The Outlast Trials

Finding this gem of a game after putting 1000 hours into dbd is like drinking cold water after walking through a desert

Where do I even begin with this game… I didn’t want to make a review this heated and angry about a game I have spent my time and money on but I just cannot resist any further than I have to express the anger and hate I have for it. I loved the original Outlast and it’s DLC Whistleblower. The game understood horror. They put you in the shoes of ordinary, vulnerable guys with nothing but a camera, dropped you into nightmarish environments, and made every shadow, every distant scream, and every creaking door feel like a genuine threat. The tension came from smart design, atmosphere, and the constant fear that you were one bad decision away from something awful happening. It was raw, it was personal, and it actually scared you. Outlast 2 already showed cracks in the foundation. It leaned harder into shock, gore, and religious trauma, but it often felt more frustrating than frightening. Sections turned into trial-and-error slogs, the pacing dragged in places, and the scares started feeling more like cheap jumps and gross-outs than genuine dread. It was still playable and had moments, but it was clear the devs were drifting away from what made the first game special. The Outlast Trials is where they completely lost the plot. This game is a steaming pile of live-service bloat dressed up as co-op horror. It takes everything that made the series work and replaces it with artificial difficulty, inconsistent design, and systems that feel like they were added because “other games do it.” The result is a title that frustrates and annoys far more than it ever inspires real, heart-pounding, anxiety-inducing fear. Let’s start with the AI, because it’s one of the biggest offenders. The enemy AI in The Outlast Trials is a complete joke. It’s not proximity-based in any meaningful way. It just knows where you are. You can be crouched in a vent across the map, making zero noise, and Ex-Pops and/or Prime Assets will magically path straight to your exact location, camp objectives like they’re getting paid to ruin your run, and grapple you out of animations or mid-jump even when you have amps or prescriptions equipped. It doesn’t feel like hunting deranged test subjects. It feels like fighting psychic roombas with anger issues and wallhacks. Compare this to actual good AI in horror and action games. In Alien: Isolation, the Xenomorph is a masterclass. It sniffs, listens, learns your hiding patterns, checks lockers and vents you’ve used before, and adapts. It doesn’t need to cheat—it outsmarts you through proper sensory systems and behavior. The tension comes from knowing it’s hunting intelligently. Left 4 Dead 2’s AI Director is another gold standard. It dynamically adjusts hordes, special infected spawns, and pacing based on how well (or poorly) you’re doing. It creates genuine drama and keeps every run feeling fresh without ever feeling unfair or scripted. The Trials AI does none of this. It’s either brain-dead predictable or blatantly cheating, and neither feels scary—just annoying. The level design is equally incompetent and inconsistent. Some trials start simple and straightforward, then devolve into confusing, samey mazes where every corner looks identical and you’re squinting in the dark trying to figure out where to go. Key objectives are often funneled into obvious choke points that scream “camp here.” Puzzles feel deliberately padded and overly complicated for the sake of artificial longevity rather than clever design. They drag on while the AI camps the area, turning what should be tense moments into exercises in frustration. Sound design is another mess. Everything is too damn loud at times. Maybe it could very well just be me but certain effects are ear-grating and genuinely unpleasant. The audio doesn’t build atmosphere or dread—it just assaults you. You can’t even concentrate properly because the mix is all over the place. Good horror sound design (again, look at Isolation or even the first Outlast) uses silence, subtle cues, and dynamic layering to make you paranoid (the enemies themselves especially having their own unique themes too to add into the horror surrounding each specific character I.E. Eddie, Trager, Variants, the Walrider, or the big man himself, Chris Walker). This game just turns the volume up and calls it tension. And then there’s the complete failure to deliver actual scares. The game can be creepy in rare moments. There are occasional spikes of tension. But real, sustained, anxiety-inducing fear? Almost nonexistent. It relies on gratuitous nudity, swearing, shock value, edge, and gross-outs instead of building genuine dread. People call this scary? This is what “scary” has become? We went from whimpering in a locker while the Alien stalked the halls in Isolation to this. It’s a joke. The high difficulties (Intensive and especially Psychosurgery) are borderline unplayable. They crank enemy spawns, limit your inventory, extend rig cooldowns, and add extreme psychosis on top of the already broken AI and level design. It doesn’t feel like a fair challenge that rewards skill—it feels like the game punishing you for daring to play on the highest settings. And good luck getting a consistent grade. You can play brilliantly, take minimal damage or accidentally trigger sound traps, solve everything efficiently, and still only get an A instead of the A+ you earned on previous runs. The scoring system is hideously inconsistent and feels spiteful. Invasion mode is dead on arrival. It was a bad idea from the start in a game built around PVE. Balancing is terrible on both sides—Reagent teams can spam items and quit with zero consequences, while Imposters camp and grief with little recourse. It’s poorly balanced because the core game is already poorly balanced. It attracts sweaty tryhards who abuse the jank and drives everyone else away. Even small additions feel misguided. Adding ranged enemies (I.E. Franco and the Pitcher) completely breaks the close-quarters vulnerability that defined the series. Outlast was never about getting sniped from across the map while trying to solve a puzzle in the dark. It shows the devs either didn’t understand or didn’t care about preserving the core fantasy. And we can’t ignore the problem surrounding the fact that they used AI-generated art. Red Barrels was caught using generative AI for a significant number of assets—posters, paintings, textures, and more throughout the environments. Community backlash was swift. There are Steam discussions, Reddit threads, a Nexus Mods mod that removes and replaces over 200 AI assets with human-made ones, and even petitions asking for fan art to replace the slop. The studio eventually added a disclosure on the Steam page after initially downplaying it. It’s lazy, it cheapens the world, and it’s especially disappointing from a studio that once had such a strong visual identity. When players are modding out your art because it looks like soulless AI garbage, that’s a problem, especially if you were caught lying about it too. At its core, The Outlast Trials feels like a live-service cash grab that forgot why people loved the series in the first place. It trades dynamic, intelligent systems and genuine fear for artificial difficulty, padding, and half-baked multiplayer experiments. The early hours can hook you with the familiar Outlast aesthetic, but it doesn’t take long for the frustration to set in and the fun to die. By the time you’re grinding the same padded trials with cheating AI and inconsistent everything, you’re just tired and want it to be over. I wanted to like this. I really, really, really did. As someone who still thinks fondly of the first game and Whistleblower, watching the series turn into this was genuinely disappointing. There are glimmers of what could have been, but they’re buried under so much bad design that it’s not worth digging for. I do NOT recommend this.

