Look Outside from Devolver Digital and Francis Coulombe is a survival horror RPG set in a single apartment building in which danger lurks around every corner. Check out our Look Outside review!
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Look Outside from Devolver Digital and Francis Coulombe is a survival horror RPG set in a single apartment building in which danger lurks around every corner. A mysterious event is turning anyone who looks outside their window into a monster, which has turned the world into a living nightmare. You’ll need to scavenge through the building to try and find enough food and supplies to stay alive, as you search for weapons that can hopefully give you a chance of defeating the monsters – and crazy humans – who are now out for blood. It seems that as long as you can survive for 15 days, things will eventually go back to normal.
Your journey begins when one day, at exactly 6:00 a.m., a strange voice from your wall tells you that you should definitely look outside, since it’s a beautiful sight. It turns out that the voice is from one of your neighbors who is, for some reason, looking at you through a hole in the wall. Sybil then says that he was confused, and you should definitely not look outside at all. Hope that first message didn’t fool you into dooming yourself!
You can take on this one by choosing from one of three different difficulty settings on offer: Explorer Mode, Survivor Mode, and Cursed Mode. Explorer Mode is what would best be described as the easy difficulty setting, since the game autosaves as you explore each area, and you can also manually save anytime. The Survivor Mode is the standard difficulty setting, with scarcer resources and fiercer battles. As for the Cursed Mode, it’s the difficulty setting that is best suited for those of you who have some experience with Look Outside, since enemies are extremely aggressive and any mistake you make can cost you dearly.
While exploring the apartment building, you’ll be taking control of your character by using the left analog stick or the D-Pad, as you interact with objects, points of interest, and other characters by pressing the X button as needed. This is how you’ll collect useful resources, food you can cook, as well as weapons and other pieces of equipment to help you survive.
After you exit your apartment, you will find a cracked baseball bat that you should most certainly collect, since it’s going to be the only way you can defend yourself at the start of your ordeal. Having the cracked baseball bat as your equipped weapon will also give you access to some special skills to use in battle. Combat is going to be of the turn-based variety.
What this means is that you’ll be selecting the actions for your party members when in combat, and they will execute them as your opponents select their own actions during their turn. You can select to attack an enemy directly, use one of your special skills that will consume some of your STM, guard so that you can try to lower the damage you’ll receive from an incoming attack, or use an item from your inventory that is not restricted to being used out of combat.
Since this one is an RPG, the stat values for each character are going to be important. Their values for HP, STM, ammo, attack, defense, ballistics, bullet defense, agility, and luck will make a difference during your time with Look Outside. As you defeat enemies in combat and complete some actions, you’ll be rewarded with experience points. After a character has obtained enough experience points, it will then level up. When this happens, that character will receive a boost to some of its stats.
When you make your way back home and enter your apartment, you will receive bonus EXP and morale based on how high your danger level was before you crossed through the door. These bonuses can be just what you need to get an extra level up every now and then, so be sure to live in the danger zone as much as possible!
Collecting all of the items that you find along the way will be crucial toward boosting your odds of survival. Getting a couple of table forks will allow you to throw them at enemies that might be weak to them, thus dealing a ton of damage in a single turn. Finding some household chemicals and a crafting kit will allow you to combine ingredients to craft items – but I do suggest that you find a recipe that you can follow.
And now, let’s talk about the game’s trophies! This one features a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for you to add to your collection. The list is a long one, and it’s split into 50 Bronze trophies, 4 Silver trophies, and 2 Gold trophies for you to work on. What will you need to do so that you can add that shiny Platinum trophy to your collection? Along with the trophies that are tied to you entering new floors in the apartment building, some of the other objectives to complete include fixing the elevator, completing a specific video game in your collection, surviving for 15 days, completing the game without ever taking a shower, only speaking to Sybil once, adding each of the potential party members to your group, and completing the game with the highest rank possible, to name some examples.
Look Outside is a survival horror RPG set in a single apartment building in which danger lurks around every corner. A mysterious event is turning anyone who looks outside their window into a monster, which has turned the world into a living nightmare. You’ll need to scavenge through the building to try and find enough food and supplies to stay alive, as you search for weapons that can hopefully give you a chance of defeating the monsters – and crazy humans – who are now out for blood. It seems that as long as you can survive for 15 days, things will eventually go back to normal. Look Outside launches today on PlayStation 5 with a $9.99 price tag.
Disclaimer
This Look Outside review is based on a PlayStation 5 copy provided by Devolver Digital.
