Overview
From the creator of the Amnesia: The Dark Descent Survival Guide, a new guide for one of the scariest psychological horror games out there! This guide will give you controls, enemy info, and a walkthrough! YAY! EDIT: There will be new additions to this guide soon! Planned additions are as follows: A new enemy, enemy info for variants from Whistleblower, and a walkthrough for the main game and Whistleblower! (Note: the walkthroughs might be in a different guide.)
The Basics and Backstory
You are Miles Upshur, an investigative reporter who’s ambition is about to earn him an intimate tour of hell on Earth. Always willing to dig into the stories no other journalist would dare investigate, you will seek out the dark secret of Mount Massive Asylum. Record everything. You are not a fighter. To survive the horrors of the asylum, your choices are to run, hide, or die.
Outlast is a survival-horror game released in September 2013 by dev team Red Barrels. Despite having the title of scariest overall horror game stolen by Five Nights at Freddy’s, it is still the best psychological horror game out there.
Here’s the trailer:
Reviews are overwhemingly positive, and there is reason why. To find that out, play the game. If you can’t, watch someone else play it.
WARNING: This game is rated M, and not for the faint of heart for a good reason. Outlast contains intense violence, blood and gore, graphic sexual content, heavily suggestive themes, and very strong language. Player discretion is advised. If you vomit or feel violated, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Read this or DIE
To survive the horrors of Mount Massive Asylum, you need to know how to run or hide in the first place. Here are the controls.
To move, use the WSAD keys. W = forwards, S = backwards, and so on.
To look around, use the mouse. (Duh!)
To sprint, hold down SHIFT. (You must hold down the key to keep sprinting. If you let go of the key, you will stop sprinting. You have been warned.)
To lean/peek around corners, use the Q or E key. Q = lean left, E = lean right.
To crouch, hold down CTRL. (You move very slowly when crouched [obviously]. Useful when you are sneaking past an enemy. Unfortunatly, this doesn’t always work.)
And finally, to jump, press the spacebar.
To raise your camcorder, press the RMB. (right mouse button)
To activate the night vision feature on your camera, press the F key while the camera is raised. Likewise, press F to disable it as well.
To open doors, press or hold LMB. (WARNING: Holding down the LMB to open a door will make you open the door slowly using the W and S keys. Do not do this if you are being chased.)
To close doors, press the LMB. (You cannot hold the LMB to close doors, which means you will slam the door when you close it.)
To view your objective and access notes and documents, press TAB. (This menu that shows your objective is known as the Reporter’s Notebook, and will be refered to as that for the remainder of this guide.)
To view your notes without having to open the Reporter’s Notebook, press the N key. (If a camera icon is in the botom-right corner of the screen, you will jump straight to the newest note.)
To view collected MKUltra files without having to open the Reporter’s Notebook, press the J key. (If there is a paper icon in the bottom-right corner, you will jump striaght to the newest collected document.)
And that’s it for the controls! Now for game mechanics! YAY!
How the Game Works
Outlast is a very realistic game in terms of how high you can jump, graphics, running speed, sounds, being able to see yourself if you look down (no joke!), and the way the enemies act. Of course, this is why this section exists, as you would be clobbered if you met your first enemy and you had no idea what to do. BUT ANYWAY…
There are four difficulties to choose from when you start the game. I will explain what they do here.
How camera is affected: You can carry up to ten batteries at once, and batteries are more plentiful.
How health is affected: You can take a solid four hits until you succumb to death.
How enemies are affected: They are generally very stupid. They sometimes look into a room from the entrance, and just walk away, not bothering to go inside the room. They almost always check the wrong hiding spot, and you can outrun them.
How door slam sound is affected: The farthest away an enemy can be and still hear the door slam is about just far enough to where the door is just out of your night vision range.
How camera is affected: You can carry either a maximum of five or ten batteries.
How health is affected: You can take about 3-4 hits before going down. Certain enemies can take you down in two hits.
How enemies are affected: They are a bit smarter about checking rooms. They will enter any room they think you are in and look around. They will check at least two hiding spots before leaving, and sometimes check the spot you are hiding.
How door slam sound is affected: The farthest an enemy can be and still hear a door slam is about as far as looking at a door with the camera zoomed in halfway and night vision is on.
How camera is affected: You can only carry two batteries.
How health is affected: You can only take about 1-2 hits before dying. Certain enemies can one-hit kill you.
How enemies are affected: They will check a room semi-thoroughly before leaving. They will check at least 4 hiding spots when searching a room. They will often find you.
How door slam sound is affected: Enemies will almost always open or bash down a door that you close (*cough* slam *cough*).
WARNING: This difficulty does not give you save points/checkpoints. IF YOU DIE ONCE, YOU WILL HAVE TO START AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME!
