OUTLAST: NO GUN, ONE CAMERA, MANY REGRETS

8.0 of 10 bananas. The found footage asylum horror that put a night vision camcorder in the hands of a generation of streamers. No weapons, only running and hiding. Still terrifying, but the gore is heavy and the chase pattern shows its age.

By the Alpha. Steam listing. Updated Oct 23 2026.

Honest note: This is not a fresh hands-on playtest. I built this verdict from launch reviews, critic consensus, update history, and what is known about the game today. If I put real hours in on stream, I will update the score and say so.

Platforms: PC on Steam, plus PS4, Xbox One, and Switch (Red Barrels, first released September 4 2013 on PC). The button on this page is the Steam store page, 14.99 dollars at my Oct 23 check. On Amazon US the closest disc was the PS4 Outlast Trinity bundle from a third-party seller at 49.99 dollars, a different product at an inflated price, so there is no Amazon button.

Sit with me a moment. Every young gorilla has watched someone stream Outlast through their fingers. The green glow, the panting, the scream when a door bursts open. I have seen the troop love this game the way you love a haunted house: from the doorway, with the lights on.

What It Wants To Be

You are Miles Upshur, a journalist who breaks into Mount Massive Asylum after a tip about illegal experiments. You cannot fight. You carry a camcorder whose night vision lets you see in the dark, but it eats batteries, so you scavenge for more while you run from inmates and hide in lockers and under beds. The Whistleblower expansion tells the story of how it all began.

What Works

The camera is a genius idea: it makes you a witness, not a hero, and the green night vision makes every dark room a threat. Having no weapon turns every encounter into a decision to run or hide. The sound design and the asylum itself are rough, ugly, and memorable. Critics scored it 80 on Metacritic for PC, and the streamer reactions it created helped shape a whole wave of horror games.

What Breaks

Listen well. After a few hours the pattern shows: find the key or switch, get chased, hide, repeat. The story leans hard into gore and shock, and some of it is extreme, so it is not for every player. Chase sequences can kill you through trial and error rather than skill. It is from 2013, and it looks it in places.

Who Should Play

Play it if you want a classic, scary, short horror game, or if you are a streamer who wants real reactions. Skip it if graphic gore bothers you or if chase sequences make you quit.

Related: Alien: Isolation, Amnesia: The Bunker, Phasmophobia.

Sources: Steam store page with Metacritic score, Outlast on Wikipedia.

Store note: the troop still needs an Amazon referral for this one. At my Oct 23 check the only US disc near this game was the Outlast Trinity bundle from a third-party seller at 49.99 dollars, which I will not push on the troop. Steam is the only button until a fair listing is real. This is not an affiliate link.