After a little under a year of Early Access development, The Outlast Trials"V1" launches today on PC and the major consoles.Despite having been in active development for the past year, the game has already seen a great deal of success, with 1.6 million copies sold worldwide so far. For its part, developer Red Barrels has been working to make those purchases worthwhile through a regular stream of new content, gameplay enhancements, challenges, controller support and now cross-play between PC, PlayStation and Xbox. In other words, the developer has apparently done its best to follow through on its Early Access promises.
For those unfamiliar with The Outlast Trials, it’s a cooperative multiplayer take on Red Barrels' previously single player-only Outlast series. The game, set in 1959, puts players in the shoes of a “Reagent,” an unwitting test subject of one of the Murkoff Corporation’s experiments.
Having recruited the player through an otherwise innocuous agency, the corporation proceeds to subject them to all manner of horrific physical and psychological trials. The goal: transform the player and their fellow “Reagents” into the perfect sleeper agents. Indeed, surviving these trials doesn’t necessarily mean escaping. Rather, it means being released back into society to await being triggered at an opportune time.
Players can either hang out with other Reagents in the Sleep Room or go right back out into the trials.
Reagents are fully customizable in terms of their looks, and players even have some control over their cell in the “Sleep Room.” In this area, players can meet up with others between trials and either just hang out or take each other on in mini-games such as chess and arm-wrestling. Of course, one has to eventually go back into the trials. The internment may be unwilling, but that’s not going to stop the Murkoff Corporation from getting its data and sleeper agents.
Some might be wondering why Red Barrels made The Outlast Trials into a cooperative multiplayer title rather than delivering a new single-player horror experience. Fortunately, Red Barrels actually made a few comments about that very question.
“Outlast has always been about survival despite overwhelming horror. You may just barely make it out alive, but you’ll never be the same again. For The Outlast Trials, we asked ourselves: ‘What if players were trapped in the horror together?’
“It was a long journey to deliver that experience at the level of quality Red Barrels demands. We needed to make something scary, thrilling, funny, and shocking. We needed to make something players could enjoy either alone or with friends. And we needed to make something players could return to again and again. We hope you enjoy and suffer our nightmare.”
Those who enjoy horror but not so much multiplayer should ensure to take a look at ourOutlastandOutlast 2reviews. For everyone else, The Outlast Trials is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
Review: Outlast 2
Developer Red Barrels has offered an excellent step in this universe with Outlast 2. It will punish and terrify at the same time; it’s a cruel game.