How camera is affected: You can only carry two batteries. Consider yourself lucky if you find a spare battery.
How health is affected: You can only take 1-2 hits before dying. Certain enemies will instantly kill you if you get close to them.
How enemies are affected: Enemies will search a room extremly thoroughly before leaving. They will check virtually every hiding space there is in a room. Consider youself extremly lucky if an enemy leaves the room and you are still hidden.
How door slam sound is affected: No matter where the enemy is at any given time, slamming a door will cause them to check the room that you slammed the door to.
Who are the Variants?
The Varients are the hostile mental patients in the asylum. In this section, you will learn about key varients, as well as how they act.
Hostility: Can be passive or agressive
Appearence: Varies (get it? varies?)
How they get through doors: most will bash a door down, but a few will calmly open a door.
Weapon of choice: Either bare hands, sharp objects (knives), nightsticks, sawblades, or wooden sticks (like a table leg or a baseball bat) with nails in them.
Strength: Depends on difficulty.
Death Scene: Miles is whacked or punched and falls to the floor, with blood dripping. Miles then looks up at the attacker, who proceeds to hit Miles one more time. Miles falls to the floor as his vision fades.
Hostility: Aggresive
Appearence: Large, with chains wrapped around his arms and legs. The chains can be heard clinking when Chris is walking. Also, Chris is missing flesh from around his nose, lips, and forehead, having been ripped off by Chris himself.
How he gets through doors: Will bash a door down; can take down even a locked metal security door in just three hits.
Weapon of Choice: Bare Hands
Strength: Depends on difficulty; can do one-hit kills on Nightmare and Insane
Death Scene: Miles is picked up by the neck. Then, Chris proceedes to grab Miles’ body and pulls. After about 2-3 seconds, Miles’ torso is ripped off, then blood comes from where Miles’ head used to be and splatters the screen.
Hostility: Aggressive
Appearence: Malnourished, has an apron on, but his backside is not covered. Has what seems like a mechanical monocle, a blood transplant running down the length of his left arm, a ripped up surgeon’s mask, and long fingernails.
How he gets through doors: Will camly open a door. This leaves less time to find a hiding spot, but the door can still be used.
Weapon of Choice: A pair of large bone shears (these shears are used to cut Miles’ right index finger and left ring finger off.)
Strength: Depends on difficulty; can do one-hit kills on Nightmare and Insane
Death Scene: Miles looks down to see a pair of bone shears coming through his torso. He looks back just in time to see Trager cut his head off. Miles head falls to the floor, then Miles watches as his torso falls shortly after.
(Note: the name given is community made.)
Hostility: Aggresive, but become passive when Father Martin burns on a cross, similar to how Jesus died.
Appearence: Completly naked, both twins’ genitals are visible. The taller twin is bald, while the shorter twin has crewcut black hair. (There’s a reason why I said player discretion is advised!) Also, they do not run after you if they see you. There isn’t even any chase music. They just calmly walk towards you. Creepy.
How they get through doors: The taller or shorter will throw the door open.
Weapon of Choice: Butcher knives
Death Scene: Same as Trager’s, but instead of bone shears, it is a Butcher knife going through Miles’ torso.
WARNING: This enemy is a spoiler! If you want to know who the Walrider is anyway, you should know what to do with spoiler text.
Hostility: Aggressive, but stops at nothing to kill you during the final area.
Appearence: Looks like a phantom. It can be seen clearly using the camera’s night vision, but it otherwise looks like a cloud. It is made up of nano particles, as explained by Dr. Wernicke in the final area. It is revealed to be controlled by Billy. He is mentioned in the first patient file you obtain in-game.
How it get’s through doors: Crawls under the gap in the door. Of course, it does so in the creepiest way possible.
Weapon of choice: Itself
Death Scene: It seems to go inside of Miles, then seems to rip you open from the inside out. None of this is seen directly; It is only implied by all of the blood and gore.
Read this when you die
If you are reading this section, you either got whacked in the face, cut in half, or decapitated by a blade or someone’s bare hands. Just kidding!
There are two ways to avoid detection by an enemy. Running or hiding. I don’t have to explain running, but I will explain hiding.
Whether you are being chased or close to detection, hiding is one way to avoid being caught by the patients that are roaming the asylum. There are three places you can hide. In a locker, under a bed, or in a dark area. What happens if you are found?
If Chris Walker finds you in a locker or under a bed, he will pull you out and throw you a short distance.
If Trager finds you, he’ll just pull you out.
If you are found by a generic varient, you will be pulled out, punched in the face three times, and pushed backwards.
The only way you will be found is if the pursuer sees you hide or if you are just unlucky.
Final Overview
So, do think your a match for the variants? If you do, then get the game and play it! And good luck. You’re certainly going to need it.
~ATLAS96