Outlast

Intense overall intensity
Highest flag: Dark themes — graphic
AdventureHorrorSurvival

What's in it

Violence graphic & gore
High

Corridors are strewn with mutilated corpses and blood; the player is chased and killed on-screen by homicidal patients, though the player cannot fight back.

Nudity full
High

Fully nude male patients appear throughout the asylum, some smeared in blood or gore.

Dark themes graphic
High

Central themes are inhumane human experimentation, insanity, and helpless victimhood in a bleak, atrocity-filled asylum.

Horror & psychological sustained dread
High

Sustained psychological survival horror built on darkness, stalking pursuers, jump scares, and constant dread with no means of defense.

Sexual content strong
High

Strong sexual content includes a naked patient masturbating and a captor who threatens to sever the protagonist's genitals.

Language strong
High

Frequent strong profanity in dialogue and recovered documents.

Torture depicted
Moderate

The player is captured and has two fingers amputated on-screen, and the environment shows victims of experimental torture.

Suicide & self-harm depicted
Moderate

Patients are shown having self-harmed and taken their own lives, and a character sets himself on fire.

Mutilation / body horror depicted
Moderate

Dismembered and mutilated corpses are pervasive, and the protagonist's own fingers are severed.

Substances referenced
Low

Medical sedatives and experimental drugs appear in the story; the protagonist is forcibly injected with an anesthetic.

Crime & lawlessness crime depicted
Low

The player witnesses murders by escaped inmates and uncovers a corporation's illegal, lethal experiments on patients.

Sexual violence referenced
Low

A captor's threats to mutilate the protagonist's genitals carry sexual-violence undertones.

Who can reach your kid

What it is

Outlast is a first-person survival horror game in which you play a journalist investigating a remote, abandoned psychiatric hospital that has been overrun by violent, deranged inmates. You cannot fight; you survive by running, hiding in lockers or under beds, and navigating the dark hallways through a camcorder's night-vision lens. The game is extremely graphic and unsettling: the halls are littered with mutilated and dismembered corpses, the player character has fingers amputated and is threatened with further mutilation, and inmates are shown nude with exposed genitals. It carries frequent gore, strong language, disturbing sexual and self-harm imagery, and relentless psychological horror with frequent jump scares. It is entirely single-player with no online interaction or purchases.

How it's framed

The game frames its violence and cruelty as something inflicted upon a powerless protagonist and the hospital's victims, using the player's inability to fight back to emphasize dread and vulnerability rather than empowerment. The horror is directed at exposing a corporation's inhumane experiments, so the atrocities are presented as monstrous rather than glorified.

Details

Developer
Red Barrels
Publisher
Red Barrels
Released
Sep 4, 2013
Metacritic 80critic score (third-party) · out of 100

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