Half turn-based RPG, part-survival horror, with a sprinkling of metroidvania goodness, Look Exterior was at all times going to be my jam. However the place it sank its grotty little hooks into me was how gleefully punishing it was. My first playthrough shortly grew to become a cacophony of errors, however every one moulded my journey in methods I by no means anticipated.
You play as Sam: a median schmuck who wakes as much as discover an important huge cosmic entity has plonked itself proper exterior his condominium block, turning anybody who opens their curtains into huge blobs of flesh and twitching eyeballs. It’s a killer set-up, however one way or the other removed from the weirdest phenomena happening on this world. After Look Exterior casually motioned for me to discover its interconnected format of flesh-covered residences, I tangled with infants product of tooth, sentient work, and even a mound of human faces in an infinite hall dimension. It is as a lot in love with grotesque physique horror as tacky silliness, and the vibes smacked of elite B-movie consolation meals.
However regardless of all of the goofs and zany characters, it doesn’t fiddle. Fight confines you to gruelling turn-based battles that deplete your dwindling provide of scavenged family assets. Early on, you haven’t any get together members, and it’ll keep that method except you’ll be able to persuade somebody (or one thing) to look at your again. Endgame enemies aren’t arsed avoiding supposed ‘tutorial’ zones, so stay up for dropping hours of progress after sprinting headfirst right into a jacked zombie rat.
The cherry on prime? The entire thing is on a timer. 15 in-game days. And it ticks away as you discover. It’s relentless, and it doesn’t assist that Look Exterior loves baiting you into making errors. It’s stuffed with essential choices which have nigh-on game-breaking penalties, and I made loads of dangerous decisions.
My private favorite was changing into invested within the woes of a speaking pipe that had a crush on my neighbour. Actually, it was a Shakespearean tragedy. The swooning plumbing’s title was Rafta, and he or she’d fallen for a human boy, Nestor. Wow, love may even bloom in an Eldritchian nightmare, I assumed. I have to rekindle this romance! I discovered Nestor and satisfied him to take Rafta on a date. It was stunning… till 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 Factor, his dismembered head grew legs, ran upstairs, and consumed Eugene the pleasant weapon vendor on flooring 2.
However I did not restart. I wished to see how Look Exterior tailored to my errors. And it didn’t disappoint. If I’d stopped Rafta from nibbling on Nestor’s eyeball, I wouldn’t have met Kevin: the pleasant worm that emerged from his mutated stays. And Kevin was a rad dude. I gave him worm eggs, and he cast me a ‘worm crown’ that inflicted attraction each time I thumped folks.
And Kevin was the primary of many silver linings. Throughout my combat with the fearsome Rat King on flooring 1, I felt underlevelled, and so when the chance to bow earlier than him was introduced, I took it. His response? Puke acid over my hunched type. It might have landed me in debuff hell, and the bile had me chugging provides, however my respect earned me the king’s crown upon his demise, which I might use to chit-chat with the native rat inhabitants. There was additionally my tendency to depart sandwiches for the cockroaches beneath my fridge. I didn’t have a lot meals to spare, certain, however my scuttling little buddies finally shaped into a really grateful mechazord cockroach in shades and a trench coat that smoked demons.
I am keen on the story cast from my grisly errors. Furthermore, I really like Look Exterior being daring sufficient to let me eat sufficient shit to inform it.
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