This ain't a horror game!
It's straight-up an extreme sports simulator!
That's what Zoey Parker was thinking.
Sprinting, marathon running, hurdle-jumping, obstacle course madness.
Players tore out of a ward packed with psychos, squeezed through a claustrophobic shower room, dodged an explosion with flames roaring skyward, and waded through a sewer where blood flowed like a river.
Giant Mountain Psych Hospital's twisted layout was on full display, with one nightmare choke point after another.
And!
Besides that terrifying giant who yeeted players off the second floor, relentlessly chasing them—
More and more psychos were breaking out of the wards!
Each one a total wildcard!
Some lunatics would charge at you, roaring, only to blow right past.
Others would just shuffle toward you—then BAM!—smack you with a pipe when they got close!
This diabolical design made it impossible to predict the next scare!
All players could do? Run!
As Miles Upsher, the gutsy reporter chasing the truth, they sprinted through wards, scaled broken walls, crawled through vents, never daring to stop for a second!
All while clutching a DV camera, recording the chaos!
The relentless sounds of pursuit and screams kept coming, with players' heart rates averaging over 130!
Under that kind of pressure, players' mental states started to crack.
At first? Paranoid, seeing threats everywhere—
"No way this door doesn't have a jumpscare! Bet my life on it! What? No, I'm not trying to jinx myself… I'm just saying, it's obvious…"
"Nope, nope, nope! I'm not leaving! I'm camping in this closet all day! You can't trick me! Something's out there, I know it!"
"Oh crap! Oh—wait, that's just my freaking shadow…"
"Hold up, did I just hear Big Guy's footsteps? No? What? Am I losing it?"
'…'
Midway through? Numbness set in, then calm.
"Hang on, let's map this out first…"
"Closet! Another closet! Okay, hit the button, then we dive in…"
"Battery's low. Pop night vision, scan the area. No monsters? We go dark."
"Light's over there—head that way. Hold up, let's swap batteries first…"
'…'
By the end? Total breakdown—players let loose, gave up, and rolled with it.
"Yo, you guys playing basketball with heads? Damn, that's athletic—keep ballin'…"
"Hey! My man in the straitjacket! Wanna race a couple laps?"
'Big Guy's back for round two! Love our little chase sessions, heh!'
'Good psycho? Bad psycho? Who cares! Can't tell 'em apart, hahaha! RUN!!!'
'…'
Fear the psycho, understand the psycho, become the psycho!
There's an old saying: Life's like a bad situation—can't fight it? Lie back and roll with it.
Can't outsmart Gus Harper's twisted schemes? Then treat the whole psych hospital like one giant haunted house!
Run! Right now!
If PT trapped players in a tiny, suffocating space, waiting for doom to creep in—
Outlast makes you flee from death itself through a maze of deadly corridors.
Think the game design's complex?
Nah, it's simple.
Cat-and-mouse vibes. You run, they chase. Wings won't help you here.
Player actions are bare-bones—no guns, no weapons. Just grip the DV camera and keep those legs moving.
But simple design?
Not even close.
That gut-punching sense of dread? It's built from a web of game design magic.
Modeling, lighting, sound, scare triggers…
Skimp on any of it, and the horror vibe tanks.
Even a rookie like Zoey Parker could see one killer feature—
The map design? Absolute genius!
They'd been watching streams for an hour and a half since the game dropped.
Every streamer was freaking out, scrambling like headless chickens against terrifying enemies.
But somehow, after a few loops, they always found an escape route, slipping into the next section without even realizing it!
Even seasoned pros like Cody Black, screaming their lungs out, brains half-fried, still instinctively found the right path and bolted from danger.
Zoey found it mind-blowing.
"How do they even find the way?" she asked Gus Harper, genuinely confused.
"All the paths look the same to me. How do they nail it every time?"
"How do I explain this?" Gus smirked, smacking his lips.
"You ever dig into the map design of Left 4 Dead?"
Asking your boss if she gets her own company's games!
Pretty wild move.
But at WindyPeak Games, it made sense.
Zoey, true to form, flashed an awkward grin. "…Nope."
"Alright, don't make that face," Gus said, waving off her embarrassment.
"It's not surprising."
"Hey! What's that supposed to mean? You think I'm clueless?" Zoey huffed, hands on hips, leaning in like an annoyed kitten nudging Gus.
"I might not have played it, but I'm not that lost!"
"It's not about being lost," Gus said, leaning closer with a grin.
"You either have experience with this, worked on level design, or studied how maps are built."
"Or you gotta feel it yourself."
"Watching from the outside? Totally different from playing it."
"It's like…"
Gus paused, thinking.
Perfect analogy:
"You don't get it 'til you're in the thick of it."
"Hmm…" Zoey pouted, mulling it over.
"If you're not getting it, don't sweat it. You're too chicken to play anyway. Forgot how PT had you bawling last time you tried to tough it out?"
Gus pointed at the giant projection screen.
"Just chill and enjoy. Watching streamers lose it is peak entertainment."
Horror games always make for great streams.
And since Gus made this one himself, seeing players scream was extra satisfying.
Especially when their panic spiked his system's "emotional value" meter through the roof.
But before he could finish, Zoey puffed out her cheeks. "Who said I'm too scared to play?!"
No way!
After binging horror flicks, she wasn't that soft!
Zoey was convinced Gus was straight-up underestimating her.
