You will be reborn.
— Hendrick Joliet Easterman in the Early Access Trailer
.
.The Outlast Trials is a co-op multiplayer Survival Horror game developed by Red Barrels, and is the third entry in the Outlast series. It was released in Early Access on May 18, 2023 for Microsoft Windows, and has fully launched on March 5, 2024 for Windows, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Playstation 5.
The game is a prequel, taking place in 1959 amid the Cold War. It brings players to the Sinyala facility, a facility belonging to the Murkoff Corporation, returning to the first game's claustrophobic setting, with a cooperative spin to it.
Players take on the role of a "Reagent," one of the many downtrodden individuals who were fooled by Murkoff's apparent offer of a new chance in life at their Charity Outreach Centers, who were subsequently kidnapped to be used as human guinea pigs for some of the company's extremely unethical experiments.
In contrast to the previous games' usual progression as a story, this one is divided into the titular Trials, which can be accessed through a social hub area, where players must survive countless horrors and hopefully complete their questionable objectives, as horrendous as they can be, so they can finally be given the approval to get out of the facility, but will they be the same by then?
The game provides examples of:
- The '50s: The game is a prequel that takes place in 1959, amid the backdrop of the Cold War.
- Ambiguous Situation: In the ending scene, how did the Player Character wake up in Cuba? How did they escape Sinyala? It is also implied that the reason they are covered in blood is because of an assassination, possibly one of the many failed attempts against Fidel Castro, considering their current location and Murkoff's ties to the CIA.
- Bittersweet Ending: The protagonist manages to survive all trials, and can now get out of the facility, but before that, a final trial has to be dealt with, and just when the player is heading to an exit, they find themselves walking above the waters of a seemingly endless ocean, then heads towards an intense light on the horizon, and once arriving, they somehow wake up on a hotel room in Cuba, covered in blood and visibly distraught, with chaos being heard from the streets. As the protagonist looks at their surroundings, the room's phone starts ringing, and when picked up, Easterman can be heard saying "Spider. Eye. Lamb.", a Trigger Phrase used by Murkoff, leading their sight to turn into a sickly green, with veins covering the walls, and the mentioned doctor appearing as their reflex in a window, showing that, although they are finally out of the facility, they have fully become a Reagent for the corporation.
- Averted in the new ending, in which the Reagent will end up as a suicide car bomber in Vietnam.
- Body Horror: The game has a first in the series of having a pair of night-vision goggles instead of a camera to help see in dark areas, but the intro cinematic involves the lovely experience of the former being firmly attached to the Player Character's face with a drill.
- The Ex-Pops don’t look any prettier, showing obvious signs of surgical modification and self-mutilation that makes them appear human in name only. Special mention to the Prime Assets, with Coyle having half his face melt off and Gooseberry sewing ‘’dead skin’’ to her face as a mask.
- Book Ends: The trials start with the reagent destroying the records of their previous life and the trials end with the reagent receiving (presumably fake) records for their previous life.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: The ex-pops.
- The Cameo: Dr. Wernicke appears behind a glass in the hub area, watching the reagents' activities from that room.
- Depraved Bisexual: Many of Leland Coyle's dialogue includes him making very sexually explicit advances towards the players. The mannequins having some burn marks on some peculiar places (and one of the cutscenes having him give a Groin Attack to a hapless victim) backs this up.
- Depraved Dentist: A rare female example with Mother Gooseberry, combined with Depraved Kids' Show Host.
- Depraved Kids' Show Host: Mother Gooseberry used to be one of these for dental work, and takes the "depraved" part with mercilessly slaughtering people.
- Faux Affably Evil:
- Mother Gooseberry seems to view the players as misbehaving children and has a motherly and educational tone of voice. This is in direct contrast to her puppet, who constantly insults and makes crude threats toward her and the Reagents.
- The Pusher pretends to be a doctor and tries to have the player sample his gas, which causes them to go into full Psychosis if caught.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Befitting an Outlast game, one of the big grunts is entirely naked.
- Gas Mask Mooks: The Pusher is a specialist mook that wears a gas mask and fumigates the player with gas that drains the player of their sanity if caught by him. He is also one of the more annoying mooks since kicking him off the attacked player will not prevent the sanity drain.
