On May 18, The Outlast Trials continues one of the most terrifying series of horror games. Beforehand, Phil and Alex from Red Barrels told us the interesting story of how the co-op shocker came to be.
The making of Outlast Trials: Your life is one big party? You are fit, both physically and mentally? Starting tomorrow, you'll be able to change this boring state of affairs, because that's the day The Outlast Trials enters Early Access, more or less.
Because the early access is just a cover for all the seasonal human experiments that the horror game plans to perform on you in the future. And that's exactly the perfidious part: Due to the service approach, in the context of which the game will be continuously expanded with new levels, the new Outlast will mash your soul endlessly, so to speak. Until you might not be who you were before the experiments.
But The Outlast Trials has more to offer than just "service terror" and cultivated co-op horror. We learned this during a Q&A with two of the developers, Red Barrels' co-founder Philippe Morin and game director Alex Charbonneau. Phil in particular knew exciting details about the game's creation process. In fact, we liked his story so much that we want to quote and retell it here.
The Q&A session with Alex and Phil already took place on May 3, following a gameplay presentation of The Outlast Trials. What we got to see was essentially the same as the content of the closed beta build from late October last year.
Just a small taste of what awaits you in The Outlast Trials.
Anyway, from the very beginning co-founder Phil managed to answer journalists' questions which hadn't even been asked yet. For example, in the case of the sources of inspiration for Outlast Trials and the earliest beginnings of the project.
"After Outlast 2, we were wondering what to do next, and to be honest, for a while we weren't sure if we wanted to make another horror game. But then we wondered, (...) what if we took the first Outlast, (...) and several of you were locked in this mental institution and had to escape from there." (Phil Morivon)
Although Outlast 2 couldn't quite match the success of its predecessor, we were a bit surprised by Phil's confession. Did Red Barrels doubt the success of a follow-up here, or were the Canadians simply tired of virtual ghost trains?
In the first Outlast, you were extensively chopped up, and you won't have to do without that in Trials.
Well, the video game market has certainly changed a lot during the last five years. At least the AAA industry has buried the classic single-player game and its so-called "Buy 2 Play" model, and Outlast Trials could be Red Barrel's answer to these developments.
Anyhow, with the first part of Outlast in the rearview mirror, it shouldn't take too long to find more new inspiration for Outlast number three. In addition to the studio's first game, Phil Morin also singled out "Saw II" as an influence:
"What you see on the screen is a bunch of references that shape the game [The Outlast Trials]. We obviously drew on the 'Saw' movie series. Especially the second part because it had a lot of dynamics, and that's what we're trying to capture. You have to work together to escape from this place."
The shocking brutality of "Saw" is almost omnipresent in The Outlast Trials.
With its cinema release in 2005, Darren Bousman's "Saw II" is no longer the freshest horror flick. However, the story about the insane serial killer Jigsaw indeed is an excellent template for scary co-op concepts.
The unusual slayer is known for only kidnapping a certain kind of person and never getting his hands dirty himself. Instead, Jigsaw forces his victims to do most cruel things to themselves or others for their survival.
According to Phil, the third major inspiration for The Outlast Trials is another a horror film, albeit a lesser-known Japanese-Canadian co-production. Also released in 1997, this flick is about a group of strangers whose members must combine their various talents to escape from a deadly place, a trap-filled cube consisting of cube-like rooms.
But for Red Barrels, another aspect of the film was groundbreaking: "(...) 'Cube,' that [the film] was very interesting because it had these key characters that were kind of reminiscent of Outlast. You know, these big bad guys that are hunting you down while you're trying to escape and fighting for your survival."
So while the basic concept of Outlast Trials is based on movies, the story of this collective horror trip is based on something much more exciting, but at the same time shocking: real-life human experiments.
A core element of The Outlast Trials are human experiments.
The Red Barrels guys started their research at the CIA-initiated project MK-Ultra. On this, Phil explained, "And then we looked at 'MK-Ultra' again, because we needed to find out what was happening there [at the mental hospital], (...) why these people were being kidnapped and then experimented on."
If you don't know what to do with the term MK-Ultra, this could be because of two things. First, MKU was an illegal human experimentation program conducted by the CIA that was intended to produce both new interrogation methods and compliant drugs. The goal was to coerce confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.
