Outlast

In Outlast, the player assumes the role of a freelance investigative journalist named Miles Upshur as he navigates in Mount Massive Asylum, a dilapidated psychiatric hospital in the mountains of Lake County, Colorado, United States, that is overrun by homicidal patients. It is played from a first-person perspective and features some stealth gameplay mechanics. The player can walk, run, crouch, jump, climb ladders and vault over objects. Unlike in many video games, the player does not have a visible health bar and is unable to attack enemies; they must instead rely on stealth tactics such as hiding in lockers, sneaking past enemies, staying in the shadows, and hiding behind or under things to survive.

Alternatively, the player can attempt to outrun their pursuer. If the player dies, the game will reset to the most recent checkpoint.

A freelance investigative journalist named Miles Upshur receives an anonymous email about inhumane experiments at Mount Massive Asylum, a remote psychiatric hospital owned by the notoriously unethical Murkoff Corporation. Upon entering, Miles is shocked to discover its halls ransacked and littered with the staff's mutilated corpses. He is informed by a dying officer of Murkoff's private military unit that the hospital's deranged inmates, known as "variants", have escaped and are freely roaming the grounds. The officer implores Miles to escape and reveals that the main entrance can be unlocked from the hospital's security control room.

As Miles moves on, he is suddenly ambushed by Chris Walker, a hulking variant who knocks him unconscious. While incapacitated, Miles meets Father Martin Archimbaud, a self-appointed priest with schizotypal personality disorder, who claims that Miles is his "apostle" and sabotages his escape by cutting off power to the entrance. Miles restores power in the control room, but Father Martin injects him with an anesthetic. He also shows Miles footage of the "Walrider", a ghost-like entity that kills patients and staff alike, which he claims is responsible for the hospital's dilapidated state.

Outlast was Red Barrels' first game, although the team was a part of Ubisoft and had worked on major AAA games such as Prince of Persia, Assassin's Creed, and Splinter Cell. The game was made in 14 months with a team of 10 people. Red Barrels' CEO Philippe Morin said in 2018 that they initially could not find anyone to invest in the project for 18 months, though they eventually secured a CA$1,000,000 investment from the Canada Media Fund.

Outlast was released on September 4, 2013, for download through Steam, and it was released on February 4, 2014, for the PlayStation 4 as the free monthly title for PlayStation Plus users. In December 2017, Red Barrels announced that Outlast, including the Whistleblower DLC and Outlast 2, would be coming to the Nintendo Switch in early 2018. The title was released by surprise on February 27, 2018, under the title Outlast: Bundle of Terror via Nintendo eShop.

Outlast received generally positive reviews from critics. The review aggregation website Metacritic gave the Xbox One version a score of 80/100 based on 6 reviews, the Microsoft Windows version 80/100 based on 59 reviews, and the PlayStation 4 version 78/100 based on 33 reviews. It received numerous accolades and awards at E3 2013, including the "Most Likely to Make you Faint" honour, and one of "Best of E3".

The PC gaming website Rock, Paper, Shotgun gave Outlast a very positive review, noting that "Outlast is not an experiment in how games can be scary, it's an exemplification." Marty Sliva of IGN rated the game with a score of 7.8, praising the horror elements and gameplay while criticising the environments and character modelling.