Games Like Outlast: Best Horror Games Where You Hide, Not Fight

Games like Outlast all share one rule: you can't fight back. No guns, no melee — just dark corners, lockers, and a camcorder with night vision between you and whatever is hunting you. The Red Barrels series set the standard: Outlast trapped a journalist inside Mount Massive Asylum, Outlast 2 dropped him into a village run by a deranged cult, and the co-op The Outlast Trials turned Murkoff's experiments into a team survival ordeal. If you've finished all three and want more, this list is for you. It's split into sections for each game in the series, with a separate block for Android — and we're talking real horror games here, not Roblox recreations.

The first Outlast formula is simple: a locked-down location, a defenseless protagonist, and enemies you can only run from. The horror games like Outlast in this section nail that formula best — some hand you a camera too, others swap night vision for matches and a lantern. Every pick is first-person, and each one makes helplessness feel exactly like the corridors of Mount Massive. For a broader scare list beyond the series, check the best horror games of all time.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent is the granddaddy of the formula Outlast later perfected. Daniel wakes up in the Prussian castle of Brennenburg with no memory and a single note: descend into the depths and kill the baron. There are no weapons at all — you hide from monsters in darkness and closets, but staring at creatures or sitting in the dark too long drains Daniel's sanity. The game came out in 2010 and still terrifies — it's the benchmark every hide-and-seek horror since has answered to. It also runs on almost any low-end PC — a bonus if your rig is modest.

Amnesia: The Bunker is the most open-ended game Frictional has made. French soldier Henri Clément comes to in a WW1 bunker whose vents hide a creature that reacts to every sound. Unlike earlier entries, you get a revolver and grenades — but ammo is scarce, and the generator eats fuel, so the lights can die at any moment. The semi-open structure lets you solve problems your way: blow a door, hunt for a code, or risk a sprint through the dark. The beast never really leaves — it retreats into the vents and comes back for any noise, so light and quiet become resources you ration.

Amnesia: Rebirth brings the series back to pure hide-and-seek: Tasi Trianon crawls out of a plane wreck in the Algerian desert and slowly realizes something horrifying is happening to her body. It's the most story-driven Amnesia — a grim tale about motherhood and fear that cuts deeper than most horror plots. The sanity system is back: darkness and monsters chip away at Tasi's mind. It's a more niche entry than the early Amnesia games, but fans of The Dark Descent and Outlast 2's religious dread will feel at home.

SOMA is Frictional again, but the castle is swapped for the underwater station PATHOS-II and the gothic horror for sci-fi about consciousness and its copies. Simon Jarrett goes in for a brain scan in Toronto and wakes up on the Atlantic seabed almost a century later. Hiding from mangled machines alternates with questions scarier than any jumpscare: what makes you human, and can a mind be transferred? SOMA is remembered less for its monsters than for the questions it leaves you with. There's a Safe Mode with no monster threat if you're here for the story.

Alien: Isolation is the gold standard of cat-and-mouse with a single unkillable stalker. Amanda Ripley arrives at Sevastopol station to learn her mother's fate and ends up locked in with a xenomorph that can't be killed — only scared off and avoided. Its AI is still considered among the best in the genre: it learns your habits, checks lockers, and returns to spots where it caught you before. The motion tracker from the 1979 film plays the role of Outlast's camcorder — you can't watch the screen and the corridor at the same time. Fans of this kind of gameplay should also see the best stealth games of all time.

Visage grew out of Hideo Kojima's cancelled P.T. and is regularly called one of the scariest games of the decade. Dwayne Anderson is trapped in a suburban house with decades of murders and suicides in its walls: each chapter follows one dead family, and between chapters the house lives its own life — lights flicker, doors open, someone stands in the mirror. You can't fight and there's almost nowhere to run: the house is small, and that's the horror. Sanity drains in darkness; pills and light bring it back. It also earned its spot on the top psychological horror games list.

MADiSON hands you the same tool Outlast does — except the camera is a Polaroid. Sixteen-year-old Luca is dragged into the ritual of the demon Madison: instant photos reveal what the eye can't see, open passages, and solve puzzles, while the flash lights up the room for a second — and you'll wish it hadn't. The game openly inherits from P.T. and Visage: a cramped house, jumpscares, the grinding routine of dread. For anyone who loved Outlast specifically for the camera, this is the closest experience on the list.

Fobia — St. Dinfna Hotel keeps the lens theme going: amateur journalist Roberto arrives at a Brazilian hotel to investigate disappearances and finds a camera that shows a different time. Through the viewfinder you see the hotel in the 1960s, complete with a cult and experiments; without it, present-day ruins. Switching between eras is baked into the puzzles. In spirit it's a blend of Outlast (investigation, footage, cult) and Resident Evil (a labyrinth hotel, resources). It's a solid 8–10 hours of horror.

Still Wakes the Deep moves the run-and-hide formula onto a Scottish oil rig in 1975. Electrician Caz McLeary is stranded on the Beira D after the drill pulls up something that slowly consumes both the platform and its crew. There are no weapons: you climb icy beams, dive through flooded compartments, and hide from former workmates who are beyond saving. Scottish accents, North Sea rain, and the constant feeling that the structure is collapsing underneath you — the atmosphere rivals any big-budget horror. It picked up 3 BAFTA Games Awards in 2025.

