When I saw Day Break Studios’ retro-survival horror-inspired tittle, Outbreak: The New Nightmare was coming to PlayStation 4 I knew I couldn’t pass it up. It’s been out for a couple of years now for PC and Xbox One but its PS4 debut comes with a plethora of new updates since its initial release in 2018. I never played it on the other platforms so unfortunately, I have nothing to compare it to. For a game that’s boasting about its enhancements that PS4 players get at its rebirth, it makes me wonder how abysmal this was back in 2018.

Story

The story in The New Nightmare follows a group of survivors making their way out a city plagued by a virus. The closer they think they’re getting to a safe zone, the more they realize that it won’t be enough to just escape. It’s up to the group to make their way across the city and uncover the mystery surrounding Arzt Memorial Hospital’s involvement in the outbreak.

Like most things in the game, the story is unoriginal. Instead of being an homage to retro-survival horror games, it sometimes comes off as a cheap rip-off. While the writing can have a silly hammed up b-movie side to it, it wasn’t enough to make me care in the slightest.

It’s unfortunate that this is the case because the titles that this is based on always had characters for us to root for. The so-so writing is only reinforced by the anti-climactic ending which had me scratching my head in confusion. It seemed like they didn’t know what to do with the characters at the end.

Gameplay

The New Nightmare offers 3 different modes for players to try out from the start. You get story mode, onslaught, and experiment. Story mode follows the above storyline as you traverse 5 different locations using keys, tools, weapons, health items, and other pickups to make your way from point A to Z. This mode is typical of games in its genre and takes the lazy route of not including actual puzzles. All important items needed to complete each stage is marked on your map from the start. This loses any mystique it could’ve had.

Onslaught is a horde type of mode that allows you to use those same levels and pickups to hold out as long as you can against the unending army ahead of you. This mode has the potential to be the best but the zombies move at the speed of a snail so actually finding them in the map takes too much time. It also does nothing to change up the horde mode formula that you can get in other titles.

Experiment mode again uses the same exact levels and pickups but has you play different objectives and scenarios. Some have you collecting specific parts needed for a vehicle, another has you clearing an entire map of enemies, and a few others mixed in. All of which are kinda boring and not at all offer something worth the playtime.

All 3 modes can be played entirely in split-screen co-op which is a really nice addition. The one thing I did notice though was that checking your inventory put the menu overlay on both players’ screens. This doesn’t make sense in my opinion and could’ve been remedied in some other way. It’s just sloppy.

There’s a reason why games these days do not play the same as they did in the late 90s. Forced camera angles and horrible controls for some reason make their appearance in here and I don’t understand why. While movements overall were not bad, the control scheme was puzzling. I don’t see why a better optimization for the PS4’s controller scheme wasn’t implemented.

As used in the old survival horror titles, this one used fixed camera angles but boy are they placed in upsetting spots. I felt like I was getting juked around the screen every second I played. It’s not even as if the camera locations were clever or even properly showed the area for me to investigate.

The in-game menus have a painfully obvious look harking back to the Resident Evil series. You get a pulse meter and a few item slots that you can fill with the in-game pickups. Combining certain items not only offers more carrying space but can also make health items heal you more. It’s pretty well-done but again it’s what we’ve seen before.

Gunplay is extremely unsatisfying. I could almost never tell if my bullets were making contact with my undead assailants. They look and sound awful too. Bullets weren’t hard to come by especially when using a 9mm pistol. The areas in this game are absolutely littered with bullets. There’s no feeling of helplessness when you have all you need in the world just laying around. Health items weren’t a hard thing to find either. Each level is basically a pharmacy with undead workers chasing you around. It does nothing to offer a challenge to its player in the slightest.

You’ll take the mantle of 6 characters that each offer different abilities and weaknesses. I played as Hank the most but didn’t realize too much of a difference between the characters’ attributes. As you progress with each character they start to level up. Leveling up grants you points which you can use to give yourself an edge in each mode. You can get buffs or start with different weapons which are admittedly a nice enhancement.