I'm leaving this as a negative recommendation not because the game is bad, I actually adore this game, which is why I don't want Red Barrels to avoid the slack they should get for using AI. This game has a wonderfully creative team, in both art, and especially writing. It hurts me to see a team like that supporting generative AI which is threatening the livelihood of creative people, in addition to it's harmful effects in several other areas of the world. This game is truly spectacular, it has amazing writing, amazing human made art, and gameplay that feels like it was tailored to be some of my favorite gameplay on the market, which is why I will continue to play. I beg for Red Barrels to hire freelance artists to do work they don't personally wish to do, I would have 0 issues and nothing but praise for the game if that were the case. (for consumer reference, Red Barrels uses AI for background framed photos such as painting, and some in trial posters. Red Barrels has a talented art team who have drawn many many assets for the game but despite profits on Outlast Trials, have not outsourced to replace AI assets) Please please please please please Red Barrels, remove AI from the Outlast Trials!

This is a really good game [h1] BUT [/h1] [b]if you want to have fun do not turn on or play invasion, this gamemode is not fun at all and unbalanced with no depth to it, you have to play meta or you'll just get exit camped[/b]

I've been playing The Outlast Trials a lot lately, and honestly it's one of the best co-op horror games I've played in a long time. The game perfectly mixes horror, stealth, and teamwork. Unlike the previous Outlast games, you can play with friends, which somehow makes things both funnier and way more terrifying. The atmosphere is incredible. The environments are dark, disturbing, and detailed, and the sound design deserves a lot of praise because every noise keeps you on edge. The game does an amazing job of making you feel stressed and immersed without relying too much on cheap jumpscares. The trials themselves are creative and challenging, and the progression system gives you plenty of reasons to keep playing. Unlocking new upgrades and customizing your character adds even more replay value. Overall, The Outlast Trials is an excellent horror experience whether you're playing solo or with friends. If you're a fan of survival horror, stealth gameplay, or just want a game that will genuinely make your heart race, I highly recommend giving it a try.

Can't believe they ruined the game by using gen AI. So completely stupid because there are so many talented artists who would be willing to do the art they claim they're using AI for. Nobody wants soulless slop from a machine in their game about corruption, power, and control over society through exploitation, capitalism, and human greed. Pull yourselves together Red Barrels it's seriously embarrassing.

i play funny trials, i enjoy funny trials, my friends enjoying funny trials. i hear scary alarm. PTSD. Jaeger. i run away. i cry. i piss and poop myself. not funny anymore. (i love Jaeger tho)

Fun co-op horror game to play with friends. Maps and puzzle like objectives are pretty fun to figure out. Getting chased and trying to get away quickly or trying to aim your brick for a headshot can be quite a rush, especially at higher difficulties. The only sad part is that this game has a quite high entry price making it hard to just pick up and try out as well as finding friends that want to pay the same amount. Be aware if you plan to play this without friends: The trials are made with co-op in mind so solo trials can feel a bit awkward where you keep getting chased away from an objective and then have to circle back around. Playing public matches can be rather frustrating as a new player if there's a high level player in your lobby. High level players will most likely just beeline sprint to an objective and do it before you get a chance to even understand it. It can be rather frustrating to walk around aimlessly while not knowing what you're supposed to do. Some experienced players are nice and will ping objectives for new players but this is less common. If you see at least one high level player just dodge the lobby. Recommended with friends. Otherwise try to play every trial solo on introduction difficulty and then play public match once you've done every map once.

this game is so cozy and gives me warm fuzzy feeling especially in the orphanage section .

they used ai for a lot of art in the game. do better.