Games : Computer Games: Lighting Issue (The Long Dark and Outlast)

I've noticed a strange issue with both of these games (and I think others) where the darkness of an area will change rapidly based on whether my character can see the light source and not whether the light source is affecting the area. This leads to sudden changes in the lighting when just walking across a room, from extremely bright to extremely dark with one footstep.

I'm running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit and launching both games from Steam. I have a GeForce GTX 770 graphics card, an Intel i7 processor, and 8GBs of RAM. I assume the issue is on my end since both games run on different engines. I've never asked a question on a site like this since usually google has my answer, but I don't even know how to form the query for this one so let me know if I need to add any more information or reword my question. Thanks!