Red Barrels has opened up about what’s next for its deliciously gory cooperative horror, The Outlast Trials.
In a Q&A posted to YouTube, director Alex Charbonneau and community manager Rosie Sarno explor how the game has changed between its early access release in May 2023 and the 1.0 update, which rolled out earlier this week, as well as field questions from the Outlast community.
Perhaps most notably, how you progress through – and escape – the Murkoff Corporation has been streamlined. Whilst previously you needed tokens from all the trials in Program X, now the bored guard sitting by the exit demands any 20 tokens from you, and how you go about acquiring them is up to you. No matter what trial or challenge you do – or the order in which you do them – you’ll always be working towards your hard-earned release.
As for those who prefer the lone-wolf approach?
“We’ve drastically made changes in the trial[s] so that when you play solo, it’s not necessarily easier, but much more accessible,” Charbonneau explained. “So we totally see people go through the entire Core therapy solo without a problem. Of course, it gets challenging over time, but nothing impossible as you will be making progress and unlocking new rigs, upgrading them, unlocking new amps, to help you out in later programs.”
With Season 1 set to drop later this year, the interview also revealed what’s coming up when the inaugural season goes live, including new trials, rig, amps, and rewards, too, including weekly challenges to force you out of your comfort zone and into a little experimentation of your own. Murkoff will be so pleased.
“The Outlast Trials is excessive and frantically enjoyable – but can occasionally tip over into frustration more than fear,” I wrote when I reviewed The Outlast Trials back when it was released in early access last year, awarding it three out of five stars.
“Chaos. There’s no other word for it. Some huge dude’s stomping around, just waiting for an excuse to fly into a rage if you move so much as an inch, and the teammate who just walked up to me turns out not to be a teammate at all but is instead their maniacal evil twin who plunges a knife into my guts. I try to run – even though I already know that running never, ever works out for me here – grabbing the film reel as I do so, only there’s a nun mannequin doing something so incredibly un-nunly in the middle of the table that I stop to gawp. She’s not… look, I know the Outlast games aren’t known for their subtlety, but she’s not doing what I think she is, is she?”