Outlast – How to Avoid Dying

Are you one of the players who keep on dying in Outlast? Want to increase your survival rate and defeat the game? In this guide, we will be giving you some tips on how not to die in Outlast.

Before we start with our guide, let me remind you that this Outlast survival guide contains some spoilers.

How to Avoid Dying in Outlast?

First, here are a few tips on how to prevent yourself from getting into a bad situation. Use your camera wisely. Enabling night vision drains your battery pretty quickly (in a minute or two). Use night vision only when it is absolutely necessary. Without night vision, the battery does not drain.

This is very important because the camera is essential to your survival. The enemies won’t spot you any more easily if you have your camera up but they can see and hear you even in the dark. If you run out of batteries, it’s better to kill yourself. When you spawn, you’ll have one full battery. The game does not punish you for dying in any way except for you restarting from a checkpoint. There’s no health or sanity system to worry about.

Don’t go near anyone. Some people might look harmless but will attack you if you go too near. Sometimes it’s an unavoidable instadeath.

Keep in mind your escape routes, hiding places, objectives, and sense of direction. This game requires fast thinking. Know where you’re going and slowly approach it. It’s better to be stealthy rather than running around. You have the ”peeking” buttons in the game so use them. Some sections require you to complete a task by turning, for example, two valves located on the opposite sides of the area, and the game doesn’t save so you really should avoid dying.

Tactics and Strategies

In normal mode, enemies will break the door after six hits and search the room probably checking one or two lockers, beds, etc. They patrol around the area in certain patterns and it’s quite easy to predict this.

If an enemy is chasing you, I recommend that you go into a room with a few hiding spots, close the door behind you and hide. The AI is programmed to (usually!) open the locker/check the bed next to you so you should be fine. I suppose that sometimes they check the hiding spots randomly, like the doctor in Male Ward.

Doors and Lockers

If you are hiding in a locker and the enemy knows you’re there, it will immediately come to you and open the locker. You have to get out of the locker before this happens!

You might be lucky enough to ”run through” the enemy without enduring damage. The same thing with doors, especially the ”cell doors” that are not breakable. This might not be a fail-safe plan for normal doors because the enemies breakthrough and you usually get hit.

A tactic with double doors is to go through one door and then close it. When the enemy starts breaking it, open the other one and run. The enemy is supposed to continue destroying the door but I’ve experienced that sometimes it can have a change of heart.

Dead Ends

However, if you find yourself stuck in a dead-end with a maniac in front of you, don’t panic

In case of not having any hiding places nearby, press the “crouch” button repeatedly so that you crouch and stand up very quickly. By doing this, the AI will get confused and you can easily pass it. Just remember to tab quickly enough because stopping even for a short period of time will allow the enemy to hit you. Once you have got a few meters away from it, you can stand up and start running. If you are feeling confident, you can let the enemy get closer, wait for it to strike, then jump back or to the side, and run past it. After a blow, the enemy needs a second to recover so it’s your chance to escape (though, it’s very hard to get it right).

What to do if you are trapped in a room with only one door leading out and an enemy is trying to enter your place? Before the enemy breaks down the door, position yourself right next to the door and wait for the enemy to come in. Then quickly run past him to escape (you won’t be able to avoid being unseen). This works nearly every time but you have to be quick.

Obstacles

You are running through narrow corridors and you need to change direction but someone is chasing you. You should find an obstacle to jump over and wait on the other side. When the enemy is about to jump over the obstacle, get quickly on the other side. The timing is important, otherwise, you’ll just find yourself stuck between the enemy and the obstacle or get kicked in the face.

In a toilet cubicle, the best idea is to climb over by pressing ”jump” near the wall. The AI will be confused and start opening the doors after you. That’s why closing them will buy you some time to escape. You can also wait inside the cubicle, let the enemy open the door, and when the opening animation is still going on, you can run past/through it and shut the door upon its face.

Other Information

If you are crawling through a narrow hole and the enemy is breathing close to your neck, you can try pressing ”jump” to get faster to the other side (doesn’t naturally work if you are in a tunnel because there’s no space). The crawling animation is fairly slow, I’ve got grabbed by my ankle many times. None of the enemies can get into the air vent so you are safe in there. Same with narrow openings and holes on the ground (except for Walrider).

In big open areas, it is advised to stay near the corners. This tactic usually works if you are slow and stealthy. Dark corners can be surprisingly safe if you stay unmoving.

In water, your movements slow down and the enemy is faster than you. You can evade this by constantly pressing ”jump” and moving around. You will eventually ”outrun” it and it will lose track of you.

When an AI is chasing you, it can be better to duck under the bed and get out from the other side. The enemy must go around the bed to get you because they can’t climb. Of course, you can hop over it too but standing on a bed won’t prevent them from hitting you.

Enemies

The enemies’ main behavior consists of three stages: they are unaware of you, they are aware of your presence and search for you, they see you and chase you.

The Twins are not very dangerous and won’t start chasing you but will kill you if you get too close. You can basically ignore them but keep your distance.

I’d say Walrider is the most dangerous enemy since it’s very persistent. Once it starts chasing you, it always knows where you are so don’t hide. Just run, you are fast enough to get away. I’ve realized that it can catch you in the air too. It’s very hard to locate the Walrider because it only takes its ”human” form when close enough. When your screen becomes dark and blurry, you know it’s closing in. The only places it can’t enter are the gas chambers and air vents.

Basically, everyone else besides these two enemy types is as ”dangerous”. They can see and hear normally and there’s nothing of importance in their behavior. Of course, in higher difficulties, some enemies deal more damage than others but I’m not here to talk about that. If I have given you incorrect information, please, point that out!