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  • Outlast carries a camera into the dark on PS4

    by 
    Mike Schramm
    Mike Schramm
    06.12.2013

    It's easy to see, right away, why Sony went after former Ubisoft developers Red Barrels to get their indie game, Outlast, on the PlayStation 4. Not only is the horror/exploration game atmospheric and frightening, but it's a great showcase for the hardware. In Outlast, you play a reporter who brings a video camera to an old abandoned asylum, in search of a story. The game is seen through your digital camera's lens, both as you wander through the empty hallways and when you flip on the terrifying black-and-white night vision filter. Through the eyes of that camera, the whole game looks like a recovered snuff film of sorts, where you serve as both cameraman and victim. The motion and style of the game are both realistic, and sometimes (or often, depending on your tolerance for such things) disturbingly so. The camera's digital artifacts and heads-up display help sell the excellent graphics, and the whole experience found my scaredy-cat brain constantly having to remind myself that what I was seeing wasn't real.%Gallery-191382%