Rest easy Outlast-heads, it’s finally here. It's been a long journey from first-look to release for this game, but the game is finally out, and it’s here to turn the formula on its head. Not only is it multiplayer now, your character remembers they can throw mad hands with the crazies! Outlast Trials is definitely a trial by fire game in that upon first bootup you’ll be running around like a chicken with your head cut off, with naked giants, gas happy lunatics, and banshee impersonators that will have you scream-laughing hysterically at your friends to come help you.
Don’t sweat it for a moment though, a few hours in and you’ll be a certified escape artist. Getting to know enemy behaviors, pathing patterns, and map layouts through repetition all help in making the game a slow simmer process. But that’s really the best way to learn. I was lucky enough to early on find a wise Trials elder in the wild who helped me get the fundamentals down, though really that can be supplemented with some simple experience and occasional web searches if it’s really not clicking fully with you. Remember, it’s not called Outlast Trials for nothing, as it is a definite trial and error game to begin with. Fortunately everything here is crafted expertly to immerse you in the world. The chest-mounted rigs that allow you to fight back minimally with smoke-bombs and stun nades do little to make you a terminator but it’s a good, logical step in the franchise’s evolution that I think works wonders here. Like in all multiplayer games, it can get a bit silly with perfect cooperation with friends that allow you to stunlock enemies for 30 seconds straight, but that’s the exception, not the rule, and it’s all temporary anyway. No permanent removal of enemies here.
To complement this change of pace, the thematic missions and villains, the sterile hub, and even the god forsaken arm-wrestling minigame all fit into the hellish Outlast world fantastically. On top of that the sound design and art direction is killer, with night vision lighting distinct from its predecessors but no less sublime. It’s clear the Red Barrels team has a vision and a passion with Outlast Trials. Perhaps the highest compliment I can give to Trials is that it is the one game that comes closest to maintaining a high “oh-crap” level even after throwing in a couple dozen hours into the game. It’s just so relentlessly suffocating and devoid of hope. Pair that with a cold-war setting and I’m hooked like it’s phonics.
But like all things, there’s two sides to every coin, and this game is no exception. Outlast Trials is a horror game in more than one way. It has committed the cardinal sin of being…… Early Access! And there’s two issues that come with that. Let’s start with the more minor one. Being an Early Access, multiplayer focused game, Trials doesn’t really have a continuous, sustained narrative or conclusion. It supplements this by having documents interspersed throughout trials randomly that you can pick up and helps you discover more about the history of the site, major players, and the world itself. It also has a pseudo-finale in its Program X, an amalgamation of the 3 other programs with increasingly difficult modifiers. Completing these unlocks the unique “escape” mission where you replay the introduction level but backwards. Naturally it’s not permanent nor particularly revelatory, nevertheless it gives you something to work towards.
The first half of these Program X trials find the perfect balance of fun and challenging. Given the nature of how you’re replaying the same trials over and over again, it can get easy faster than you’d think. So upping the stakes with extra lethal enemies and similar modifiers is more than welcome to me. It’s the second half of these missions I take umbrage with. It gets exponentially more difficult, with some nasty modifier stacking that I’m really not a fan of (looking at you no items + more enemies + no fun). You can technically beat the missions solo but you couldn’t pay me to be that patient, which sucks because the only real endgame as of now is locked behind beating that program. And you can’t just get anyone to beat it with. You need some great, coordinated players, no casual tomfoolery allowed. I’m not really sure why it’s that hard to begin with, considering how quickly they added Program Omega, another mission collection that’s just an even harder version of Program X where you’re forced to play with a team.
Wait, you say, what’s the problem with just grinding with a squad until you can beat the hardest missions with your eyes closed? And that’s where we get to the biggest issue of the game. It gets old long, long before you achieve enough spiritual enlightenment to beat the final levels. Early Access or not, this game was way too barebones at launch. The team’s not throwing in the towel luckily, but they need to pick up the pace on regular updates. Excluding the modifier modes, there’s three main Programs, each with a main mission and two smaller, slightly shorter mini-missions. These are not long missions mind you. Once you get a hang of the game the longer ones can be knocked out in less than 15 minutes and the smaller missions in less than 10. You can easily get through an entire rotation of missions in around 2 hours. It’s fun, I enjoyed my time solo, with randoms, and with friends. However, just a month in and I’ve shelved the game for the foreseeable future.
I heard they just released a new trial yesterday, a great step in the right direction, but they really need to let the creative juices flow. Create a custom mode where you can set your own modifiers, release new trials every 3 months instead of every 5 months, and do more to diversify gameplay. Introduced more mechanics, new enemy types, and fancy new items. It’s a heavy burden to keep the player base both on their toes and at the edge of their seats, yet even so I have faith in Red Barrels given their clean track record thus far. In all likelihood I’ll be back in a year or two to check in on the overall experience. Fingers crossed the game is all the more rich in content by then.
