Review | The Outlast Trials

Jon "Sikamikanico" Clarke March 4, 2024Last Updated: March 4, 2024

1 874 5 minutes read

Horror games and me?

It’s like the complete opposite of magical combinations like chocolate and peanut butter, or bacon and pancakes. Typically, I’m not the guy the team will come to when it comes time to review a horror game, mostly on account of me being a complete wuss (in conjunction with my outright refusal). I’ll own up to it – I literally cannot handle being chased by things. It freaks me out. Gore and violence doesn’t bother me a bit, but ask me to play something with Mr X or a Xenomorph on my tail, and I will quite literally nope out.

However, Outlast Trials isn’t your average single player horror filled nightmare – oh no. This time, I can bring friends along for the ride. If there’s one thing I love about gaming, it’s co-operative adventures with friends – and in this outing of the Outlast franchise from developer Red Barrels, multiplayer survival carnage is the name of the game.

Run, Hide or Die.

Well, actually the name of the game is Outlast Trials, and it makes sense, as the creepy Murkoff Corporation is back, and they’re kidnapping people or “reagents” to put through some seriously grisly experiments. Of course, being an Outlast game means no weapons, and no genuine way of taking your fight to your enemies – your only real choices are run, hide or die.

Thankfully, you’ve got some handy battery-powered night vision goggles to make your way around through the gruesome yet surprisingly detailed environment. They will, and do, run out of batteries very quickly indeed, making moving around a nerve-wracking affair. Batteries can be found throughout the levels, and even when you do run out, the nightvision goggles still work, but the range is severely reduced, so escaping at speed becomes a lot more challenging.

It’s not all bad though, because after a tutorial of the various gameplay mechanics found in the game, the prison-like complex they keep players not only acts as a virtual lobby to plan which trial you’re going to undertake, but is also handily stocked with amenities to make the challenges you undertake a little more interesting.

You can decorate your cell, customise your character and buy ‘rigs’ that provide special abilities you can deploy during your multiplayer jaunts, like healing medications, blinding smoke, stunning abilities or even a spot of x-ray vision, all designed to make getting through the trials in one-piece a far greater possibility. Through the completion of trials and challenges, players will earn XP and components to further upgrade their abilities, but they’re all defensive in nature.

You’ll never be able to kill the various goons that chase you, just as an Outlast game should be. Thankfully, they at least provide some distractions – arm wrestling and even a chess board for some more mellow and chilled downtime during bouts of gut wrenching co-operative horror.

Trials and Tribulations

The best way that I can describe Outlast Trials is playing through an elaborate gory escape room. An elaborate escape room filled with traps, darkness, broken glass, bloodied and mutilated corpses, oh, and more than a few crazed “ex-pops”, which are described as violent psychopaths that have been completly broken by the ruthless experiments. They like to pop out of would-be hiding places and stab you a bit.

No biggie.

The game can be played solo for a more traditional Outlast-feeling jaunt, but co-operative play is where it’s at.

The trials themselves often mix things around so that while general objectives remain mostly the same, the actual geometry and layout of the levels can differ in surprising ways, providing a fair amount of replayability – and there are multiple trials to undertake, and challenges too.

The game also delights in messing with you in some hilarious ways, by either infecting you with psychosis, with your screen distorting and a frightening “Skinner-man” character who will leap at you from the shadows. Is he even there? Who knows.

In an even funnier move, you’ll also see other players from your team walking around, but if you pay attention, their gamertag won’t look quite right. Surprise, it’s an evil doppelganger with a surprise shanking in store. Spotting one making a beeline for you is always an “ARGHHH” moment.

It’s not just crazy psychopaths lurking in the darkness either. There is at least one more “Prime Asset” wandering the level on the hunt for you and your crew, be it a crazed highway patrolman with a voltage addiction or a lady with a seriously deadly Mr Flibble-meets-power drill persona.

While you can hide in lockers, or in a nearby dustbin (that’s a garbage can for you Americans) the psychos roaming the halls can and will yank you out and give you a good stabbing if they find you. Despite the threat, the AI can be thwarted pretty easily just by running circles around them, vaulting over desks, and creeping around in the dark.

If you are caught, your teammates can kick or stun them to help you out in a jam, even as far as throwing bottles or bricks to distract or knock over the enemy and allow for escape. Levels are littered with with a variety of pick ups, from antidotes to psychosis, revival syringes, health drinks, lock picks and more.

The AI controlled hunters also have a tendency to be easily outwitted just by closing a door or rounding a corner and crouching down in the dark. Not that player movement is particularly swift; you have stamina to manage, and initially, it can feel quite tank-like in the way the player character can actually move, but your move set can be upgraded to feel a little more agile over time.

The settings for the trials themselves are fairly unique, from a creepy orphanage, an abandoned and quite derelict police station, a fun park, courthouse and more. Objectives can range across a collection of activities from starting generators, flipping switches and digging through mutilated corpses for keys.

A Laugh in the Dark

I think I mentioned I don’t like horror games, generally – they’re just not my jam. And yes, the first time I settled in for an Outlast Trials session with my pals, (who also don’t really play horror games), there was much screaming and abject terror when we first got going.

Giant hulking goons chasing us down? The organisation was minimal, the fear palpable. I think I spent many a time watching a team-mate be brutally bludgeoned to death while I peeked out from a large wooden box. After a while though, you do become desensitised to it all – and it becomes, well – it becomes fucking hilarious. I don’t know yet how much longevity the game has come full release on console, but for horror fans and co-op fans, I suspect they’ll find something to really love here.

There was raucous laughter throughout the sessions, even when it ends in abject failure, and of course come round two and beyond, teams can become far more organised. Further sessions reduce that fear of being ‘the hunted’ further, and then it really does become an escape room in all but name – yes, it can be gruesome, yes, there are jump scares, but it’s still a bloody good laugh with friends, and in a world lacking genuinely new ideas, I’ve got to give Red Barrels credit for doing something seriously cool, in a unique and very “Outlast” kind of way.

Outlast Trials may not be for everyone, but I feel confident in saying that those that do love it, will really love it, and considering Red Barrels approach to listening to player feedback throughout it’s early access, it’s sure to be a worthwhile investment.