On the other hand, the experimental series fortunately dates back 50 years. It began in 1953 and was stopped in 1973; however, the U.S. public did not learn about it until 1975. The CIA has nevertheless not become more humane because of that. Not too long ago, it has been engaged that the foreign intelligence service was experimenting in the remote control of dogs by implant.
Another scientific experiment underlying The Outlast Trials went completely off the rails. Phil Morin explained:
"After that, we studied the Stanford Prison Experiments [Note: 1971 psychological experiments on human behavior in captivity, especially under field conditions of prison life], where a bunch of university students made an experiment where people were divided into two groups: prison guards and prisoners. It [the experiment] was supposed to last weeks, but it only lasted for six days because the declared guards abused the others."
As if prisons and corresponding observations on human behavior had never existed until 1971, this mad experiment at least makes us wonder whether Outlast Trials will perhaps sometimes force its players to work against each other. In virtual form, that would definitely be interesting, but Red Barrels didn't let such about-turns shine through on this day.
The hygienic conditions in the Murkoff facility are, to put it nicely, improvable.
At the same time, the Canadian game makers also dealt with the Stanley Milgram experiment, which, at least from the test subjects' point of view, was on the borderline of abnormality. Phil reminded us:
"It's this experiment where one person asks another person questions without them being able to see each other. If the other person gives the wrong answer, then the questioner punishes them with electric shocks. In the process, the questioner didn't know that the whole thing was a fake."
The other test participants were actors, and the electric shocks were not actually administered, which is almost surprising in view of MK-Ultra & Co.
Last but not least, the American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton played an important role in the creation of The Outlast Trials. Lifton wrote, as Phil put it, "a lot about brainwashing, (...) and how you can reshape someone over time."
The studio's founding father continued:
"The three most important things we took from Lifton (...) were the breaking of the personality, the rebuilding of the personality, and salvation. So the breaking of the self is what happens in the trials. Basically, they're trying to break all your views, to turn you into an empty shell into which they can then, once they rebuild you, put whatever they like to make you their tool."
This "traitor" must be pushed to his execution. Will you also be his executioner?
According to Phil Morin, all these films and books were the basic material that Red Barrels came back to again and again during the first two years of the project. The total period of the development phase was not mentioned during the Q&A (our mistake). However, based on experience, a production period of at least four years can be assumed.
The level designer concluded his summary of the background with the words: "All this happens while you, as the player, see the possibility of escaping from the asylum. There's this door in the entrance hall that, once you've finished your 'therapy,' you get to go through to find out what's waiting for you on the outside."
The roughly 50-minute preview session didn't quite end there, though. Phil also had something to tell us about the "physical" setting of Outlast Trials. This, he said, was what psychiatrist Lifton called "milieu control". This involves controlled relationships with the outside world.
"Basically, Murkoff [Note: The company running the trials] has installed large facilities inside, for example, these fake movie sets. And those are the social context in which the guinea pigs are placed. So Murkoff's intention is to create an emotional response by giving players certain tasks and then trying to create conflict between them," the Outlast maker described.
The human experiments of The Outlast Trials are often based on fake movie sets.
But what about the balance between the co-op and single-player modes? After all, The Outlast Trials can also be played alone, as we have known since the beta test. Phil Morin had an answer to this topic as well:
"When we started [with The Outlast Trials], we were completely thinking co-op. However, while we were working on it, we realized that the game also works when you play it alone. (...) So it's not a game where there's just the multipalyer mode; the story isn't on one side and the multiplayer is on the other. It's all fully integrated; it's one and the same. It's just that you as a player can decide how you want to go through the trials. (...) Alone or with a friend, with two friends, four friends, or even with complete strangers."
You have no friends within the trials. On top of that, there's a chance you die of psychosis, just like here.
In this sense, we can look forward to one of the most interesting horror titles in recent times. In any case, the "experimental" concept of the game already convinced us during the closed beta, because it promises to give the Outlast series new pep.
And who knows, maybe a successful service model will lead to Red Barrels bringing us at least one more Outlast game. We certainly wouldn't mind that.
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