Monstrum is for players who found Outlast too predictable on a second run. You wake up on a derelict cargo ship stalked by one of 3 monsters, each hunting differently: one charges straight through, another sets ambushes, the third plays mind games. The ship is procedurally regenerated on every attempt and death is permanent — escape by raft, submersible, or helicopter, gathering parts as you go. There are no checkpoints and no map, so every run is a fresh scramble to learn the ship's layout before something learns yours. Replayability is unmatched in the genre.

The Beast Inside runs on two timelines at once: CIA cryptanalyst Adam Stevenson moves into an old house in 1979 and finds the diary of Nicolas Hyde, who lived there during the Civil War — and the chapters alternate between them. Adam's side is a detective story with occasional shootouts; Nicolas's side is pure Outlast-and-Amnesia horror, hiding from ghosts with nothing in your hands. There's plenty of investigation too — Adam cracks ciphers and combs the house for clues while Nicolas just tries to survive — and it's one of the few horror games told through two protagonists in two eras at once. The rhythm shift works surprisingly well.

The sequel traded the asylum for the Arizona backwoods and the Testament of the New Ezekiel cult. Games like Outlast 2 hit the same nerve: an isolated community, insane faith, and a protagonist searching for a loved one in a place sane people avoid. A camera with a microphone helps here too — as does knowing how to sprint through a cornfield.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard is Outlast 2's closest big-budget relative: first-person view, a Louisiana estate, and the Baker family putting the hero through the same hell the cult gave journalist Blake. Ethan Winters follows a letter from his wife, missing for 3 years, and ends up at a cannibal family dinner. Unlike Outlast, weapons do appear over time — but the first hours are pure hide-and-seek with the unkillable Jack Baker, and the VHS tapes you play through directly quote found-footage horror.

Blair Witch sends ex-cop Ellis into the Black Hills forest to find a missing boy — the infamous woods from the 1999 film of the same name, where a camera matters more than a map. Found footage isn't just a plot device here: by rewinding tapes, Ellis changes reality, opening locked doors and restoring vanished objects. Your dog Bullet is always nearby — he senses danger before you do and stays the only creature in the forest you can trust. How you treat Bullet — praise him, scold him, call him back — shifts both his behavior and the ending. Made by Bloober Team, the studio behind the Silent Hill 2 remake.

FAITH: The Unholy Trinity proves you don't need photorealism for terror — 8-bit-era pixels and a demon's synthesized voice are plenty. Young priest John Ward returns to the house where an exorcism failed a year ago, armed only with a crucifix: it repels the unholy but kills nothing. The rotoscoped animation cutting in at scare moments became the game's signature and spawned countless memes and clips. Cults, possession, a pregnant congregation — thematically it's the closest thing to Outlast 2 on this list.

Mundaun is a folk horror drawn in pencil: developer Michel Ziegler hand-sketched every frame of its Alpine valley over 7 years. Curdin comes home for his grandfather's funeral and discovers the whole valley is bound by a pact with a creature from local legend. Instead of a cult — a closed-off mountain community; instead of cornfields — haylofts and a glacier roamed by the possessed. The hero is nearly helpless: fear literally freezes him until he gulps hot coffee from a thermos. The most unusual game on the list.

The Outlast Trials made the formula multiplayer: the same hiding and helplessness, but with up to four players. Games like The Outlast Trials run on the same contrast — it's less scary together, right until the monster drags off a teammate. Only the closest matches are here; for the full list, see the best co-op horror games.

Phasmophobia turned ghost hunting into a team sport: a crew of up to 4 enters a haunted location to identify the ghost type from evidence — without becoming evidence themselves. EMF readers, spirit boxes, night-vision cameras, voice recognition — the ghost reacts if you say its name out loud. As in The Outlast Trials, your only defense is to run and hide, and nothing is scarier than the moment the lights start to flicker. The Phasmophobia ghost types guide will help you make sense of the evidence.

Lethal Company is the co-op horror phenomenon. A crew of Company employees lands on abandoned moons to scrape together scrap and meet quota — while the industrial zones crawl with creatures, each with its own rules: some attack when watched, others home in on your radio chatter. A teammate's death is horror and comedy at once, which is why clips flooded the internet. Think Outlast Trials crossed with corporate satire. Each drop is timed, and the ship can leave without anyone who lingers. The Lethal Company monster bestiary will get you through the first shifts.

Content Warning literally hands the team a camera: 4 aspiring creators descend into the Old World to film monsters and farm views on SpöökTube. The scarier the footage, the more views — so running from the creature is bad business: you need the close-up and you need to survive it. It's the most direct take on Outlast's recording gimmick, pushed to absurdity. If the whole squad dies, the video still gets uploaded — ending with the final frames of your demise. Every few days you have to hit a view quota or it's game over — gear and money wiped.

