In a world of fear, distrust, and violence, sanity is bound to be made past tense in this madhouse of horror. The Outlast Trials is a new psychological horror game set in the era of the Cold War and is a member of the Outlast video game series. For those who do not know, Outlast is a first-person-perspective horror game that focuses on a “found-footage” narrative.
The plot of the game is currently unknown, but the main gist of it is that four players must navigate through a large labyrinth and complete tasks while being chased down by monstrous enemies. The players can’t fight back against them, though. The best they can do is temporarily stun them, making players rely on stealth more than combat.
Red Barrels may have gone above and beyond on this new piece of entertainment. Red Barrels is a private Canadian video game developer based in Montreal. Founded by Philippe Morin, David Chateauneuf, and Hugo Dallaire in 2011, the three were previously for Ubisoft Montreal and EA Montreal, before they all decided to leave their respective workplaces after Dallaire founded the concept of intellectual property in 2010. After the trio met up and began working together, they took two years to develop and publish the first Outlast game in 2013, before taking four years to develop its sequel.
At the current moment, the mechanics of the game are partially unknown. However, there are small details that hint at what the game’s mechanics may have in store upon its release through its trailer. For starters, the player will be able to play with four others, a new tradition unheard of for the one-player-only game series. Another deviation of the original game mechanics is that there are four classes the player can choose from, all of them being essential for the players to survive the maze. One mechanic that seems to work similarly to others in the previous games is that all of the player’s characters will be equipped with night vision goggles, which will allow them to navigate dimly-lit areas in the game, but those goggles need to be regularly recharged on a scarce battery resource.
To finish up, The Outlast Trials is a marvelous game that may become a new contender for the moniker of “Game of The Year.” The game comes out on March 5 and is available for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S for the price of $39.99.