and contacted Upshur, as well as other reporters, in an attempt to expose them. His real name is Waylon Park, a software engineer under contract with Murkoff who began to distrust his employers when strict security protocols refused to let him contact his wife and son. After a couple of weeks, he realized what Mount Massive was doing to its patients and set out to expose them. He will be the protagonist of the Outlast: Whistleblower expansion pack.

Outlast benefited from the expertise of Thwacke!, a company which helps make video games more realistic by providing consultation from experts in different fields of science. To add depth to the AI-controlled characters, Maral Tajerian (PhD in neurology and neurosurgery) advised giving them unique personalities with the cooperation of psychiatrists.

"Not all patients in an asylum are necessarily violent, so that was something we suggested that was implemented," says Tajerian, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford. "It’s more real that way."^[2]

It was released on September 4, 2013 for digital download through Steam, and it was also released on February 4, 2014 for the PlayStation 4 as the free monthly title for PlayStation Plus users.^[3]

Outlast was met with mostly positive reviews from critics. At Metacritic the PC version holds an 80/100,^[6] and PS4 version of game holds a 78/100.^[7] At GameRankings, the PC version maintains a 79.94%,^[4] and the PS4 version holds a 76.53%.^[5] 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".^[16]

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."^[17] 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.^[9]

A DLC pack called Outlast: Whistleblower has been announced, which would serve as a prequel to the original game. The new storyline follows the person that, having been in the asylum before the original game, tipped off Upshur about what was happening there.^[18] Whistleblower is due for release in April.^[19]

• Official website