The Outlast Trials is a first-person survival horror game from Red Barrels that left early access and launched in full on March 5, 2024. Unlike Outlast and Outlast 2, which were solo, linear, story-driven descents, this one is a co-op PvE game built for up to four players.
Getting that distinction wrong is the single biggest reason people bounce off it.
Overview
You play a Reagent, a person abducted by the Murkoff Corporation and held in an underground facility during the Cold War. The loop is deliberately repetitive: from a hub area you are sent into a "therapy" mission set in places like a police station or a fairground, you complete a set of objectives, and you try to reach the exit alive.
Do that enough times and your "treatment" progresses.
The key design choice is that you cannot really fight. There is no gun and no melee weapon — throwables and stun tools buy you a few seconds at most.
Once you are seen, your options are run, hide, or break line of sight. Dark areas require night-vision goggles that run on a finite battery you refill from pickups scattered around the map.
Needing light, burning battery for it, and then being blind again is the core rhythm of the whole game.
Features and Systems
What keeps this from being pure tag is the between-run progression. Rigs come in different flavours — stun, healing, detection — and your pick defines your role in the squad.
Solo players usually want something that covers both self-defence and information; a four-player team that brings a healer wipes far less often. Unlockable upgrades then adjust stamina, stealth and revive speed, so encounters that felt unfair in your first hours become manageable later.
Because you replay the same maps, learning the layouts is the real progression. Which lockers are safe, which doors can be barricaded, which routes the pursuers favour — the more of that you internalise, the faster and quieter your runs get.
Whether you enjoy the game depends on whether you enjoy that mastery curve, not on any single playthrough.
The other pillar is engineered chaos. Enemies react to noise, and tripping a door trap or an alarm collapses a good run instantly.
Move as a group and one sighting catches everyone; split up and you get picked off individually. Constantly re-deciding whether to regroup or scatter is where the co-op tension lives.
System Requirements
Steam lists the following minimum specification:
| Item | Minimum |
|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 |
| CPU | Intel Core i7-3770 or AMD Ryzen 5 1400 |
| GPU | GeForce GTX 650 Ti 2GB / Radeon R7 360 2GB / Intel Arc A310 4GB |
| RAM | 8 GB |
| Storage | 40 GB |
| DirectX | Version 11 |
Read the footnote before you read the table: that configuration targets low settings at 720p and 30 FPS with DX11 and ray tracing off. It is a "the game will start and be playable" line, not a 1080p line.
Expecting smooth 1080p60 from a 2GB GTX 650 Ti-era card is not realistic.
The recommended specification is not included in this article's data, so no recommended numbers are quoted here. Working backwards from how conservative the minimum is, a mid-range GPU with 6–8GB of VRAM and 16GB of system memory is a sensible rough target for steady 1080p60.
Check the Steam store page for the official recommended tier before buying.
40 GB is light by modern standards, but on a mechanical drive you will feel it during level loads and first-run shader compilation — install it on an SSD. And since this is a game about resolving detail in near-darkness, how well your display handles black levels affects the experience more than a few frames per second do.
Spend time on the gamma calibration screen at first launch.
Review Trends
The game has held a strong reputation over a long period since release. Positive comments cluster around three things: the discipline of never handing you a weapon, how genuinely funny and tense voice-chat sessions with friends become, and the quality of the art and sound design in the facility.
The classic moment of an enemy walking past the locker you are hiding in survives the shift to co-op intact.
Criticism clusters just as tightly: mission repetition, the difficulty of coordinating in public lobbies, and how punishing solo play is. "Running the same map again" and "randoms rush ahead and wipe the team" are structural outcomes of the design rather than bugs.
How much that bothers you determines your personal verdict. For current user sentiment, check the ratings panel on this page or the Steam store listing.
Who It's For
- People with two or three friends available for roughly half-hour sessions spread across several evenings
- Players who prefer hiding, fleeing and route knowledge over fighting back
- Anyone comfortable with a replay-driven structure where unlocks and skill accumulate gradually
- Players who want co-op against AI rather than the asymmetric PvP mind games of Dead by Daylight
Caveats and Who Should Skip It
Do not buy this expecting a sequel to the mainline games. There is no single linear narrative here; the story arrives in fragments across repeated runs.
If you want the continuation of Miles' or Blake's story, you will be disappointed.
Solo is viable but harsh. Playing alone lets you move quietly on your own terms, but with nobody to revive you, your margin for error shrinks sharply.
It suits patient players who don't mind retrying. Conversely, if you plan to rely on public matchmaking, the quality of your session is the quality of your random teammates.
If silent, uncoordinated lobbies sound miserable to you, line up a group first.
The content is genuinely grim. Torture and human experimentation are the subject matter, and gore, disturbing body horror and psychologically unpleasant staging run throughout.
If you like horror but not "things that look painful", watch gameplay footage before buying.
Be careful about low-end hardware. The minimum tier targets 720p at 30 FPS.
In a game where you judge enemy silhouettes and sound direction in the dark, a stuttering sub-30 FPS experience does not just look worse — it makes the game measurably more unfair. "It runs" and "it plays well" are different claims on a GTX 650 Ti-class machine.
Finally, this article's data does not include supported-language information, so nothing definitive can be said about Japanese or other localisation. Check the Supported Languages box on the Steam store page for interface, audio and subtitle coverage separately before you buy.
Store metadata is occasionally out of date, so if a specific language matters to you, cross-check the community hub as well.