I wish that the developers chose more unique locations for the story to take place. I would’ve appreciated some really original locations but instead, we’re treated to poorly optimized retreads that we’ve seen a dozen times over. Asylums, foggy pathways, and bad-guy science labs all make the cut in the line-up.

The worst thing I noticed is that there weren’t any save locations. Each map is to be played as if it were an arcade stage instead of an actual story. They’re not intended to be picked back up but completed in one session. Another caveat because of this is that once you die you have to start over. This didn’t come across very player-friendly and in fact at least to me made the whole experience feel incredibly cheap in value.

Visuals

When looking at the visuals showcased, it’s hard not to nitpick almost everything on-screen. I don’t even feel like these graphics are worthy of being on a PS3. Character models look absolutely hilarious at times. Your character walks around as if they’re learning how to ice-skate. It’s hard not to notice their shadow either, which is a pixelated mess. I hadn’t really noticed it until I saw the shadow but the characters themselves have horribly pixelated outlines.

My “favorite place” was the first level and past that it was an awful experience. Textures are muddy and the rooms while covered in debris still have an emptiness to them. The last level in particular has some really bad framerate issues that almost halted it entirely.

Weapons and pickups are also a laugh-fest too. As they lay on the ground they look humongous. Knives are the size of swords and the “glorious golden keys” (actual name of a key in the game) are the size they’d be in a novelty joke store. They literally look like those keys to the city that get handed out to super-heroes in comic books. I’ve never seen such a thing and its a wonder if this was intentional or if this was just lack of knowledge on how to shrink them.

Fires throughout multiple locations blaze idly in the middle of rooms with no trace of spreading. Fire is used more of a force of camera change than as an actual threat to your well-being. There’s really no need to even have it in most areas. Its use definitely comes down to smoke and mirrors.

Lighting was serviceable but ultimately felt under-developed. Sometimes you’d see lights bouncing into another room that defied how reflections work. Other times you’d see lights coming from beneath trash on the ground that had a light nearby. Again, it was not handled very well.

Menus feel extremely cheap when you look at them. This is the first thing you see when booting up the game so it comes as a warning for what’s to come. Obviously a bad menu doesn’t mean a bad product, but presentation sets the tone of what’s expected.

Audio

Sound in this one is pretty weak. While I didn’t particularly like anything specifically it felt right for the quality of the rest of the project. Sounds are as generic as they come. Zombies moan in the distance with no directional cues as to where they might be. Guns also sound ho-hum with no punch to them. Most sound like a balloon popping in a room with poor acoustics.

Replayability

This has replay value if you enjoy its content. It has its story mode, onslaught mode and various other single-level experiments. All of which can be played with a friend that you want to punish. For me, one playthrough was an overdose so I can’t truly say that there is reason to consider a second.

What It Could Have Done Better

Originality for me is the ultimate victim in this horrible title. Instead of making players enjoy what it has to bring to the table, it just made me wish I was playing the titles that it’s based on. With the Resident Evil franchise killing it lately with their own remakes, projects like Outbreak: The New Nightmare have to step it up if they even want a chance to be in the running of worthy titles.

While graphics were less than satisfactory I just wish that the character outlines and shadows were smoothed out. The environments too were uninspired in their execution overall. I don’t like the fact that it reuses so much of its resources over and over. New maps would’ve been warmly welcomed by me as I absolutely hated most of the environments.

Verdict

When I started playing Outbreak: The New Nightmare I expected something that was so bad it was good, capturing the original Resident Evil’s b-movie feel but creating its own unique spin. While it captures that feeling, it felt more like a generic and dated mistake. It didn’t take the formula created by retro games of old and try something new, it simply ripped them down to their studs and shipped it as is. While this may be fun to get a group of friends together for a laugh on game night, you probably won’t play it for more than 15 minutes before the joke gets old.