Red Barrels was founded in 2010, and to date the developer has been known exclusively for developing the Outlast franchise. Its latest game, The Outlast Trials, will be the follow-up to its two previous successful survival horror releases, Outlast and Outlast 2.

However, the series’ third installment will represent a significant departure from its established formula by prioritizing its multiplayer mode (although a singleplayer mode will apparently still be available). This change could provide an interesting new style of play for Outlast fans, but also means The Outlast Trials faces a challenge in recapturing the terrifying horror experience of its predecessors.

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How Outlast and Outlast 2 Terrified Players

Eddie Gluskin From Outlast Whistleblower

Red Barrels’ first game was released in 2013 for PC, with console ports for the PS4 and Xbox One following soon after. Outlast was a smash hit for a number of reasons, one of which was the ingenious decision to have many sections of the game take place in almost total darkness. Instead of equipping its investigative journalist protagonist with a torch to penetrate the gloom, Outlast instead gave the player only their trusty video camera’s night vision mode, offering a blurry monochrome view of the horrifying lunatics that stalked the player in the shadows.

The game was also a great early example of the then-popular horror gaming trend of featuring powerless protagonists, forcing the player to avoid combat altogether and instead focus solely on stealth mechanics. The terrified journalist could do nothing to battle the dangerous denizens of Mount Massive Asylum, and instead had to rely on creeping around and hiding in cupboards. One particularly memorable sequence involved the player being attacked from in front and behind in a corridor by two naked, machete-wielding maniacs, able to survive only if they launched themselves out of a nearby window.

Despite its lack of combat, the game still fiendishly repurposed the familiar survival horror mechanic of scarce resources to brilliant effect, by having the night vision camera operate on finite battery power. This forced the player to scavenge for fresh batteries as well as evading certain death at the hands of violent criminals, ratcheting the tension to almost intolerable levels.

Outlast 2 built on the success of the first game, revisiting the night-vision mechanic in an entirely new setting. This time, journalists Blake Langermann and his wife Lynn did battle with a deranged religious cult in the wilderness of northern Arizona. The developer flexed its creative muscles by switching a claustrophobic asylum for open, pitch-black spaces and creepy cornfields.

The games received positive reviews, although Outlast 2’s reception was more mixed than its lauded predecessor, perhaps because the novelty value of its night-vision premise had started to wear thin. However, the titles were successful enough to spawn further releases, including The Outlast Trials, as well as a full sequel, Outlast 3, which is reportedly in development.

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The Outlast Trials: Replicating its Predecessors' Horror

the outlast trials release date co op enemies

The Outlast Trials is perhaps adopting a multiplayer approach in an attempt to refresh the franchise’s night-vision formula, but this could bring new challenges in attempting to achieve the same heights of horror as its predecessors. A key component of many successful horror games is their immersion — making the player truly believe they are in a desperate, terrifying situation, facing frightening monsters or bloodthirsty enemies with scant resources at their disposal. Having other players involved in the action can undermine this significantly.

An example of this is in the asymmetrical multiplayer title Friday The 13th, where one player controls the iconic slasher Jason Vorhees, while the other participants take on the roles of his hapless prey. The game promised a terrifying experience for those in the victims’ shoes, but the title was criticized for making it difficult to mute other players’ microphones, resulting in lots of amusing but immersion-breaking chatter from fellow competitors.

As opposed to online play, The Outlast Trials might also offer a local co-op mode. However, this approach is only likely to further exacerbate issues with immersion. Although diving into a horror game and being terrified by a series of jump scares alongside friends might make for a fun distraction, it is unlikely to be as memorable an experience as a solitary excursion into somewhere as terrifying as Silent Hill or Dead Space’s USG Ishimura, for example.

Indeed, the focus on co-operative play was one of the main reasons Dead Space’s third installment was less well received than its predecessors. Similar issues plagued Resident Evil 5, which is generally regarded as one of the weakest entries in Capcom's survival horror franchise. It seems that the involvement of other humans in a horror experience only ever serves to dilute its impact.

The Outlast Trials promises to be another commercial success for Red Barrels when it is released in 2022, and its focus on multiplayer could provide a fascinating new slant on its well-established night-vision survival horror gameplay. However, the new style could also backfire if it represents a major shift away from the terrifying games that have made the company’s name.

The Outlast Trials is in development, and will be released in 2022.

MORE: Multiplayer Horror Game The Outlast Trials Gets Terrifying Gameplay Trailer at Gamescom