The Outlast Trials

It all began with a DLC that never happened. In December 2017 Red Barrels explained that add-on content did not fit Outlast 2, where the player is like a rat in a maze, and promised something many players had asked for, a separate game in the Outlast universe. In 2019 it was revealed as a prequel to both games.

If the earlier games were movies, the studio says, this one is more of a TV series. The pandemic pushed the release out of 2021, the game opened in early access in May 2023 and fully launched on March 5, 2024.

Company does not scare everyone. Two reviewers felt co-op blunts the horror, and several others complained that maps and objectives repeat quickly. Others praised the fun with friends. Players leave 92% positive out of 101,306 reviews, critics give it 69 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #1,941 of 4,736 games.

Liked it? Try Outlast, where a journalist sneaks into a psychiatric hospital in the Colorado mountains, and Outlast 2, where a cameraman searches for his wife in a cult village in Arizona.