Having been sucked in by Fear and Hunger for more than 100 hours, I’ve decided to take a little break from dungeoneering. At some point, Devolver Digital presented and immediately released RPG horror Look Outside, which I initially missed on its release in March 2025.
In short, Look Outside is a pixel horror RPG with survival elements. But aren’t there plenty of games like that lately?. What new and different things could there be here, I thought when I first loaded it up… and immediately disappeared for dozens of hours again.
The game turned out to be a quite ambitious project with interesting mechanics, hilarious references and even a certain level of player deception when it comes to the narrative. Why should, or shouldn’t you Look Outside? Read on to find out, but note that there are heavy spoilers ahead.
The game begins with the protagonist waking up from a strong, persistent desire to look outside the window. However, he manages to catch himself in time and does not draw open the curtains. This decision turns out to be correct due to the literal apocalypsis kicking off outside. Our hero named Sam has to find out why that is happening and do what he can to survive – and perhaps even attempt to stop it.
At first, he goes online to see if he can find any answers by browsing forums, but the only conclusion he draws is to avoid looking out the window at any cost. There is also a crack in the wall that Sam can use to communicate with his neighbor Sybil, who tells us that we simply have to wait for 15 days and the apocalypse will be over, one way or another. Sybil also offers prompts and advice throughout the game and saves our progress.
Our protagonist leaves his apartment and follows the bloody trail to find the only open door, then an abandoned bat, and then a neighbor in the bathroom. Sam sees a bloody neighbor clearly in need of help, but before he can do anything, a maniacal grin comes out into the light and the neighbor cuts himself.
A huge eye appears inside the cut, and Sam is forced to enter the first battle. This experience makes Sam understand that contact with those who looked outside will not be easy, because everyone who somehow interacted with the outside environment has been transformed both mentally and physically. After the battle and his return home, Sam gets a thought in his head, what if there is something inside him too, maybe … Is it worth it trying to cut himself open, too? Just for fun… And here the game can end for our hero if you choose so.
To sum it up, Sam has about 2 weeks to go around the entire building and find answers to his questions and solve the problem of the apocalypse, or, what is more realistic, to lock himself in his room for 2 weeks and just survive.
If you decide to move the plot along, then you will encounter astronomers or, rather, cultists who will reveal what happened, and at the same time, can help solve everything. As the Astronomers will tell, The Visitor happened upon the world – a certain creature from space, changing everything and everyone with one glance. Any image, description, painting, photo, or camera recording will inevitably and irrevocably change people, turning them into grotesque monsters, or changing their bodies, but leaving their minds, which is sometimes even worse…
So, the Astronomers decided to conduct a Ritual, with the help of 4 offerings – options for description and filming of the Visitor, try to contact them and explain what they are doing, try to fix everything and everyone, or attempt to accept that new forms are a new round of evolution, which we simply do not understand due to the limited knowledge and close-minded views.
Firstly, combat. Look Outside features turn-based combat, where you control Sam and any party members you manage to find and recruit throughout the game. There are about ten of them, each with their own role, mechanics and techniques. I sincerely advise you to try out different companions in your playthroughs, this will give you some unforgettable sensations, with their unique styles refreshing the feeling of combat beneficially.
The game mechanics make sure you are looking after yourself and your companions. Cook food, wash up, brush your teeth, play games on the console to get additional abilities and passives… All that and more, and yes, you read that correctly: you will have to make sure that Sam washes and brushes his teeth.
If you don’t do this, then Sam will start to “stink”, and enemies will notice him from afar. If you completely abandon hygiene, even your companions will leave you behind. I think there’s an achievement on Steam for finishing the game while solo and stinky.
The protagonist has access to various weapons: melee, ranged, various consumables such as grenades, glass shards and healing pills, bandages, and much more. Melee weapons break from frequent hits, and even faster if you use weapon skills. Thankfully, it can be repaired with duct tape. Small arms become quite OP by the mid-game, and the correct use of consumables helps to kill even bosses with next to no damage to the group. After all the suffering from Fear and Hunger, it was surprising to get a relatively stress-free gameplay that focuses on more than battles.
