A freelance investigative journalist named Miles Upshur receives an anonymous email about inhumane experiments at Mount Massive Asylum, a remote
psychiatric hospital owned by the notoriously
unethical Murkoff Corporation. Upon entering, Miles is shocked to discover its halls ransacked and littered with the staff's mutilated corpses. He is informed by a dying officer of Murkoff's
private military unit that the hospital's deranged inmates, known as "variants", have escaped and are freely roaming the grounds. The officer implores Miles to escape and reveals that the main entrance can be unlocked from the hospital's security control room. As Miles moves on, he is suddenly ambushed by Chris Walker, a hulking variant who knocks him unconscious. While incapacitated, Miles meets Father Martin Archimbaud, a self-appointed priest with
schizotypal personality disorder, who claims that Miles is his "
apostle" and sabotages his escape by cutting off power to the entrance. Miles restores power in the control room, but Father Martin injects him with an
anesthetic. He also shows Miles footage of the "Walrider", a ghost-like entity that kills patients and staff alike, which he claims is responsible for the hospital's dilapidated state. 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 Richard Trager, a former Murkoff executive driven insane. Trager amputates two of Miles' fingers and prepares to do the same to his tongue and genitals. However, Miles escapes to an elevator, inadvertently crushing Trager to death between floors when he attacks him. Miles then reconvenes with Father Martin, who tells him to go to the hospital's chapel. Miles reaches an auditorium and learns that the Walrider was created by Rudolf Wernicke, a German scientist brought to the United States during
Operation Paperclip. Wernicke believed that intensive
dream therapy conducted on traumatised patients could connect swarms of
nanites into a single malevolent being. Miles also learns that the experiments were originally part of the
MKUltra program. In the chapel, Miles finds a
crucified Father Martin, who gives him a key to the lobby elevator that he insists will take him to freedom before
immolating himself. Miles takes the elevator, which descends into a subterranean laboratory. Walker arrives and attacks Miles, 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 patient of Murkoff's experiments. Wernicke orders Miles to terminate Billy's life support in the hopes that this will destroy the Walrider. Miles accomplishes the task; however, just before Billy dies, the Walrider attacks Miles and possesses his body. On his way out of the laboratory, a heavily injured Miles encounters a Murkoff private military unit led by Wernicke, which guns him down. While a horrified Wernicke realises that Miles has become the Walrider's new host, the screen fades black as panicked screams, gunfire, and mauling sounds are heard.
Outlast: Whistleblower An
expansion available as
downloadable content, titled
Outlast: Whistleblower, was released for
Microsoft Windows on May 6, 2014,
PlayStation 4 on May 6, 2014, and
Xbox One on June 18, 2014.
Linux and
OS X versions were released on March 31, 2015.
Plot A
software engineer named Waylon Park works at Mount Massive Asylum, entailing maintenance to the "Morphogenic Engine", which allows Murkoff scientists to manipulate
lucid dreams in the hospital's comatose patients. After witnessing the engine's effects on the abused patients, a horrified Waylon sends an anonymous email to Miles Upshur to expose Murkoff's inhumane experiments. Shortly after, Waylon is summoned to the laboratory's operations centre to debug a monitoring system. When Waylon returns to his office, his supervisor Jeremy Blaire has him detained and exposed to the engine after discovering his email. However, Waylon escapes his restraints when the Walrider is unleashed. He roams the increasingly decrepit facility as surviving guards and medical personnel flee from the newly freed variants, searching for a
shortwave radio that he can use to contact the authorities, all the while eluding a cannibal variant, Frank Manera, who wields an electric
bone saw. Just as Waylon manages to find a working radio transmitter, Blaire destroys it and tries to suffocate Waylon, but is forced to flee by an approaching Chris Walker. Waylon finds his way into the hospital's vocational block, where he is captured by Eddie Gluskin, a serial killer obsessed with finding the "perfect bride" by killing other patients and mutilating their genitalia. Gluskin tries to hang Waylon in the hospital's gymnasium with his other victims, but during the struggle, he is entangled by his pulley system and a sudden weight shift causes him to be fatally impaled on a loose section of rebar. As dawn breaks, Murkoff's private military unit arrives at the hospital, intent on eliminating all the variants. Waylon slips past them and escapes into the lobby, where he finds a gravely wounded Blaire. Blaire suddenly stabs Waylon and insists that no one can know the truth about the hospital before the Walrider kills him. Waylon then stumbles out the open main entrance and towards Miles' jeep, which is still parked near the entrance. He drives away as Miles, now possessed by the Walrider, also emerges from the hospital. In the epilogue, Waylon is sitting at a laptop with his camcorder footage ready for upload as he is prepared to expose the hospital's experiments. An associate informs him that it will be more than enough to ruin Murkoff, but is warned that they will seek to retaliate against him and his family. Despite some initial hesitation, Waylon uploads the footage. == Development and release ==