DEVOUR comes closest to Red Barrels territory in co-op: up to 4 players stop possessed leaders of the Azazel cult by burning ritual objects while the possessed one stalks the map, getting faster every minute. Your only "weapon" is a UV flashlight that blinds her for seconds. Maps randomize objectives to keep the tension fresh, and solo mode turns it into an honest single-player Outlast. More players mean more chaos and better odds — someone distracts the possessed woman, someone burns the objects — but on higher difficulties she barely lets up, and calm seconds run out fast.

There is no official Outlast on Android — the series shipped on PC and consoles only. But mobile developers mastered the formula long ago, and games like Outlast for Android come in every flavor: asylums, cameras, and stalker chases included. Everything below is free — with ads or in-app purchases; just play with headphones, in the dark.

Mental Hospital 6 is the flagship of a series often called "mobile Outlast": a journalist with a camcorder sneaks into a psychiatric clinic where experiments went very wrong. Night-vision filming drains the battery, pursuers react to light and sound, and only closets and dark corners will save you — the formula is reproduced almost verbatim. The sixth entry, Childhood Fears, brings visuals that hold up even on a tablet. And if the credits leave you wanting more, the earlier games in the series are still around.

Reporter 2 continues the investigative-journalism theme: a reporter with a photo camera explores the scene of a mass murder and gradually realizes the culprit never left. The camera flash is your only light source in the darkest rooms, and it doubles as your evidence tool. The loop is genre-standard: search dark rooms, gather notes and items, photograph clues, and kill the lights to hide when the killer comes hunting. The atmosphere is thick, the jumpscares are well placed, and a runtime of a couple of evenings is perfect for mobile horror. Of all the "pocket Outlasts," this one is the most cinematic.

Granny is the king of mobile hide-and-seek: you're locked in the house of a murderous grandmother who hears every creaking floorboard, and you have 5 days to escape. It's pure Outlast in miniature: hide under beds and in wardrobes, memorize routes, sneak. Granny is a genuine cultural phenomenon of mobile horror. You escape in different ways — unlock the front door, start the car, slip out by boat — and later sequels added a slow but shotgun-toting Grandpa. It's also the most honest nerve test on this list: the timer and the stomping overhead press harder than most chase sequences.

Eyes: The Horror Game is the genre concentrated: loot a mansion, grab the money bags, and get out before the flying ghost catches you. The hook is the mystical "eyes" scattered around the building: pick one up and you briefly see the world through the ghost's eyes — and learn exactly where it is. Maps, modes, and monsters have been added for years, so there's more content than it seems. There are several buildings to rob, each with its own monster and rules, and runs are short — a minute or two, ideal for a queue or a commute. Simple, fast, and mean in the best way — the ideal first taste of mobile horror.

Death Park locks the hero in an abandoned amusement park with a terrifying clown — and it's the one game here that fuses horror with adventure-game logic this tightly: inventory, items, combination puzzles. The clown appears without warning; you can't kill him, but you can hide. Several park zones and multiple endings round it out. Progress runs on backtracking — an item from one zone unlocks the next — and it did well enough to earn a full sequel, Death Park 2, with a boss and eight locations. If Granny is about reflexes, Death Park is about exploration — together they cover the whole spectrum of mobile scares.

Mechanically, the closest matches are Amnesia: The Dark Descent and Alien: Isolation: a defenseless hero, hiding, and a relentless stalker. If the night-vision camera is what you loved, go for MADiSON or Fobia — St. Dinfna Hotel, where filming is woven into the gameplay just as tightly.

Officially, no: the series shipped on PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch, and Red Barrels has never released a mobile version. Anything posing as Outlast in APK stores is fake. There are worthy Android alternatives though — Mental Hospital, Reporter 2, and Granny are covered in the mobile section of this list.

Release order works best: Outlast (2013) with the Whistleblower DLC, then Outlast 2 (2017) and The Outlast Trials (2024). The stories share the Murkoff universe but stand alone — you can start anywhere and only miss some references.

Most players call the first game scarier thanks to the claustrophobic asylum with nowhere to run. Outlast 2 wins on different terms: open spaces, religious dread, and relentless chases. If you want that feeling again after both, this list has 24 games built on the same formula.

There's no official announcement. Red Barrels keeps building The Outlast Trials — in 2026 the game got a roadmap covering Seasons 6 and 7. The studio's founders have said they want to return to numbered entries, but no dates or details have been given.

Which horror game came closest to giving you an actual heart attack? Tell us in the comments — let's crowdsource the definitive list of hide-and-shriek nightmares.

If you've cleared all 24 games like Outlast and still crave a locker to hide in, here are a few more horror titles that didn't make the main list but deserve an evening or two. And if you want to know exactly who you should be afraid of, there's a top of the scariest characters and monsters in games.

A co-op scare about a possessed girl in an old house: up to 4 players burn dolls while running from her. It's simpler than DEVOUR, but for a night with friends it's exactly right.

A night shift at a funeral home where a demon hides among the bodies. Embalming by the manual, interrupted by scares — a combination that makes mortician work anything but boring.

A psychological horror set in a dystopia run by a corporation, where a bureau agent digs through other people's memories. Light on hide-and-seek, heavy on crushing atmosphere and visual invention — enough for two Visages.