Outlast

Outlast is one of the games that, in the middle of the last decade, brought horror back to its rawest form: complete helplessness. The player takes on the role of journalist Miles Upshur, who sets out to investigate events at the remote Mount Massive psychiatric hospital and almost immediately discovers there is no way back. On PlayStation 4 the game arrived in 2014 and quickly became one of the most popular titles among livestream audiences, since it offers exactly the kind of tension that shares well.

The core mechanic is the camera. The hospital's interior is mostly pitch black, and the only thing the player has is a handheld camcorder with night vision, whose batteries drain quickly and constantly need replacing. Switching on night vision turns the picture into grainy green noise in which distances are hard to judge, yet it remains the only way to see anything at all. There is no way to fight back at all, so the entire gameplay rests on fleeing, closing doors, hiding under beds and in cabinets, and quickly reading a room's layout under pressure. On top of that, the player collects documents and records key events, gradually piecing together the background of the whole case.

Technically it is a fairly modest title, but it squeezes the maximum out of its use of shadow, limited visibility, and sound, where distant footsteps and a pursuer's breathing create constant pressure. The game does not shy away from graphic imagery and is definitely not for the faint of heart. Contemporary reception was very favorable, and Outlast contributed significantly to the wave of combat-free horror games that a number of other titles later followed. Today it feels a bit more straightforward and its scares are easier to read, but as an intense five-hour experience for one evening it still works excellently. The base game was later followed by the Whistleblower expansion, which sheds light on the same events from the perspective of a hospital employee and is often described as even more brutal than the original campaign. For PlayStation 4 owners, it remains an easily accessible classic of modern horror.