Outlast: Bundle of Terror

Outlast: Bundle of Terror is a first-person survival horror game developed and published by Red Barrels. The game revolves around a freelance investigative journalist, Miles Upshur, who decides to investigate a remote psychiatric hospital named Mount Massive Asylum, located deep in the mountains of Lake County, Colorado.

Gameplay
In Outlast: Bundle of Terror, the player assumes the role of investigative journalist Miles Upshur, as he navigates a dilapidated psychiatric hospital in Leadville, Colorado that is overrun by homicidal patients. The game 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 most games, however, the player doesn't have a visible health bar on the screen and is unable to attack enemies. The player must instead rely on stealth tactics such as hiding in lockers, sneaking past enemies, staying in the shadows and hiding behind or under things in order to survive. Alternatively, the player can attempt to outrun their pursuer. If the player dies, the game will reset to the most recent checkpoint.

Most of the hospital is unlit, and the only way for the player to see while in the dark is through the lens of a camcorder equipped with night vision. Using the night vision mode will slowly consume batteries, forcing the player to scavenge for additional batteries found throughout the asylum. Outlast makes heavy use of traditional jump scares and audio cues, which alert the player if an enemy has seen them. If the player records specific events with their camcorder, Miles will write a note about it, providing further insight into his thoughts. Documents can be collected, which offer backstory and other supplementary information about the hospital.

Plot
Freelance investigative journalist Miles Upshur receives an anonymous email that inhumane experiments are being conducted at Mount Massive Asylum, a private psychiatric hospital owned by the notoriously unethical Murkoff Corporation. Upon entering, Miles is shocked to discover its halls ransacked and littered with the mutilated corpses of the staff. He is informed by a dying officer of Murkoff's private military unit that Mount Massive's deranged inmates, known as "variants", have escaped and are freely roaming the grounds, butchering Murkoff's employees. The officer implores him to leave, but Miles finds he cannot return the way he came and must press on.

As Miles searches for an exit, he is ambushed by a hulking variant named Chris Walker, who hurls him through a window into the lobby, knocking him unconscious. While incapacitated, Miles encounters Father Martin Archimbaud, a self-anointed priest with schizotypal personality disorder, who claims Miles is his "apostle" and sabotages his escape by cutting off power to the front doors. Miles restores power, but Father Martin injects him with anesthetic. He shows Miles footage of "the Walrider", an entity killing doctors, patients, and soldiers alike, which he claims is responsible for the asylum's ransacking.

Regaining consciousness, Miles finds himself trapped in a decaying cell block filled with catatonic and demented patients. He escapes through the sewers to the main wards, pursued by Walker and two cannibalistic twins, only to be captured by Rick Trager, a former Murkoff executive driven insane like the other inmates. Trager straps Miles to a wheelchair and amputates two of his fingers with a pair of bone shears, preparing to do the same to his tongue and genitals. However, Miles escapes Trager and flees to the elevator, inadvertently crushing Trager between floors when he attacks him.

Miles ventures further into the hospital and reconvenes with Father Martin, who tells him to go to the asylum's chapel. Reaching an auditorium, Miles learns that the Walrider was created by Dr. Rudolf Gustav Wernicke, a German scientist brought to the United States during Operation Paperclip. Wernicke believed that intensive dream therapy conducted on traumatized patients could connect swarms of nanites into a single malevolent being.

Miles finds Father Martin crucified in the chapel, who gives Miles a key to the atrium elevator that he insists will take him to freedom before immolating himself. Miles takes the elevator, which descends into a subterranean laboratory. Walker attacks him, only to be eviscerated by the Walrider. Miles locates an aged Wernicke, who confirms that the Walrider is a biotechnological nanite entity controlled by Billy Hope, a comatose subject of Murkoff's experiments. He orders Miles to terminate Billy's life support in the hopes that this will destroy the Walrider. Miles accomplishes this task; however, just before Billy dies, the Walrider attacks Miles and possesses his body. On his way out of the laboratory, Miles encounters a private military team led by Wernicke, which guns him down. A horrified Wernicke realizes that Miles is the Walrider's new host. Panicked screams and gunfire are heard as the screen fades to black.

Whistleblower
Waylon Park is a software engineer working at Mount Massive Asylum for Murkoff. His job entails maintaining the Morphogenic Engine, which controls lucid dreaming in comatose individuals. After several experiences working directly with the Engine and witnessing its effects on the facility's patients, he sends an anonymous e-mail to reporter Miles Upshur to expose the corporation. Shortly afterwards, Park is summoned to the underground laboratory's operations center to debug a monitoring system. When he returns to his laptop, his supervisor, Jeremy Blaire, has him detained and subjected to the Morphogenic Engine after discovering his email. However, when the Walrider is unleashed (which leads to the events in the main story), Park escapes and takes a camcorder. He roams the increasingly decrepit facility as surviving guards and medical personnel try to evade the newly freed patients, searching for a shortwave radio that he can use to contact the authorities, all the while eluding a cannibal named Frank Manera, who wields an electric bone saw. Just as Park manages to find a working radio transmitter, Blaire appears and subdues him, destroying the transmitter and leaving Park to die.

Park finds his way into the asylum's vocational block where he is chased by Eddie Gluskin, a serial killer obsessed with finding the "perfect bride" by killing other patients and mutilating their genitalia. Gluskin captures Park and tries to hang him in a gymnasium with his other victims, but during the struggle, he becomes entangled in his pulley system and impaled by a loose section of rebar.

At daybreak, Murkoff's paramilitary division arrives at the asylum, intent on eliminating the variants. Park slips past them and escapes into the main lobby. There, he finds a gravely wounded Blaire, who stabs him suddenly, insisting that no one can know the truth about Mount Massive, but the Walrider kills him before he can finish Park off. Park then stumbles out the open front door and towards Miles Upshur's Jeep, which is still idling near the main gates. He takes the Jeep and drives away as Miles, now the Walrider's host, also emerges from the asylum.

In the epilogue, Park is sitting at a laptop with the videos ready for upload to expose the Murkoff Corporation. An associate informs him that it will be more than enough to ruin Murkoff, but is warned that they will then seek to eliminate him and his family. Despite some initial hesitation, Park decides to upload the file.