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I very nearly stayed up all night playing The Outlast Trials on my first outing with it yesterday, so that alone is worth a recommendation, but a lot of reviews so far aren’t really getting to what’s in this game, so I’ll take you on the tour of what I’m referring to as “Outlast-lite”.
The Outlast Trials (TOT) is a cooperative survival horror game. You and (optionally) up to three other players (friends, randoms or a mix) are thrown into spooky trials under the auspices of test subjects undergoing “therapy” at the hands of the Murkoff Corporation. You're given gruesome tasks to complete and you do these while avoiding or managing enemies that wander the maps. To aid you through this, you’ll find items sprinkled throughout the levels, and, additionally, you can select a loadout of perks and permanent upgrades that give you special abilities and boosts that you upgrade between missions, giving players the motivation to keep replaying maps.
And replay maps you will. TOT has three primary big narrative story maps that’re absolutely super. You’re never overloaded with story, but the primary antagonist of each scenario is clearly presented, and the horror of what’s being asked of you is always deliciously entertaining. Furthermore, there’re six shorter missions that take place in a different map within a similar tileset to the primary ones. These don’t have as much story but do give the same gameplay taste and I thought they worked well as additional content that didn’t require as much development time. Finally, TOT offers a higher difficulty option for all the levels (though you unlock many of these later on), which adds difficulty modifiers (more damaging enemies, more traps, fewer items, etc.) that I think a lot of the levels really need once you get a bit of experience with the game.
TOT is very much “Outlast-lite”. It has all the gruesome themes of the previous Outlast games, but what made the originals scary is precisely because you’re all alone in them. In TOT, there’s always another player near enough to bail you out of the messes you get yourself into. Even if you get downed you just go “oh well” and wait for someone to pick you up. Enemies never really scare you per se because you get fairly adequate warning that one’s seen you (even if you can’t exactly figure out where they are) and you can simply leg it for a room or two and then hide in a cupboard until they get bored and leave you alone. There’s the odd jump scare when a monster hiding in a locker throws itself out at you, or a gas pipe goes off next to you, but they’re very mild compared to the jump scares in the original games. Small caveat is that the tutorial is exclusively played solo and is arguably the scariest level in the game because of it, but if you can push through that then the rest is very manageable.
However, TOT being Outlast-lite is possibly the exact twist that you, the nervous and anxious reader that prefers not to play horror games, needed to enjoy the series. You can simply cling together with your friends as you shuffle around the levels, constantly chattering for comfort as you go. That said, TOT is good at forcing players to split up, and the obtuse map design can make it difficult to meet back up again, particularly when you factor in the enemies roaming around, but I maintain that TOT’s scare factor is generally much milder than its predecessors.
TOT’s most challenging element is navigating your way around. Each run at a level randomises some map elements including available pathways, breakable/trapped doors, objective locations and enemy spawns, so you’re always orienting yourself around the specific layout you get each time. Map design itself is deliberately obtuse as several objectives require you to search the area to find objects you need to progress, and it’s stunningly easy to get lost. No doubt experienced players will learn the maps in time, but starting out you’ll get lost a lot, and I think that’s all part of the fun. The voice chat works perfectly so you can ask others for help when you get stuck, or use the radial communication menu for a similar effect.
Map layout aside, TOT isn’t that challenging with a bit of experience. You only really get in trouble if you end up facing multiple enemies at once, mistakenly end up in a dead end, or get hit by traps while trying to escape an enemy. The harder difficulties punish mistakes more by making enemies do more damage, or by restricting your resources, but nothing is that challenging with a few hours under your belt.
I’m not super qualified to talk about the solo experience (I’ve done 3 maps solo), but I can tell you there’s a degree of scaling on the objectives (i.e. you do fewer), and you get several lives to retry a map with if you die (because there’s no one to pick you up like in multiplayer). It works fine, but the game does feel like it was intended to be played multiplayer. You should be able to test this within the steam refund period if you want to try it out (should be enough time for the tutorial and one level at least).
Performance-wise, PC gamers have “enjoyed” a slew of unoptimised messes lately, but Red Barrels has pulled through with a beautifully optimised experience. It’s not bug free by any means, and some interactions get a bit quirky in moments, but my playthroughs have been really smooth. Very impressive stuff for releases at the moment. Furthermore, TOT is listed as Early Access, but there's a decent amount of gameplay here if you don't mind redoing the levels on the harder difficulties, and the whole package is so well put together I honestly feel they could've full released TOT as is and it'd have been acceptable.
TOT’s only major stumbling block is that the matchmaking’s a bit of a mess. It works fine (and is very quick at the moment), however, it doesn’t always put you with groups that’re looking for the level you’ve selected to play. Instead, you’re often thrown in with a group that’s picked an entirely different level and you have to leave and search again, which you might have to do several times to get what you’re looking for. This is fine if you don’t mind playing any random level, which I am sometimes in the mood for, but, particularly if you’re trying to do a specific one, it can get a bit frustrating.
Overall, I was very sceptical that a design like TOT would work, but developer Red Barrels have absolutely smashed it out the park. Arguably a better experience with friends, but I've played a majority of my games with randoms and I've had a lot of fun. What’s available at the moment is really impressive and I hope that they release more trials and challenges to build on this excellent foundation. If you’ve been nervous about playing a game in the Outlast universe then this is easily the most accessible because you can get others involved to help you.
Final note: the arm wrestling minigame in the lobby area is surprisingly entertaining.