Review : Look Outside : Horrifying Day in the Neighborhood

To survive in Look Outside, forget what you know about being a good neighbor, and trust no one. This debut from indie developer Francis Coulombe, and published by Devolver Digital, is a surreal 2D horror RPG with SNES-style visuals.

Released on PC, the game played flawlessly across my desktop and Steam Deck, and I encountered no bugs during my play through. What makes Look Outside so special is how well it fuses survival horror and retro RPG mechanics. This creates both a nostalgic and completely unhinged experience.

The game’s release has been accompanied by incredible developer transparency. Coulombe has been live streaming himself on Twitch working on post-launch updates and tweaks. While he streams he incorporates feedback directly from his viewers. It’s a fascinating window into the creative process that also builds a sense of community around Look Outside and Coulombe’s future work. As someone who loves survival horror and retro RPGs, this one hit all the right buttons.

Tense, Tactical, and Brutal

In Look Outside you have 15 in-game days to find one of its multiple endings. Each day has a set number of hours to explore before needing to return to your apartment to sleep. Time only progresses once you explore new areas you have not yet visited, and you are only able to save the game once a certain amount of time has passed. That means there may be long stretches of playtime where you have not and cannot save. It ratchets up the tension, leading to frustrating deaths and lost progress. Every decision matters outside the safety of your apartment, and the game rewards risk by providing bonus XP for longer periods of time spent outside the apartment. Every enemy encounter and unpredictable NPC you talk to is truly nerve raking.

Your apartment is your home base where you can save (assuming enough time has passed), cook, craft, and manage party members. You will need to leave to scavenge materials and progress the story, and then retreat back when things get too dangerous. And things get dangerous fast.

The survival elements are no joke. Early on, I felt completely unprepared and underpowered. I was constantly low on health and scraping together anything I could to stay alive. There’s real tension in every choice you make. Do you explore a little further for additional XP or head home while you still can? Do you risk opening your front door for the shadowy figure knocking late at night? That early-game anxiety lessened a bit once I found some additional party members to help in combat, but it never fully went away. That’s a good thing.

Deranged Encounters

Combat is turn-based and deceptively simple at first glance. What saves it from feeling generic are the additional party members you’ll recruit. There are a surprising number of odd ball characters to find and add to your team. I found only a fraction of them in my play through. My ride or die team ended up consisting of two grungy punks, Montgomery and Xaria, and a deranged live streamer named Dan. Party members move into your apartment and will change your environment for better or worse. For example, Montgomery and Xaria kicked me out of my bedroom and forced me to sleep on the couch. I was too afraid to confront them about it because I couldn’t risk them abandoning me. They were my first party members and I desperately needed their help!

Every character has their own unique mechanics. Montgomery brews special drinks in combat that unlock powerful abilities, and Montgomery and Xaria’s skills often synergize together. Dan can switch between support or damage roles by changing his performance style for his livestream audience during combat. He needs to accumulate viewers to spend on different skills. These mechanics add depth to an otherwise basic old-school turn-based system. They also encourage experimenting with party composition.

There are lots of party members to collect, so there are plenty of combinations to experiment with. You will need to stay alert as it is possible to miss many of the party members entirely.

Horrors in the Hallway

The setup feels like it has slithered from the pages of H.P. Lovecraft. A mysterious cosmic object, known only as The Visitor, has appeared in the sky and warped your apartment complex into a surreal nightmare. Anyone who gazes into its light descends into madness, transforming into grotesque, violent versions of themselves. Meanwhile, a cult-like group of robed figures called The Astronomers are working to decipher a way to communicate with it. From there, the story spirals into body horror, insanity, and unpredictable branching paths.

There’s an incredible amount of choice baked into how you approach situations. Many quests have multiple solutions, and your decisions feel like they have real consequences on both the narrative and your character’s psyche. Many decisions I made came back to haunt my character during moments of silence. You can attack almost any NPC in the game, and the consequences, or rewards, are tangible.

The writing is creepy and unsettling in all the right ways. The building is packed with deranged residents, each more disturbing than the last. (Slight spoilers ahead as examples. Skip to “Retro Nightmares Done Right” to avoid these) Take the painter, for example. After gazing into The Visitor’s light, one of his self-portraits came to life and began painting copies of itself. Each new version sprang from the canvas and made itself at home in his apartment. Now, every one of them insists they’re the original. It’s up to you to decide who to trust.

Another memorable moment comes when you hear a voice calling to you from inside a small pipe, much too small for anyone to fit inside. The voice asks for help writing a love letter to another resident, and what follows is one of the game’s most grotesque sequences. You never know what direction the game will take, and I was constantly surprised and delighted by the creativity and strangeness of it all.

Retro Nightmares Done Right

Look Outside leans heavily into a SNES-era pixel art style, but the artwork is something far darker and disturbed than anything from that generation. The monster and character designs are imaginative, disturbing, and detailed. I constantly found myself stopping to admire the sprite work.

Enemies have unique artwork depending on their distance from your party. Some weapons have short range and can’t hit enemies at a distance, adding a tactical layer to already tense encounters. Enemy designs also evolve mid-fight, sprouting extra limbs or revealing horrifying details, like a helpless victim crawling out of a creature’s mouth.

The soundtrack is electronic and eerie, perfectly fitting the game’s tone. It does occasionally cut out awkwardly when entering dialogue, but, overall, the sound design is standout. Sound effects are great as well, from the unsettling ambient wails in the distance to the wet, squishy sound of mutated creatures hunting you. Everything is tuned to keep you on edge.

Technically, the game isn’t system demanding at all and runs great. I encountered no bugs, crashes, or performance issues on either PC or Steam Deck. Everything feels very well polished. The developer has already issued patches since launch, and the live-streamed development updates suggest a long tail of support and additions to come.

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Look Outside stands out as a must play for survival horror fans. It’s tense, grotesque, funny, and genuinely unique. The combat may not be overly complex, but the unique party member mechanics help make up for it. The world is disturbing and surreal in all the right ways and will leave you deeply unsettled.

My first playthrough lasted about 12 hours, and I feel like I only scratched the surface. At $9.99, the value is undeniable. There are multiple endings, branching paths, and plenty of party members to experiment with. Look Outside is made to be played more than once, especially with more content planned to be introduced.

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