In the world of Look Outside, living indoors, with the window shut, is the only way to survive. In fact, merely looking at what is happening outside the window will mutate your body, creating a set of complex and disturbing creatures. Without spoilers, the mutation somehow involves your true self, or at least how you are “perceived.” While the majority of mutants become mindless monsters, some of them retain their mind, such as in the case of Lyle (read more here: Forever trapped inside a picture after kissing an eldritch being: all about Lyle from Look Outside). While directly looking outside is the easier way to lose your humanity, becoming a grotesque being, some of the mutations are also “inheritable.” This is what happened to the entire family and their three kids on the 3rd floor. The youngest daughter watched outside, mutating into a sad and disturbing being, and with her bite, she spread the “teeth mutation” to all the family. A similar situation is what is happening to the rats infesting the building.

The first floor of the building is infested with rats. In general, rats are quite simple enemies, dying in a few hits, with the biggest threat of inflicting the Disease debuff. While rats of different sizes occupy several rooms on this floor, the biggest monstrosity roams the corridors. The Rat King is a colossal wolf-like creature, an abomination of twisted fur and multiple faces, all showing red eyes and deadly maws. And to give rights to its name, the creature wears a rusted metal crown on its head. The Rat King is a unique creature and an incredibly tough boss, usually better to be avoided till later in the game. It hits hard, with a huge health pool, and is able to inflict several negative debuffs. The only help is its weakness to fire. Defeating such an abomination rewards the player with a unique accessory: The Rat Crown. Other than being a quite powerful equipment, the Crown has a peculiar hidden effect, allowing the player to talk with all the rats. This opens to a world of possibilities, with rats giving you items or opening up shops, instead of attacking you. Of course, the rats that survived your murderous spree before getting the Crown. Yes, whichever rat you killed before, closed the door to a unique conversation. From their conversations, you will quickly discover that they were all human before. The Rat King spread the mutation by biting people in the building, mutating them into rats and expanding its “kingdom”. The 1.6 update introduced a new Bad Ending for dying against the Rat King. In this case, while keeping their will, the main character slowly mutates into a new colossal Rat King.

Before getting the Crown, you can also get additional information about rats and their mutation by talking with the Rat Hole. This creature is a merchant hidden behind a wall of darkness, a twisted mass of flesh and eyes hidden inside a hole in the wall. Regardless of the disturbing appearance, the creature is quite friendly, and will offer you powerful items and weapons in exchange for Rat’s Tails. And you got it right, you can obtain the tails by slaying random rats. The Rat Hole got infected by the King, becoming a rat aberration after a painful mutation. How painful? You can ask them directly, and they will give you a very detailed report about the grotesque mutation. The transformation was so painful that the most gruesome details are censored, with examples such as “intestines” and “screaming.” For this reason, the Rat Hole still wants revenge against rats, rewarding you for slaying them.

Interestingly, the Rat Hole also speaks of another side of themselves. And later, you will meet the unavoidable Mouth. The Mouth is the “other half” of the Rat Hole, just this time it is much less friendly. The creature is a disturbing rat-mouth opening in the wall, constantly hungry. The only power it possesses, other than eating living beings, is to create illusory halls to imprison people. Food doesn’t satisfy it, since the only meal it craves is babies. Feeding the mouth is mandatory, and you can do it in two ways. First, you can really feed it a baby, specifically the Rat Baby, an innocent creature that follows you after being discovered abandoned in a crib. If this deed is too mischievous, you can decide to feed it your arm, debuffing the main character for the entire game. I like to believe that this creature is a connection with the other two greatest RPGmaker horror JRPGs: Lisa and Fear & Hunger. With Lisa, the connection is with the tough moral choices, offering sacrifices or character mutilations, including losing an arm. Regarding Fear & Hunger, the Pocketcat is another disturbing NPC asking for kids as a form of payment (more here if interested: The Pocketcat of Fear & Hunger: what RPG merchant could be more disturbing than one exchanging items for children? [Evil Characters]).

The two rat hole creatures are very disturbing examples of how far this mutation can go, creating split personalities of the same creature, one talkative and understandable, the other only looking to satisfy its gluttony.

The Rat King is not the only colossal rat abomination, and another challenging being lurks inside the 1st floor apartments. The Rat Freak is a gigantic humanoid rat, a giant made of fur and red eyes, a cluster of multiple rats fused beneath the fur. The giant is a tough opponent guarding a key item on the ground floor, so avoiding it is quite challenging. However, this gigantic abomination will also become friendly after slaying the King and wearing its crown. In fact, the silent but generous creature rewards the player with powerful hidden weapons after talking with it, including the ultra-rare Sewage Sword. Sure, some luck and RNG are involved, but the rewards are really worthy of the time.

A battle against a swarm of rats welcomes you inside Rat Hell, a new rat-based dungeon available in the 1.5 update. Venturing into this crawling hellhole is necessary to recruit Ernst. The place is practically shaped by rats and their red eyes, creating a maze-structure that works as a gladiator arena. Win enough fights against the rats to save your friend. However, be ready for tough and bizarrely fantasy-inspired battles, including: magician-like rats of poison and fire elements, gladiator rats, a champion paladin-like rat, and a beast similar to the Rat King. With the Crown, you can understand the rats and have tips on how to defeat them; otherwise, be ready for many puzzling battles and a world of squeaking dialogues.

It could come as a surprise after reading about all these abominations, however, the strongest and most dangerous rodent in Look Outside is not a rat but a hamster. By offering Cinnamon, a cute and innocent hamster, as a final gift for the ritual, you will face a very peculiar final boss: Xin Amon. This grotesque and eldritch mutated hamster is, all in all, a rodent god, and a very tough battle. The creature offers two main endings, both quite disturbing. In one ending, the creatures start to exponentially mutate, covering the entire world in flesh towers made of mutated hamster heads. In the other ending, Xin Amon truly evolves into the God Rat, an immense “Kaiju” rat able to level cities and swallow their entire population. The multi-headed abomination is always followed by piercing screaming… coming from the mutated heads of all its victims now appearing on its skin.

Look Outside is an innovative and interesting RPG full of grotesque and unique enemies, with praise for creating a very varied bestiary around simple creatures, such as rats.