Who doesn’t love a good horror game and maybe The Outlast Trials could be? There are plenty of games on the market that try their best to provide a good jump scare or lasting scary experience, and that was what I was hoping for from the new Outlast instalment, The Outlast Trials. The Outlast series has been around for a while now and offer players horrifying experiences all set in different environments and time periods with different elements to get the blood pumping.
I saw a gruesome trailer on YouTube the other month and knew it was a game that I wanted to get my hands on and experience. It reminded me of Saw from some of the gameplay, and when I read up about it, I was surprised to see that this one was going to be an online co-op game. If done right, this could be brilliant and a new way forward for horror games, so did it live up to my expectations? You’ll have to wait till the end to find out.
As mentioned, The Outlast Trials is a cooperative first-person psychological survival horror video game developed and published by Red Barrels. This is the third instalment in The Outlast series and will be released on consoles when the game fully releases. This is good as it will allow for cross-platform features. At the moment, I believe you can only play with others on Steam early access, but there are enough players on at the moment, so finding people to team up with isn’t a problem.
You can team up with three other players for a party of four to participate in various trials that will challenge you. The game is set in the same universe as the other games in the series and takes place during the Cold War era, the year 1959. Your character is a test subject and imprisoned in a secret facility.
You’re tasked with taking on Trials that can be tackled alone or in a group and will take you to settings that have been built to replicate real-world environments. If you manage to complete trials, you get taken back to the test facility where you can rest, customise your character and cell, and obtain items that can be used to help with future trials.
The Outlast Trials throws you into Saw-like scenarios where you have to work together or alone to complete various puzzles to complete the trial earner survival and a chance to escape back to your cell to fight another day. You don’t really get any weapons either, you will get various perks and objects that you can use to aid you and your team or distract the AI for a while but nothing spectacular enough to kill off any of the enemies you come across.
There are various traps, obstacles, and plenty of nut jobs that stand in your way, and finding recourses will help keep you alive long enough to complete the trials. You will find med kits that will heal you from the Poison gases and any damage you receive, batteries to recharge your night vision goggles, and a plethora of other things that will hopefully give you the edge when completing tasks.
Playing solo does feel more of a challenge and takes longer to complete a trial but I prefer playing solo as you get a better horror vibe than if you go in with three other people as they can just run off at their own leisure and complete the trials without you. Not to mention alert all the AI to your location and make things more of a challenge. The AI is both good and bad, good because they bring character and a sense of panic to a trial but bad as they feel super buggy, dumb, and not that scary when playing with others.
There are some cool characters and if they get improved before the final release then they could be something to watch out for but at the moment they can bug out and you can lose them by jumping over a table, which gives a new meaning to giving someone the slip.
I’m all for gore and horror but sometimes you can go overboard and I feel like The Outlast Trials is on the edge. I don’t mind the whole putting your hands inside someone to receive keys or seeing someone get put into a grinder but one trial has you recreate a crucifixion and another has you electrocute someone to death. It just feels a bit much at times even more so when you get penises thrown in your face time and time again. It just feels forced and it made me feel a bit uncomfortable when playing.
You gain XP by completing Trials and these can be spent on upgrades for your character that can be purchased from the hub area. Here you can go to your cell, interact with the various vendors and arm-wrestle your fellow inmates. You will also be able to unlock cosmetics and decorate your room so that it feels more homely.
Graphically the game is brilliant and I love the voice acting for the AI and the environments that the trials are set in. They help elevate the whole experience, I love how crazy some of the AI enemies are, my favourite has to be the ones that spray you with poisonous gas which makes your character hallucinate and see crazy things. It looks amazing running at max setting on my PC and I can’t fault the game when it comes to the environment and detail.
The sound design is another strong point, hearing the AI does put you on your toes when traversing the levels and again the voice acting is spot on. You get a whole different feel when playing the game solo as these sounds and voice acting hit differently and do make you feel vulnerable and helpless.
There is an element of replay value as you can replay trials solo or with others, and there are more difficulties that you can try when completing trials. The harder the difficulty, the more enemies, traps, and fewer hiding points there will be in the levels making it harder. If the AI wasn’t as buggy, I think the harder difficulties could be more challenging but you’re able to lose AI easily and they do bug out and stick to annoyingly node paths.
The multiplayer element, for me, is the only reason I’m playing at the moment as I have completed the trials that are on offer but, when you play with others, it feels like a different playthrough each time as not everyone plays the same. There are also collectibles scattered around the levels for you to find and pick up which adds a bit more to the playthrough of the trials. Though comparing it to other early access games, I do feel like it is lacking at the moment and would hope they add more soon to keep me playing.
Closing Statement
The Outlast Trials is a fun experience but sadly for me, the horror element falls flat when you are playing with others. It’s weird because playing alone you get the suspense and horror feel but it takes twice as long to complete trials and is relatively harder, but when you add the multiplayer elements, your team can just run off ahead and complete everything without you getting a chance to take part.
If you do manage to get a team that works through the trials with you then you can complete them quite quickly and makes the AI enemies feel like a waste of space rather than a challenge to overcome. The AI, I feel is quite buggy at the moment and if you aren’t playing solo don’t really offer the scare factor I was hoping for, they are nut jobs and create a good atmosphere but become more of a pain than an asset.
The current levels in the game, even though they are different environments do feel similar in the puzzles they have you complete but do offer a good starting point for the devs to work off of. I will be keeping a close eye on The Outlast Trials to see if it changes or evolves leading up to its release but currently, it doesn’t wow me like I was hoping would.
The Outlast Trials Trailer
Read more previews here https://invisioncommunity.co.uk/category/previews/
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