Outlast and Outlast 2 are two of the decade's scariest horror games, due to their graphic visuals and willingness to go to very dark places. When the next Outlast's development was confirmed in 2017, horror game fans began to wonder just what kind of nightmares developer Red Barrels would think of next. While Outlast 3 may be some distance out yet, it seems Red Barrels has a new nightmare to share in the meantime. Today the studio announced The Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials will be different from its predecessors in the Outlast franchise, however. Specifically, The Outlast Trials is a multiplayer game. According to Red Barrels, The Outlast Trials will allow players to "face the horrors that await" either by themselves or with fellow test subjects. The implication being that The Outlast Trials can be played either solo or cooperatively. More specific details, like whether there's a competitive element or how many players can group together, were not provided.
Red Barrels did provide a bit of backstory for The Outlast Trials, however. The game is confirmed to take place in the Outlast universe, though whether it'll tie into Outlast 3 or previous Outlast games wasn't said. The game will take place in the "Cold War era," which means it could take place anywhere between the 1940s through the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. In other words, who knows what Red Barrels is up to, but it probably won't involve a handheld camcorder.
The final detail that Red Barrels provided about The Outlast Trials is more of a clarification. The game's announcement came alongside the release of a teaser image featuring three men wearing odd night vision-like goggles. Fan reactions immediately questioned whether The Outlast Trials is a VR game, to which Red Barrels has confirmed, repeatedly, that it is not. The Outlast Trials will be playable much like previous Outlast games, assumedly.
For fans of the core Outlast series there's no need to fret. Outlast 3 remains planned. The Outlast Trials something Red Barrels is working on first, but it is still rather early on in development, however. Red Barrels says that the team has completed the "proof of concept" for The Outlast Trials and that "it is time to focus on content creation, variety... and gore." It definitely sounds like The Outlast Trials will be exactly what fans would want from such a game.
The Outlast Trials has no confirmed release window or supported platforms.