Sam’s apartments are a kind of hub where both the protagonist and his companions live. Every element in the dwelling is appropriate and the apartment is well-made, it is pleasant to return to it, however, the surroundings also have practical benefits.
The stove is a place for cooking and a tool for socialization, if the hero is alone, he will get more food vs cooking for the group. If the team is large, then the companions will exchange a couple of phrases during the meal, and each can still be asked about something.
The bathroom helps the hero to be neat, the shower raises stats and raises morale. A dirty hero becomes more vulnerable to status effects, and as I said earlier, monsters will be able to sense you from further away. A shelf with games for the console will allow you to spend some time gaming and get a pleasant experience in the process. You won’t believe it, but the games … inside the game are VERY well written.
Sam gets weapon skills from playing shooters, and a set of crosswords will improve his vocabulary, which will allow him to shout new complex words during battle and stun enemies with the power of his intellect. And by the way, do not rush to poison or crush cockroaches in the apartment, one day they may bring you a note.
Look Outside has a lot of social elements that make the game feel alive: Sam’s thoughts in the shower, communication with companions in your apartment, chatting with Sybil and her hints… even the stories of some monsters give a strong social experience and plenty of emotions.
While the main character is in the apartment, all interactions natively show that time inside has not frozen, the partners react vividly to what the main character is playing, for example, the neighbor’s little girl likes the game about the frog, and as soon as the cartridge turns on, the girl next to the main character is glued to the screen.
Every action in the apartment will move the time and the danger counter (affecting the amount of experience and more), while strangers, different guests, different events, different conditions will periodically knock on your door… Everything brings life into the game. Sometime you need to shelter a person, other times you pour candy into your grandfather’s palm, and one day a huge figure in a mask will come to you, and you will think twice whether it is worth opening… After all, behind your back is a little girl, whose parents have long been gone, and it’s only you and her.
Alas, outside the apartment, all characters interact with you only once, having met the first astronomer outside the hub, you will talk to him and … that’s it. Furthermore, he will not add any new information, or have other lines, although the progression in the game could introduce new lines or even events.
I don’t even want to visit locations a couple of times or more, well, except for traders, at least their assortment changes. The mechanics of the endings in the game are very peculiar. There are not 3-4 of them in the game, but more. Really, much more. You can stay at home for all days, you can call yourself Sybil and get an Easter egg at the end that inspires some interesting thoughts, you can make a mistake and not give the astronomers the right offerings for the ritual, or do everything right, but be too inquisitive about a decision, and … trust me, you will remember this decision and the consequences for a long time.
And, well, yes. Hamster. Just a hamster, but don’t underestimate it!
The music in the game is pleasant, in the apartments it is melancholic and calm, in the building it is tense, and in battles it is quite cheerful in places, it beautifully accompanies the player through the world of the game and does not interfere with enjoying it, but on the contrary – like a good seasoning. Not all the music in the game is memorable, but it does not need to be.
But the visuals, let me remind you, are Pixel Horror. Each enemy in the game is a grotesque, scary, horrible or repulsive creature, having partially or completely lost its human appearance. Party members are not always people either. Some are human, some are no longer, and some were never human to begin with…
The visuals of the game are striking from the very first minutes. The game shows miracles of metamorphosis, dozens of protruding eyes, new limbs, new entities … And unlike Fear and Hunger, it does not shove all sorts of things in your face, no. The game creates an atmosphere that scares subtly and exquisitely, some of the creepy descriptions really make you shudder.
True, in addition to physical horror, the game also contains the psychological aspect. Fear of the unknown intertwined with the fear of death. Psychological trauma, which hits the player extremely hard. I was personally hooked by one story with Sam’s neighbors.