Back with PT, yeah, he'd gloated like a smug villain.
Sure, she'd cried from fear—but PT was a global terror legend, with a completion rate in the gutter, crowned the scariest game ever!
This time? Different story.
The streamers' mental states were already crumbling—they were scared silly.
So, while the streams were getting wilder, the horror felt less intense than the game's opening.
Plus, with chat spamming memes and roasting each other?
Zoey was like, this game's no big deal!
"Get the somatosensory cabin ready! I'm settling the score from last time!"
Zoey shoved Gus, demanding he set up the cabin.
"Whoa, really?" Gus raised an eyebrow, surprised Zoey was still this stubborn after PT broke her.
"You sure?"
"Dead sure," Zoey declared.
"But can you skip to the part I've seen? I already watched it—no challenge there!"
She pointed at the projection.
On-screen, Cody Black sighed in relief, escaping the bloody sewer and crawling through a maintenance tunnel via a dog hole.
Gus chuckled.
"If it works, it works. If it doesn't, we make it work!"
What's better than watching Zoey stream her own meltdown?
Plus, Cody's sewer escape was at an autosave point.
With barely any effort, Gus tweaked the game progress, wheeled out the somatosensory cabin, and started troubleshooting.
"What're you doing?" Zoey asked, ready to hop in but puzzled by Gus messing with wires.
"Linking the projection," Gus said, like it was obvious.
"You're such a jerk, Gus!" Zoey gasped.
"You're streaming me?!"
"Nah, nah, wrong!" Gus waved her off, feigning offense.
"I'm gathering player feedback. Plus, I can coach you."
"For real?" Zoey squinted, suspicious.
"Swear on my heart!" Gus thumped his chest.
"Me, take pleasure in your pain? Never! Trust!"
With that, Gus raised a fist.
"Alright… fine," Zoey said, bumping his fist. "Trust."
Quick setup!
Everything was good to go!
Zoey took a deep breath and climbed into the cabin. Before shutting the door, she gave a nervous order: "Trust, Gus! Trust!"
"Trust!" Gus nodded, all serious. "I've got your back!"
Hiss—
The cabin door sealed.
Gus spun around, flopped on the couch, kicked up his feet, and grabbed a Coke and popcorn.
Heh, showtime…
…
Squeak-squeak-squeak.
The rusty chandelier overhead swayed side to side.
Splash—splash—
The sewer water behind her reeked of blood.
"Hoo—!" Zoey exhaled shakily, scanning her surroundings.
This place was old.
The maintenance tunnel's red brick walls were crumbling, cement flaking from the joints.
The tunnel was dead quiet—no sounds at all.
The heads-up UI showed her objective: [Reach the first floor of the men's ward]
A few steps in, an iron crate appeared.
Zoey started to get what Gus meant.
Per the game's rules, any rusty-framed crate could be pushed.
Easy call—this was the way forward.
Rumble—rumble—
She shoved the crate aside.
Sure enough, a narrow dog hole appeared.
"This place is a dump…" Zoey muttered.
She crouched and crawled through.
But just as she neared the exit—
BANG!!!
A bald psycho in a straitjacket, strapped to a chair, appeared right outside!
"AHH!!!" Zoey yelped, smacking her head on the low ceiling like a spooked cat.
She looked closer—
Just a tied-up lunatic, chair tipped over from struggling, his pitiful face staring into the dog hole.
"Are you kidding me, Gus…" Zoey panted, sweating buckets.
Gathering her nerve, she crawled out, edging along the wall past the psycho, pushed another crate, and opened the door behind it.
A long, pitch-black corridor stretched ahead.
Gulp.
Zoey swallowed hard.
Playing this herself? Worlds apart from watching streams.
The darkness made her skin crawl.
No sounds in the corridor.
Yet she swore someone—or something—was watching her.
That feeling spiked when she flicked on the DV's night vision.
In the creepy green viewfinder, static flickered like countless eyes glinting in the dark, waiting.
Zoey was starting to regret this.
Maybe she didn't need to understand level design after all.
Then—
Gus's voice floated in from outside the cabin: "Can't hack it? No shame in bailing. You're brave, I'll give you that. Zoey, just watch the streams~"
Hiss—!!!
That was it!
Gus's smug taunts lit a fire under her!
Zoey snapped, "Zip it! Who said I can't handle it?! I'm just… strategizing, okay? Cool and calculated!"
With that—
She steeled herself!
Charged into the dark corridor!
Two steps at a time, eyes locked forward, barreling toward the faint light at the end!
Through the corridor, into a bloody operating room, up onto a vent, crawling fast, and finally landing nimbly in a room.
"Hoo—!!!" Zoey exhaled, heart racing, as light hit her face again.
She looked around.
Some kind of ventilation room.
Old equipment lined the walls.
In the center? Another psycho, straitjacketed, tied to a chair.
"Hmph!" Zoey steadied herself, letting out a smug huff, shouting to Gus outside: "What's that? Me, scared? You think I'm spooked? Stop underestimating me! From now on, call me Zoey the Fearless—"
But before she could finish—
The psycho in the chair went berserk!
Thrashing wildly, roaring: "Meat! MEAT! I NEED MEAT! AAAH—!"
The sudden scream in the quiet room made Zoey leap, shrieking, "Holy crap!"
Worse—
As the psycho roared, two hulking figures appeared at the door, charging in, cursing, each gripping a gleaming steel knife!