Outbreak Endless Nightmares Review- Indie Game

Let’s get started on this Indie Hour Game – Outbreak Endless Nightmares Review.

What is Outbreak Endless Nightmares?

Outbreak: Endless Nightmares twists the series’ survival horror gameplay by adding elements of roguelike gameplay. You’ll need to explore, hunt for supplies, uncover clues, and fight your way through each anomaly – each consisting of semi-procedurally generated instances where both the environment, and the undead, are out to kill you!

Battle bad zombie-like guys in this Roguelike Survival Horror game

Who makes Outbreak Endless Nightmares?

The game is designed by Dead Drop Studios LLC.  They have created several games in the Outbreak series, some of which have pretty mixed reviews.

Which system is Outbreak Endless Nightmares Available On?

It is available on Steam and XBOX.

Outbreak Endless Nightmares Review Gameplay

Outbreak: Endless Nightmares consists of the main area – Arzt Memorial Hospital. As you explore there will be ghosts hanging around that you can go up and talk to. They will give you some hints about the world. No voice just some text and “hee hee hee”. Lots and lots of these ghosts to talk to though in Outbreak Endless Nightmares.

The entire point of the game is to get Conductor Coins. You can get these in Anomalies. If you die, you lose the coins.

You will also be focusing excessively on inventory management. What items should you bring? Will you run out of ammo? Sometimes you will get access to your chest that includes everything you’ve ever picked up, but frequently these chests will be far apart. Inventory management is very important in this game.

Outbreak: Endless Nightmares visually looks pretty good. There is a spooky fog and a horror-filled theme over everything. It’s not mind-blowing graphics but you don’t really need it to be.

Using the Map in Outbreak Endless Nightmares

You have access to a map as soon as you start. The map will show you where everything is located. Ammo, weapons, items, and healing.

Eventually, you will want to focus on the purple flags or Anomalies. These are the semi-procedurally generated instances. The bad guys will spawn in different areas on the map and you will need to make your way through it. Also of note, there are death-causing environment objects like spikes from the floor or hot steam jets.  Because the controls are annoying, the environmental hazards are harder than they look.

There will also be some simple puzzles. Move this statue to trigger a change to the laser beams on the floor. Nothing too complicated but it gives you a break from the constant killing of bad things. There are also some journals to pick up along the way, because why not. There isn’t much story in them, but it is something else to do.

What Happens When You Die in Outbreak Endless Nightmares?

When you die, which you will, you will return to the main front area of Arzt Memorial Hospital. You keep all the items you’ve acquired, but you will lose the ammo or healing items you have used.

This makes the game increasingly difficult. It takes 3 or 4 shots to kill a bad guy, and ammo is hard to come by. When you go back to the anomaly, all the guys you killed will have respawned. Ammo is very precious in this game. You also have the ability to use a knife but that takes a good 4 hits. It’s doable, but you are going to be attacked several times while slashing.

Lots of Game Modes and Settings

There are 3 different camera modes for your preference. Fixed camera, Over the shoulder, or First-person. Depending on where you are it is helpful to switch the camera angle up.

The controls are the real downside here. A mouse and keyboard were un-usable. Switching to Tank controls and a controller made it almost acceptable. The inventory menu on B. The map on Y. These are not really the controls any game uses and it took a while to get used to the layout. Down is up and up is down. I’d also frequently run up the stairs only to have the next scene load and still be pushing up, only to now have the game run me back down the stairs. This kinda thing.

Two Player Mode

You can battle the bad guys on split-screen couch co-op or through steam remote play. I feel this is kind of necessary as these levels get pretty tough. I wish there was regular multiplayer like they did in other games, but no such luck this round.

Final Thoughts on Outbreak Endless Nightmares

Again, the controls are pretty brutal in Outbreak Endless Nightmares. You will be frustrated. I find it part of the “charm” of this kind of throwback survival horror though.

Outbreak Endless Nightmares is not super expensive. If you are expecting an AAA level of the game at this price point, you will be disappointed. If you are looking for an indie game that is different, It looks pretty good, and there is definitely some fun in playing the anomalies over and over, with reminders of days gone by of survival inventory management horror,  you will enjoy this one.