Huh? No this doesn't make any sense. Forgive me, I see to have messed up my schedule of games and included a title from years back, only this couldn't be that Outlast, could it? The game that literally made me cry in terror the first time I played it, then cry in boredom when I played the sequel? (Seriously, why did Outlast 2 suck so bad? I don't get it.) This couldn't be the same series, could it? The only reason I find myself incredulous, reader person, is because there's no way on this green earth that the folk in charge would make their next game within that universe, a celebrated actually-scary horror universe, a multiplayer game. That would just be crazy talk, right? Someone tell me I'm right. I NEED TO BE RIGHT! Ugh, this is going to take some explaining I think, let's wrap.
First off, 2013's Outlast was important for horror, and I mean really important. Sure, the first serious budget-backed first person horror title of the modern age likely goes to 'Amnesia: The Dark Decent', a seriously influential game, but Outlast was the game that seemingly perfected that formula. Whilst 'Amnesia' laid the framework, Red Barrels took that and painted their own freakin' Mona Lisa, they rocked the first person Horror scene like no other. (Just to be clear, I'm talking about figurative framework. I'm not accusing Red Barrels of absconding with Amnesia's resources.) Amnesia was scary for the time, it was, but Outlast hit different, it felt sharper. Whereas Amnesia used it's slightly janky presentation to it's advantage, earning this allure of an unburnished out-of-the-mainstream game where anything could happen, Outlast wore a sleek sheen of a quality product and still managed to terrify people. So Amnesia was definitely the grandfather of this game style, but Outlast felt like the next generational step forward, one that played homage to it's routes, but was ready to blaze it's own trail.
Now I wouldn't go so far as to say that every great game to follow out of the horror world owed it's routes to Outlast, I mean who could say if PT and Resident Evil VII would have happened the same way that they did, but Outlast served as ample example to everyone how to make a horror game right. They erred towards the 'helpless protagonist' angle, wherein the only acts the player could go through to survive was run and hide; (simple, but effective) they based the action in a traditionally spooky environment that could conjure most of the unnerve without the team's active attempts; (Abandoned Asylum, classic) and kept the gameplay cramped and claustrophobic in order to play off that feeling of there being 'no escape'. Basically they went down the playbook and ticked all the boxes, but they did it with such style that it didn't feel generic and derivative. The sequel, on the otherhand, tried to be more adventurous and sort of lost track of what it wanted to be, which why I'm understandably dubious whenever I hear talk about a return to Outlast that is as wildly out of left field as this appears to be.
The Outlast Trials purposes to take the most overused trope in Horror franchises to date and go back to a prequel story. (Sorry, sorry. I promised myself I'd give a little room before I got unbearably jaded.) We're being thrown back to the happy-go-lucky years of the Cold War, wherein Red Barrels' 'Umbrella Corporation' analogue, The Murkoff Corporation, were conducting highly unethical experiments on people with no clear motive. (As of yet.) Judging from the incredibly limited information at our disposal I can only assume that they nicked the 'Resident Evil Resistance' model of "Stick a bunch of teens in a ratmaze with monsters in it and see how they do." Which to me seems like freeform experimentation utterly lacking in any remote controls or measures that would make the resultant data even remotely usable. (But that's just me.) Then again, given Outcast's penchant for the macabre and sometimes even down-right gore, perhaps this direction has more in common with the later Saw movies. (Who knows, maybe this will accidentally turn into the first decent Saw game.)
So far so average, you may be thinking. It's cold-war era experimentation; that sounds distant, yet cautionary, enough to serve as a decent horror setting. What's my gripe? Well, it all comes down to the mechanics behind that setting because, according to Steam, this is going to a cooperative horror experience with up to four friends. (Sort of robs the 'helplessness' and 'loneliness' angles from the premise right away, doesn't it?) Now I will commend the team's restraint, my first terrified thought was that this would turn into another bloody asymmetric multiplayer mode, but it seems that might not be the case right away. (I mean, they've told us so little that they literally could reveal that down the line and shock us all in the worst possible manner, but I'm willing to believe that's not the case. Please don't be the case.)
Instead the game is said to feature up to four players as the try to survive the, likely sick and twisted, experiments put on by their captors. So think less 'Friday the 13th the game' and more... Okay, I'm struggling here... 'Killing Floor'? Only without the guns and instead more running and hiding? So actually nothing like 'Killing Floor' then? It's an odd concept that the team haven't really done the best job of conveying, you know with their entirely cinematic reveal trailer which reveals nothing but the game's most basic premise. (There's a time and a place for cinematics, team, this wasn't it.) So right now we're sitting at a period in time where we don't even know if this is going to be a 'multiplayer match' kind of thing, like I've been operating under the assumption of, or if there's going to be a linear narrative that the players are expected to follow. Personally, I find that second option more intriguing whilst acknowledging that it would be worlds more taxing for the Devs. (So I'll put that under the 'unlikely' pile of possibilities.)
So with as little as we have to go on, what do I expect for this game? Well all I have to base my opinion on is my limited experience with the Devs on the Outlast franchise, and that's the reason why I have to settle on a distinct lack of optimism for this title to be anything good, let alone worthy of dragging the Outlast name back into the spotlight. It's a potentially bold concept that I can see some great developers doing great things with, but I just don't trust these guys to step too far out of their comfort zone, they've failed that test before. Now, as I understand it this is a smaller project that's being developed alongside of Outlast 3 (Which simply must be VR compatible, guys! You're shooting yourselves in the foot if it's not.) so I'm willing to give them this learning experience. Maybe they'll blow all us stupid doubters away.
Overall, I'd be lying if I said I was happy to hear the Outlast name is back in this particular usage. In fact, perhaps I'd have preferred if this game didn't exist and all effort was being put into making Outlast 3 as good as it can be, but making do with what we have sometimes means given a try to thinks we don't necessarily love. Admittedly, you could probably trace a big part of my reticence back to my plain lack-of-a-use for co-op games, but that's still where I'm at and I'm willing to bet that once we see an actual gameplay trailer my beliefs will only be cemented. Good luck to anyone brave enough to given an adventurous game a shot, because I don't have that sort of disposable income. Yet despite all I've said, in the Interest of being fair, I do hope the game is good and get's an audience. Any indie title deserves that at least.
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