Red Barrels have done a fantastic job combining an intensely disquieting setting, a unique visual look, and an incredibly effective camera gimmick to ensure that nobody escapes Mount Massive without a few nightmares.

Survival horror at its most primal, this is an exceptional jaunt into madness. [Dec 2013, p.73]

If you enjoy a terrifying game and are not prone to heart attacks, this $20 fright-fest is for you. Just be warned, it is not for the faint of heart.

Outlast simultaneously reminds me of the grainy slasher flicks of the '70s, the gruesome body horror of Clive Barker, and gratuitous modern torture porn. It manages to squeeze a great deal of diversity into what is quite a small package of around six or seven hours, but it doesn't burst or struggle to reconcile the different elements.

Outlast’s combination of stealth, platforming and horror is exceptional, the benefits of the diverse experience of its highly talented development team always in plain sight.

It’s certain not to appeal to all gamers, and while I often personally use games to relax and blow off steam, I find that after playing an hour or so of Outlast I’m too wound up to play anymore. Good thing then that the whole game is about five hours long.

Outlast hits most of its objectives, serving as head of a new series for the horror subjective.

Red Barrels is a developer that I hope to see more from, and to my knowledge, there's nothing currently like Outlast that doesn't freely give in to cliches on a regular basis (I have yet to play either Amnesia title), and that's enough for me to call it worth playing.

A good horror game, with plenty of chills and a very effective setting.

It won't ever be a classic, but Outlast does enough to be an important inclusion in your collection all the same. [Issue#140, p.113]

Outlast is a very positive note in the current gaming landscape and a pearl in the horror genre. The atmosphere is reminiscent of movies like Rec, and the game follows the trend of the modern horror film, shot in first person.

It’s not so much that it tries to scare you with monsters, blood, or gore that makes the experience so powerful as it is how the game mentally plays with your senses and emotions. Even if you don’t think you’re easily scared, try playing Outlast alone in the dark with headphones on. This intense rollercoaster ride will keep you on the edge of your seat and make you jump out of it a few times too.

Outlast is able to create true terror in the player, but it falls a bit short in gearing up that feeling when scary things really happen.

It's a great survival horror game, following the steps of previous "hide and survive" games where we cannot attack creatures. We think there's enough talent behind this game to try something different, but still they've created a very scary adventure that we think is worth enjoying.

Annoying design choices and forced moments of repetition have a bad habit of spoiling the mood, but between them is an experience that's scary as all hell.

A good survival horror, but with those guys the expectations were higher.

Outlast is a virtual tour through a hall of terrors. Even playing the game in full daylight makes me uneasy. However, the game's overall level design and gameplay were sacrificed at the altar of fear. If you're looking for an experience that will get your adrenaline pumping, Outlast is hard to beat, but if you’re looking for a meatier horror experience then you might want to run past this one.

Stop and peer too long into Outlast's gloom and you'll see the zips on the monster costumes. Take it at at speed and you'll find a haunted house worth visiting.

Most of the time, particularly early on when its quirks are fresh and unknown, it delivers. Even its weakest moments owe their existence not to ineffective ambiance and tension, but rather to excessive confidence spurred by eventual predictable encounters that clash with the promise of the setting.

As a budget Steam release, Outlast offers some cheap thrills for fans of the survival horror genre. Unfortunately its underwhelming visuals, combined with Red Barrel Games’ over-reliance on jump-scares ahead of more psychological frights, made my experience with it feel similar to walking through a haunted house: It’s scary, but not in a very clever way.