- Giant Mook: Big Grunts. They're tall, muscular Ex-Pops (some of whom carry axes) who can plow through locked doors with ease and knock players to the floor. They also deal twice the damage with every punch, so an encounter with one is best avoided where possible.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Easterman might be one for Outlast II, as a document implies one of his reagents is Sullivan Knoth, the Big Bad of that game, with descriptions and actions of the experiment victim all but outright confirming this. The same document also mentions that the Sinyala facility might be the same Murkoff building seen in that game, further implying this trope.
- Interface Screw: When your sanity is not full, the Skinner Man will start to pop out of nowhere to give the Reagents' jump scares, though it will only damage Reagents whose sanity is empty.
- Subverted with the Imposter ex-pops, who will have a scrambled version of a player's name. If players mistake it for an interface screw and does not evade the Imposter, they will end up being stabbed by the Imposter.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Berserker. While they are completely blind, they will quickly home in on you and deal serious damage should you make any noise near them.
- Made of Iron: A Reagent can end up with their heads crushed by a Big Grunt then being revived with a syringe.
- Manchurian Agent: It turns out the entire purpose of the titular trials is to create sleeper agents for suicide missions in places like Cuba or Vietnam. And if the endings are anything to go by, it ultimately succeeds.
- Meaningful Name: The Trials are officially called Project Lathe. Like a lathe, the project reshape the reangents.
- Mooks: The Ex-Pops (Experimental Population) function as hostile pursuers that are slightly weaker than the Prime Assets. They were former Reagents serving in Project LATHE, not unlike the Player Character themselves, before cracking under the pressure.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: All scientists in the Sinyala facility have this, but Easterman takes the spotlight by being responsible for the Trials. Wernicke averts it by being a genuine Doctor, who once worked with Alan Turing.
- Psychological Horror: The Skinner Man. He only appears when suffering from psychosis, however the damage he can do to you is very real. Whether or not he's a real entity revealed by the psychosis or simply a hallucination is left completely ambiguous.
- Ripped from the Headlines: The eponymous trials are heavily based, and in-universe actually part of, Project MK-Ultra a series of illegal human experiments conducted by The CIA from 1953-1973. The biggest difference is in universe The Project actually worked and led to the successful creation of Deep Cover Agents.
- Pragmatic Villainy: A memo reveals Murkoff is growing increasingly frustrated with Dr. Easterman's experiments, not for any humanitarian reason but rather because it's a massive drain on resources.
- Sanity Meter: The player has one, represented by three green bars that will drain when inhaled green gas, causing the player to slowly go insane. When you're down to one bar, enemies will look like your fellow players, and when the bar is fully depleted, the map will be covered in veins and you're chased by something called the Skinner Man, which will hunt you down and try to kill you unless you take an antidote to restore your meter or you survive long enough for the Skinner Man to leave.
- Schizo Tech: Despite the game being a prequel that takes place in the late 1950s, the technology used at the facility (while still very outdated by modern standards) is quite a few years ahead of anything that was available at the time. This is hand waved by the Murkoff Corporation being an extremely rich and powerful company with deep ties to the CIA.
- Science Is Bad: The titular trials are run by mad scientists, and the official game description states that the experiments are performed "all in the name of progress, science, and profit." Dr. Easterman in particular seems less motivated by the "progress and profit" part of that, as he is very obsessed with his concept of science and its goals.
- This Is a Drill:
- The intro sequence has the doctors attaching a set of night vision goggles to the Reagents' heads with a drill.
- The Doctor Futterman hand-puppet has a drill in its mouth that Mother Gooseberry isn't shy about using on the Reagents. Similarly, some of her child puppets also have drills for arms.
- The Tooth Hurts: Mother Gooseberry drills into the mouth of her victims with her hand-puppet drill.
- Un-person: The first trial involves the Player Character having to erase all documents that evidence their existence, as a step in their "rebirth".
- Your Mind Makes It Real: The Skinner Man shows up when the player's Sanity Meter is depleted, and while it's unclear whether it's a genuine hallucination or your mind unable to rationalize the monstrosity chasing you (which is saying something considering the surreal Body Horror you see on the hostile enemies roaming the maps), the Skinner Man can damage and kill you if you let him get too close. It can be theorized that the reagent will damage themselves a la trying to claw out their own eyes.
