Look Outside

My first few minutes with Look Outside had me genuinely unsettled before a single combat encounter: a neighbour slowly cutting into his own stomach until an eyeball forces its way out of his chest and locks eyes with me. Francis Coulombe, a one-man pixel art force backed by Devolver Digital, built something deeply uncomfortable out of a game jam prototype, and the result sits in that rare category of horror games where the dread is earned rather than manufactured. The premise is brutally simple: stay inside a Montreal apartment building for 15 in-game days while something incomprehensible outside warps anyone who glimpses it into body-horror nightmares. You play as Sam, a solitary and visibly uneasy man who manages hunger, hygiene, and fatigue between forays into the building's increasingly hostile corridors. Combat is turn-based in the classic RPG Maker tradition, and the system is functional rather than revelatory. Weapons range from shovels to handguns, but they break under stress, and special attacks only accelerate the deterioration, so every fight carries a quiet resource anxiety underneath the monster dread. The distance mechanic is a genuine design highlight: enemies start far away, partially obscured, and approach over several turns, using the battle screen itself to stage jump scares in a way that feels completely earned. Over 150 hand-crafted creatures later, I still dreaded each new encounter, which says a lot for a turn-based format that normally strips out surprise by the second hour. The companion and quest system is where Look Outside earns its RPG credential most convincingly. Survivors you recruit from the building's floors join your party, and some bring unique abilities tied to their own companion quests. Fail Hellen's quest and she turns permanently hostile. Make the wrong call during Leigh's storyline and her special ability changes in ways you will feel in combat. The game tracks decisions quietly, without quest logs or waypoints, which rewards attentive players and mildly frustrates anyone who prefers a checklist. Multiple endings exist, and the boss you face at the close of the run depends on how thoroughly you explored. That is exactly the kind of structural consequence I want from a horror RPG: your curiosity and your moral choices converging at the finish line. The weaknesses are real but survivable. Critics noted that difficulty balance is uneven: normal mode's save restriction (you can only save in your apartment via Sybil, and only after enough exploration) adds genuine tension early on, but the game grows noticeably easier once you have a full party of four. The back half loosens its survival grip and shifts toward straight RPG combat, which dilutes the claustrophobic horror atmosphere that makes the first few floors so effective. A few locations, like the frozen apartment, exist purely for combat and feel underdeveloped against the narrative density of the best rooms. The lack of an in-game map and some frustrating level design choices were flagged by multiple reviewers. None of it breaks the experience, but the seams show. What holds everything together is the pixel art, which is grotesque in the most deliberate way. Coulombe balances genuine revulsion with dark absurdity, and the tonal whiplash between cosmic dread and something almost comedic is part of the design. It reminds critics of EarthBound's liminal battle backdrops crossed with John Carpenter's The Thing, and that comparison earns its keep. The 2.0 Final Vision update added new areas, enemies, story content, and endings, making this the version worth starting with. At 10-12 hours for a full run, it respects your time in a way that padded RPGs rarely do.

Monika · Scout Team

RPGs

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