We meet a neighbor who complains that his teeth hurt. And on the 2nd day we meet a sick man whose hand is covered in teeth. He suffers from this condition, his teeth want to bite and grow against his will, and he also mentions his daughter, who was lying in a cradle opposite the window… Inside the apartment we will find several weak tooth monsters, meet the mother of the family, who is also covered in teeth, and then…
You will find a boy named Joel hiding in the bathroom, brushing his teeth. We can ask him about the rest of the family and learn about his younger brother, Ben… and it was from interacting with him that I was torn apart. And if you take a toy of Joel’s in advance and bring it to him, then he will not attack, but can become a companion instead. But… it is a little boy with teeth forming a mouth right up to the navel, and replacing his face, capable of spitting teeth and biting.
You find his brother, Ben, playing soldiers, in a state where his teeth have almost torn in two with their growth. The scene with him is one of the saddest in my opinion. But in it there is not a single spoken word, everything is conveyed exclusively through text and some pop-up sounds. Entering the room, we see Ben, who is insanely mutilated and chained to the ground. It is no longer possible to make out where his head is, where his body and limbs are, and he himself is torn in half, where clusters of teeth grow from the cuts.
Nevertheless, he does not show aggression towards the protagonist and generally ignores him. As soon as you bring him his toy soldiers, this grotesque mass will start purring cheerfully and begin to play with them. The protagonist can join him, and he will begin to show with gestures and intrauterine sounds that his favorite toy, the Helicopter in his right hand, is a good hero. And the Tank is bad.
At this point, you will suddenly hear the sounds of gunfire, sirens and explosions, which sends the protagonist to a battlefield. This is where Sam must imagine how to help our Good Guy Helicopter. All the while Ben is only getting worse, and the teeth-filled piece of flesh that takes the place of his head is gradually moving apart in different directions, and from the resulting hole a huge sprout, strewn with teeth, appears. Which hands us another enemy soldier! Reinforcements have arrived, the Helicopter is in
danger again, the screams are getting louder, Ben simulates the sounds of the radio with his torn mouth, and the main character plays along.
The last round is the evacuation of the Helicopter Pilot, where I personally decided to help him with the tank that my soldier called for help. The rescue operation was completed and Ben was happy, this could be understood by the way he behaved. It was a good game, but alas, all good things come to an end. We hug the boy and he joyfully squeezes us back, and decides to give us candies and a cartridge with his favorite game – Kill to Shoot!
And having waved us goodbye, the last grains of life suddenly leave him. At the very least, before he left, we made his painful existence a little brighter.
Perhaps from the description it does not look so powerful, even somehow sluggish, but two such moments in the game are truly beautiful and deeply immerse you in the atmosphere of Look Outside.
And the devastating feeling after such a thing remains for a long time. And our Sam then begins to reflect on how much blood is on his hands, because he personally killed his entire family… and Joel – our party member – does not even know about it. And remains an orphan due to our fault. It is extremely difficult to endure such a mental blow to the gut and not get into the atmosphere of the game.
The game very skillfully deceives players’ expectations, it has a bunch of guns and traps that can both softlock progress and kill Sam in different ways. Look Outside also shows that not all monsters are dangerous, but not all people are safe. Using and deceiving players’ expectations is a very interesting feature, where it feels almost like the developers are playing against you. Black humor and grotesqueness add some bleak charm to the game, turning it into something unforgettable.
Beating Look Outside does not require deep attention to the essence of the mechanics and does not employ dishonest one-shot mechanics from random homeless people. The speed of reaction is not important here, you do not need to solve super-mega-complex riddles, no. The game can be finished calmly in a couple of evenings with the beverage of your choice, and this is a big plus.
Let’s talk about the Endings. There are several of them in the game, with different solutions, and each of them is powerful. Each one brings its own contribution to the atmosphere of the game. And each one is worth your time, there are no empty endings, even after spending 15 days in the apartment, or
calling yourself Sybil at the beginning – you will get an ending that will show something new.
And it will also make you think about some of the game’s questions. Each ending makes you shudder, from how skillfully the text and visuals convey the insignificance of man before the unknown Visitor. And although I am not one of the timid, some endings had me shivering.
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