Don’t sweat it for a moment though, a few hours in and you’ll be a certified escape artist. Getting to know enemy behaviors, pathing patterns, and map layouts through repetition all help in making the game a slow simmer process. But that’s really the best way to learn. I was lucky enough to early on find a wise Trials elder in the wild who helped me get the fundamentals down, though really that can be supplemented with some simple experience and occasional web searches if it’s really not clicking fully with you. Remember, it’s not called Outlast Trials for nothing, as it is a definite trial and error game to begin with. Fortunately everything here is crafted expertly to immerse you in the world. The chest-mounted rigs that allow you to fight back minimally with smoke-bombs and stun nades do little to make you a terminator but it’s a good, logical step in the franchise’s evolution that I think works wonders here. Like in all multiplayer games, it can get a bit silly with perfect cooperation with friends that allow you to stunlock enemies for 30 seconds straight, but that’s the exception, not the rule, and it’s all temporary anyway. No permanent removal of enemies here.
To complement this change of pace, the thematic missions and villains, the sterile hub, and even the god forsaken arm-wrestling minigame all fit into the hellish Outlast world fantastically. On top of that the sound design and art direction is killer, with night vision lighting distinct from its predecessors but no less sublime. It’s clear the Red Barrels team has a vision and a passion with Outlast Trials. Perhaps the highest compliment I can give to Trials is that it is the one game that comes closest to maintaining a high “oh-crap” level even after throwing in a couple dozen hours into the game. It’s just so relentlessly suffocating and devoid of hope. Pair that with a cold-war setting and I’m hooked like it’s phonics.
But like all things, there’s two sides to every coin, and this game is no exception. Outlast Trials is a horror game in more than one way. It has committed the cardinal sin of being…… Early Access! And there’s two issues that come with that. Let’s start with the more minor one. Being an Early Access, multiplayer focused game, Trials doesn’t really have a continuous, sustained narrative or conclusion. It supplements this by having documents interspersed throughout trials randomly that you can pick up and helps you discover more about the history of the site, major players, and the world itself. It also has a pseudo-finale in its Program X, an amalgamation of the 3 other programs with increasingly difficult modifiers. Completing these unlocks the unique “escape” mission where you replay the introduction level but backwards. Naturally it’s not permanent nor particularly revelatory, nevertheless it gives you something to work towards.
The first half of these Program X trials find the perfect balance of fun and challenging. Given the nature of how you’re replaying the same trials over and over again, it can get easy faster than you’d think. So upping the stakes with extra lethal enemies and similar modifiers is more than welcome to me. It’s the second half of these missions I take umbrage with. It gets exponentially more difficult, with some nasty modifier stacking that I’m really not a fan of (looking at you no items + more enemies + no fun). You can technically beat the missions solo but you couldn’t pay me to be that patient, which sucks because the only real endgame as of now is locked behind beating that program. And you can’t just get anyone to beat it with. You need some great, coordinated players, no casual tomfoolery allowed. I’m not really sure why it’s that hard to begin with, considering how quickly they added Program Omega, another mission collection that’s just an even harder version of Program X where you’re forced to play with a team.
Wait, you say, what’s the problem with just grinding with a squad until you can beat the hardest missions with your eyes closed? And that’s where we get to the biggest issue of the game. It gets old long, long before you achieve enough spiritual enlightenment to beat the final levels. Early Access or not, this game was way too barebones at launch. The team’s not throwing in the towel luckily, but they need to pick up the pace on regular updates. Excluding the modifier modes, there’s three main Programs, each with a main mission and two smaller, slightly shorter mini-missions. These are not long missions mind you. Once you get a hang of the game the longer ones can be knocked out in less than 15 minutes and the smaller missions in less than 10. You can easily get through an entire rotation of missions in around 2 hours. It’s fun, I enjoyed my time solo, with randoms, and with friends. However, just a month in and I’ve shelved the game for the foreseeable future.
I heard they just released a new trial yesterday, a great step in the right direction, but they really need to let the creative juices flow. Create a custom mode where you can set your own modifiers, release new trials every 3 months instead of every 5 months, and do more to diversify gameplay. Introduced more mechanics, new enemy types, and fancy new items. It’s a heavy burden to keep the player base both on their toes and at the edge of their seats, yet even so I have faith in Red Barrels given their clean track record thus far. In all likelihood I’ll be back in a year or two to check in on the overall experience. Fingers crossed the game is all the more rich in content by then.