The Outlast Trials Closed Beta Thoughts

The Outlast Trials Closed Beta has come to an end, and it was quite a wild ride! Set before the events of Outlast 1 and 2, you are brought in by the Murkoff Corporation to be the newest addition to their batch of human test subjects. After a quick bit of surgery involving your head, you are placed into a facility where you are taught the basics of what is expected of you as you become one with Murkoff. Burn your past, survive Mother Gooseberry, and you will be sent into the Sleep Room.

The Sleep Room serves as the primary social hub and resting place for test subjects to relax between trials. Here you can do everything from customizing your character and decorating your room to interacting with your fellow test subjects! While in the Sleep Room, you can play what I describe as the “cream of the crop” of The Outlast Trials, arm wrestling! No, this is not a joke. This game has arm wrestling and this is quite possibly one of my favorite mini-games that I have ever experienced.

It takes the classic quick-time event style of gameplay and makes it into a true battle of timed clicking. One second victory could be in sight, while in the next it can slip from your hands entirely (and literally). My friends and I spent at least half an hour during the closed beta competing against both each other and random people in order to prove who would be the ultimate king of arm wrestling. The medical staff was rather indifferent to this behavior of ours.

Once we decided to comply with the directives of the Murkoff Corporation, we hopped into this train that took us to the first trial. We were given our primary objective of Killing the Snitch and after quick, yet horrifying hallucinations, we arrived at our destination. The Kill the Snitch trial, which was the only one available during the Closed Beta, takes you to another room in the facility that is made to look like a police station. From there you have to complete a number of different linear challenges that will allow you to kill the snitch, while also avoiding a number of different enemies with wild designs that are peak Outlast.

The difficulty of the trial really varied from the three difficulty options that my friends and I tried. Easy was what we started out with since we didn’t know the lay of the map and while it did take us a bit to figure out the nuances of the trial, the second time around on easy took us only half the time. Normal was quite a step up, but it was still doable as long as you had great teamwork among the four test subjects. Hard was a nightmare at best, with the number of enemies that spawned and how they worked together in order to play pong with our bodies. Hard was the only difficulty that we couldn’t beat, but it might be easier once we have a full squad of people who can communicate easier with each other.

After every successful match, every player is given a certain amount of currency to spend based on how well they did and what difficulty they played on. This currency can be used to unlock brand-new cosmetics and decorations that can’t otherwise be unlocked. My one friend dressed up to look rather dapper with an outfit with coattails, while I aimed for more of a bloody surgeon.

While I didn’t notice any customizations for your room that you could buy with in-game currency, I would not be surprised if you could do such a thing when the game fully releases. If this is the case, I really hope that they add more iconic rugs and wallpapers from classic horror movies. The one that I definitely took notice of was one of the iconic patterns shown in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining!

Overall, it seems like The Outlast Trials is going to be a wonderful addition to the multiplayer horror genre. My friends and I have been eagerly awaiting for the game to be fully released. However, at this stage, it seems unlikely that the game will make its 2022 initial release date since the developers are still going over all of the feedback from the closed beta.

Despite this potential delay, it is clear to see that the developers and the players are confident in how the game is coming along. I look forward to the day that we can return to the Murkoff Corporation and continue The Outlast Trials! If you would like to read more news on the latest horror games, check out Samuel Moreno’s article on the Silent Hill Announcements.