Saw meets Cabin in the Woods in this excellent, co-op horror that hits every single high note.
Well, this was quite the unexpected treat. What a brilliant time I’ve been having playing this; something that was not at all on my radar.
I know this has been out a while on PC, but on PS5 this only released on the 5th of March 2024. We’re a bit behind the PC crowd here.
I’ve also not had a huge amount of experience with the Outlast franchise. I played a little bit of the first but never finished it; not out of not enjoying it, I just had other games out at the time. I’ll be heading back to what I’ve missed now, given how much I enjoyed The Outlast Trials.
Mother Gooseberry and a day’s work.
I would like to preface everything else that follows talking about The Outlast Trials with an apology. If you read this and you know all about the franchise and grit your teeth over me missing obvious references, that’s on me.
Were it not for a friend who was getting it and the lower entry price tag, I’d have skipped over it.
I am so glad I didn’t.
The Outlast Trials is just brilliant.
Seeing nothing but a lit cigarette in the dark really lets you know what you’re in for.
Co-op games that are straight up horror aren’t all that common and this one is great fun to play. A superbly crafted trifecta of fun with friends, tight and engaging gameplay loops and on-the-edge-of-your-seat tension.
The premise is quite simple: You and up-to three other players head into an area of a giant facility to conduct a preset mission, avoid the horrors on your way, complete some puzzles, finish the objective and scurry away again.
Simple. Effective. Tense. Fun.
The police station is a stand out among stand outs of map quality. Credit, Steam.
The tutorial launches you into a mansion mock-up built by the Murkoff Corporation inside their colossal Sinyala Facility. You explore, cover the bases of everything you’ll need to know, meet some of the game’s grunts and one of the prime assets (we’ll get back to them later) and generally get a feel for how this game’s loop will play out.
Once finished there, you’re taken to the game’s hub, the “sleep room.” Here you’ll be able to see and join other players, the engineer and the pharmacist (the game’s equipment, upgrades and skill vendors), play chess, arm-wrestle and, eventually, leave the facility as one of the “Reborn.”
Your goal is to become one of the reborn, you’re then free to leave through the serene corridor to the world.
For now, we’re here at the pleasure of the Murkoff Corporation and we need to complete some fairly morally dubious tests to earn XP, money and earn the release tokens. A train journey later and you’re transported to one of the game’s several areas. A courthouse, an orphanage, a mansion, a police station and a toy factory. These are fantastic, and despite being clear mock ups in a facility (there’s mannequins, “backrooms”, fake boards to depict trees and bushes, etc), they are just so expertly crafted.
The attention to detail is sublime; I could quite honestly gush about the maps all day. I’ve not found a single negative aspect to them. A perfect blend of hiding places, ways to break line of sight, but also dead ends if you don’t have your wits about you. I would hazard to say these are probably the best designed multiplayer maps I’ve ever seen; they are really that good.
The backrooms behind the mockups aren’t safe either.
Once said train stops, you and your buddies are in the proverbial belly of the beast. Mock ups of the aforementioned police stations, orphanages and more are your new Hell and you’re there until you finish the mission, or you die – and there is plenty here to harm, hamper, incapacitate, maim, kill and otherwise spoil your day.
Trials shines so bright in these missions.
The train that takes you between missions; horrifying on the way in, salvation on the way back.
Skulking around the mission areas, strewn with butchered bodies, roaming enemies and traps is tension so thick you could cut it with a knife. The gripping terror of sneaking through a dark room as the enemy hunts you down in the dark, your battery life on the night-vision goggles depleting, heartbeat racing, shaking hands clutching the brick in your hand, a fragile hope to escape a potential threat.
The missions have several enemies that either move around the map or hide, waiting for you to pass and they are crafted with exceptional balance and striking in their aesthetics.
The police station is one of the maps Leland Coyle patrols.
The base level enemy is the average grunt. Not terribly threatening in the grand scheme of things; easy to escape, relatively easy to challenge, pretty weak in terms of damage but even these at the bottom of the pile are particular danger in the wrong circumstances.
Where the unique enemies shine is in their ability to counter your usual actions. Pouncers, for example, can hide in lockers or around corners and leap at you, pinning you to the floor. Your usual hiding spaces can be traps, or being unaware of the warning signs as you focus on something else leads you blissfully unaware. These don’t feel cheap, though – in fact, the warning signs can be so loud in isolation as to be blaringly obvious, but as before in certain circumstances they can be a game-ending threat.
Pouncers leap from the places you usually find safety. Credit Steam.
That stands for all the enemies I’ve come across. The game allows dark to be a very successful hiding spot, for example, but the Night Hunter has the same night-vision goggles you do, easily exposing you. Seeing glowing green eyes peering at you in the gloom really does put the shivers up you, but it doesn’t feel unfair. They don’t do as much damage and can be distracted and stunned like some other enemies.
The big-bads here are the wonderful prime assets who are, essentially, bosses. The current pair are Mother Gooseberry – a deranged kids TV show host with a goose hand puppet with human teeth and a drill in its mouth – and Leland Coyle – a psychotic police sergeant with a shock baton he uses in… Let’s just say questionable ways.
Leland Coyle is a ferociously psychotic police officer.
These two are phenomenal. They look great, they’re threatening and they’re always around. High damage, long pursuit but quite easy to break contact with if you bolt and navigate well enough. There are also several “big grunts” – similarly quite easy to get away from but deal a lot of damage and one is blind so uses their hearing to swing wildly at whatever makes a noise.
Mother Gooseberry and her puppet, Doctor Futterman – a goose with a very nasty bite.
The enemy design is truly excellent, another element of the game the development team hit hard.
You do have a class you can pick that can provide various items to help you on your jolly trips out. One has a mine that detonates in a cloud of smoke that stuns enemies, another can see through walls and pick out enemies, another has a healing spray, etc. They’re powerful, can be upgraded for different benefits and really do help give you an edge.
These are supplemented by pick-ups you find through the world. Bottles of healing liquid, chargers for your night vision, adrenaline as well as options like bricks and bottles to stun an enemy briefly to get away or shake them off a teammate.
Cornelius Noakes is the engineer who helps upgrade your rig – an ability to help give you an edge in game.
The Outlast Trials is a truly great game and I’ve been having a really fun and tense time playing it. It has a tight, well-crafted and on-the-edge-of-your-seat gameplay loop with exquisite enemy and map design as well as unique objectives and smooth co-op.
This one’s been a most unexpected treat and whilst its undoubtedly knocked some years off my life, I absolutely recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of horrors or who wants a co-op game with a horror twist. So worth your time and a lower entry-cost to boot.
Read our other reviews here.
