Part turn-based RPG, part-survival horror, with a sprinkling of metroidvania goodness, Look Outside was always going to be my jam. But where it sank its grotty little hooks into me was how gleefully punishing it was. My first playthrough quickly became a cacophony of mistakes, but each one moulded my adventure in ways I never expected.
You play as Sam: an average schmuck who wakes up to find a great big cosmic entity has plonked itself right outside his apartment block, turning anyone who opens their curtains into big blobs of flesh and twitching eyeballs. It’s a killer set-up, but somehow far from the weirdest phenomena going on in this world. After Look Outside casually motioned for me to explore its interconnected layout of flesh-covered apartments, I tangled with infants made of teeth, sentient paintings, and even a mound of human faces in an endless corridor dimension. It’s as much in love with grotesque body horror as cheesy silliness, and the vibes smacked of elite B-movie comfort food.
But despite all the goofs and zany characters, it doesn’t mess around. Combat confines you to gruelling turn-based battles that deplete your dwindling supply of scavenged household resources. Early on, you have no party members, and it’ll stay that way unless you can convince someone (or something) to watch your back. Endgame enemies aren’t arsed avoiding supposed ‘tutorial’ zones, so look forward to losing hours of progress after sprinting headfirst into a jacked zombie rat.
The cherry on top? The whole thing is on a timer. 15 in-game days. And it ticks away as you explore. It’s relentless, and it doesn’t help that Look Outside loves baiting you into making mistakes. It’s full of critical decisions that have nigh-on game-breaking consequences, and I made plenty of bad choices.
My personal favourite was becoming invested in the woes of a talking pipe that had a crush on my neighbour. Really, it was a Shakespearean tragedy. The swooning plumbing’s name was Rafta, and she’d fallen for a human boy, Nestor. Wow, love can even bloom in an Eldritchian nightmare, I thought. I must rekindle this romance! I found Nestor and convinced him to take Rafta on a date. It was beautiful… until Rafta turned out to be a parasitic worm and slid into Nestor’s eyeball, splitting him into fleshy chunks. Then like a creature out of The Thing, his dismembered head grew legs, ran upstairs, and consumed Eugene the friendly weapon vendor on floor 2.
But I didn’t restart. I wanted to see how Look Outside adapted to my mistakes. And it didn’t disappoint. If I’d stopped Rafta from nibbling on Nestor’s eyeball, I wouldn’t have met Kevin: the friendly worm that emerged from his mutated remains. And Kevin was a rad dude. I gave him worm eggs, and he forged me a ‘worm crown’ that inflicted charm whenever I thumped people.
And Kevin was the first of many silver linings. During my fight with the fearsome Rat King on floor 1, I felt underlevelled, and so when the opportunity to bow before him was presented, I took it. His response? Puke acid over my hunched form. It may have landed me in debuff hell, and the bile had me chugging supplies, but my respect earned me the king’s crown upon his demise, which I could use to chit-chat with the local rat population. There was also my tendency to leave sandwiches for the cockroaches under my fridge. I didn’t have much food to spare, sure, but my scuttling little buddies eventually formed into a very thankful mechazord cockroach in shades and a trench coat that smoked demons.
I adore the story forged from my grisly mistakes. Moreover, I love Look Outside being bold enough to let me eat enough shit to tell it.
Head over to the RPS Advent Calendar 2025 to open another door!
