3.5/5 ★ – TheCriticalPandaBoi's review of The Outlast Trials.

So The Outlast Trials released a little bit over a month ago and I honestly think it’s the most fun Outlast has been. I don’t personally think it’s better than the first one, it’s masterful compared to the Whistleblower DLC and I don’t wanna acknowledge the existence of Outlast II if I’m honest. When it comes to the gameplay this time around, there’s actually enough here to talk about that’s very different for an Outlast game, so there’s actual benefits to talking about it this time. The gameplay isn’t going to blow your mind or make you feel a special type of way, this isn’t exactly Hi-Fi Rush but like I really do enjoy the nice little things they do different from other games. They’ve kept the night vision aspect from the previous games, as you’d imagine, they wouldn’t remove something they’ve become known for but I actually think it’s unique hare because instead of the camera this time around, we have goggles and we have to charge them with these charges? I don’t really know what they are but they charge up the goggles so you can see in the dark better and I prefer that over the constant hunt for batteries. While talking about items, you can actually carry a few items in your inventory slots, you have a maximum of 3 until you upgrade it so you can carry 4 things at once and these items are either resources for you to charge up your goggles or heal yourself up or they are throwables to kinda stun the bastard that is hunting you down, while no, you can’t fight back still, like you can’t kill the big naked man that’s probably got rule 34 art somewhere on the internet by throwing a brick at his head, but you definitely can stun them a bit. You can also level up your character and get XP so you can obtain points to either customise your little dorm room area in the main hub, you can also buy some cosmetic items with some in game currency that luckily you don’t have an option to buy on the PlayStation Store or the Steam store or wherever you purchase your Robux, all the currency can be gained and spent in-game which is preferred in my opinion. Also by levelling up your character, you are able to purchase these skills from a very pretty woman but we don’t need to get into looks, and they actually help improve your gameplay, you can unlock the ability to slide, like I said, you can get an extra inventory slot but your able to improve your stamina as well which is very nice. You’re also able to purchase these rigs that will also spice up your gameplay, you can pick between stun, blind, heal and x-ray, and they all have different functions but you also can’t abuse them since you get a lengthy ass cool-down as you’d expect in a game like this, me and my friend went with the healing one considering it heals both of us when we’ve both almost experienced death via Nanny McPhee. Every time you beat a trial, you build up these release tokens that will maybe finish the story? I haven’t done it yet since I’m on the last trial with my friend so I haven’t gotten it all done yet so someone who has played it and made it passed me then please do correct me. But then there’s just the core Outlast mechanics… just running and hiding. I don’t think I need to speak on the running too much because it’s been the same since 2013 but the stealth here actually feels very well defined with you having to be careful where you step otherwise 1. You could set off a trap or step on glass or 2. Get shouted at by your friend by setting off a trap or stepping on glass. The A.I. here is also very well advanced, they worked pretty well in the other games, minus a couple of bugs that were a little bit frustrating to say the least but I don’t actually recall any negative feedback that I have on how the enemies worked here. I always forget that Red Barrels is an independent game studio because this game looks major high budget and high quality, to my knowledge I encountered no glitches or bugs so it was just adding to my experience with it, and the graphics, Jesus Christ, for a multiplayer game, this looks very gorgeous. There’s actually a little bit of variety here too, granted, there’s currently 15 trials in the game, and I think there’s actually 5 or 6 different enemies which thinking about it is actually pretty underwhelming now that I have put that into perspective but I’d imagine that this is a game that will have multiple updates and have more trials added as it goes on so that’s subject to change. I think the most unique enemy was the one that shapeshifts into you or your friend and actually takes they’re gamer tag too, I have never seen that in a game before and it actually fucked with me multiple times. Speaking on the trials though, they are all very different and they have a great variety to them, but the problem with variety is that sometimes you’ll have good ones, sometimes you’ll have great ones and then sometimes you’ll have boring ones, all the trials in the court section were honestly very tedious and boring but then there’s the orphanage ones that i actually thought were very fun and different. A lot of the trials reminded me a lot of SAW if I’m honest, which Outlast had always had kinda a SAW vibe to it if you ask me and this really is no exception, if anything it just enhances the vibes that I got from it, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because I do enjoy SAW quite a lot. You can play these trials on core, those are normally the normal or standard difficulty but then there’s versions of them that you can play that’s enhances the difficulty like Advanced or Extreme and those are probably more for the hardcore gamers or the gamers who adore Outlast to that extent so I personally don’t see myself playing those per say but fair fucks whoever tries them. You have to beat the Core Therapy first so just know that before you get annoyed with them being locked. I’m not someone who has dived deep into the lore of Outlast, I’m sure it’s very interesting but all I know is that the fuckers who experiment on people is named Murkoff or something and I know this game is a prequel and takes place in the Cold War era but there’s documents and I’m sure videos online explaining the lore and how it connects to everything if your someone who’s into that. This game does depend on a few things though for you to fully enjoy it. 1. An internet connection and 2. Friends. This is very much made for a multiplayer experience but you can play it solo, it’s just not fun or scary to enjoy it solo in my opinion. I literally only played the tutorial solo since you’re not allowed to play with friends beforehand and I was actually bored out of my mind, I did not find it scary, I didn’t find it entertaining and I only played it for 30 minutes by that point, but once my friend played with me, I started having way more fun with it than I thought i would’ve. You can also do arm wrestling and chess in the main hub facility… I’m petty and constantly lose so I’m automatically gonna say I don’t like that. Anyways, I think I’ve talked about everything I needed to talk about? I’ve now reviewed every Outlast game so I’m satisfied. Overall, The Outlast Trials is a solid enough entry as long as you have friends to play it with, you can have up to 3 friends if your friend group needs something new to play, this is definitely something that’ll hold y’all over, especially if you need a break from your current addicted game, but if you are someone with not a lot of friends or even any friends then this might be disappointing.