Story:
The Outlast Trials story is that you are part of a scientific experiment. You’re injected with a serum that causes you to go into a psychosis, hunted by people who are experiments themselves, and tasked with essentially destroying your very existence. At the same time, you are trying to determine why you were chosen and plan your escape.
Gameplay:
The Outlast trial plays just like its predecessors. Played in a first-person perspective, you are given an objective that you must complete. For instance, the first one is to destroy your own personal private documents taking them from the desk and shredding them in a room down the hall. As easy as that might sound, it’s not. You see, while you complete these tasks like the one I mentioned, you are on a linear path. This linear path is riddled with dead-end rooms, halls with locked doors, and noise traps along the way. In this way, the game forces you to contend with the various enemies; like a lady that runs around wearing a head vice and carrying a large knife. Thankfully when you come across these enemies, you can go into the aforementioned rooms and hide in a closet or under the bed.
The locked doors, noise traps and various light sources are used to invoke the fear you will get when facing either this terrible lady or any of the other grotesque enemies you might come across. If you stand the light or make a lot of noise, enemies will hear you and they will hunt you down. Nothing like running across some broken glass down a hallway of locked doors and running into a lady with a knife. It truly is a stressful encounter when you run into these enemies so unexpectedly, especially when you’re focused on the task at hand.
This holds true for about the first few encounters. The reason I say this is because I found that the enemies aren’t as intelligent as you’re led to believe. So with the first task, you have with the lady attempting to stop you, if you run past her (walk really fast, with a heavy box, you can’t really run) and you shred it, turn and run down the hallway, she will just turn around and walk away. This behavior actually caught me off guard and I thought it was a fluke, but it’s not. The enemies only really seem to actively come after you if you’re near completing your objective, otherwise, they seem to give up chasing you almost immediately. The exception to this is the occasional passing through a room just so you know they are still in the area. This forces you to hide until they pass through. This becomes more of an annoyance than invoking any real fear the more this happens.
What makes the game so different from the previous games is that, unlike its predecessors, this game lets you play the game in online co-op. So you and a group of strangers or friends can work together to complete the trials that are set before you. Though the game does offer a unique co-op horror experience, each trial can be played solo if you’re up for the challenge.
What the game lacks in enemy AI, it makes up for in ambient sounds and the overall environment you’re thrown into.
Graphics and Performance:
Graphically speaking, the game is rather impressive. You find yourself in a house/building that is littered with manikins, body parts, and a ton of other various items scattered around. There are several dead bodies littered about in various states of mutilation and decomposition. Not to mention, everything is stained with blood. The bodies you come across are extremely detailed almost to the point of being downright disturbing. Blood splatter everywhere looks very realistic making you question the “research” that went into this game. All of the attention to detail that went into these set pieces and environmental factors make this game an extremely unsettling experience. Even with all of this attention to detail and all that is going on with this game, the game performs very well, as long as you know what your PC can handle. Bringing down the resolution while playing and locking my FPS at 30, made for a very smooth and great experience, with zero performance issues.
Sound:
The use of sound in this game is impressive and really adds to the creep factor. NPCs singing from another room, records playing in a room that you enter, and the sound of a baby crying, all help to instill the fear and uneasiness you feel while traversing this house of horrors. Occasionally you will hear the sound of something breaking in the distance. This signifies that the enemy is close and to be on your guard. All of this really adds to the creepiness, but the sounds of the NPCs locking a door behind you or dropping a gate down behind you are enough to make your blood run cold. Another thing that really sets the tone is the sounds that your characters themselves make while running away. You hear them running out of breath, screaming, their footsteps as they run down the hallway, and the effort they exert trying to slam a door, all help to give a sense of realism to the horrors this game puts in front of you.
Conclusion:
After playing the first game in the series and not playing the second, I had my reservations going into this game. The first game was rather unimpressive in nearly every aspect. Jump scares were predictable, enemy AI was unfair, and environments and environmental puzzles were predictable institutionally and at the same time difficult in their completion. This was mostly due to the enemy AI being borderline unfair.
The Outlast Trials has better enemy AI, unpredictable environmental elements and game mechanics that feel very fair and balanced. Regardless if you’ve played either of the previous games, you need to give this game a chance. What Resident Evil Biohazard did for the Resident Evil series, this game did for its series. This is a phenomenal survival horror game that every fan of the genre needs to play.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided
In addition to writing articles, Ryan Byers also creates content for his YouTube channel called "Obscure Games and Consoles", collects video games, and dabbles in video game development.