The Outlast Trials is a cooperative survival horror game set during the Cold War, where players become involuntary test subjects for the Murkoff Corporation's experiments in brainwashing and mind control. Whether alone or in teams of up to four, you must endure a systematic assault on identity and sanity, completing disturbing tasks that Murkoff frames as therapy. Survive long enough to finish the program and they'll let you leave, though what remains of you is another matter entirely.
The facility operates on a three-stage process designed to rebuild human beings from the ground up. First comes the breaking, a sustained attack on everything you hold sacred until guilt and self-betrayal shatter your sense of self. Then the building, where pain gives way to calm and a new ideology fills the vacuum left behind. Finally salvation, a rebirth into Murkoff's order complete with rituals, confessions and sworn allegiance. This psychological framework shapes every trial you face within the Sinyala Facility.
Gameplay follows the Outlast tradition of avoiding enemies rather than confronting them. You hide, you flee, you use whatever tools Murkoff provides to stun pursuers, blind them, see through walls or heal yourself and teammates. These tools must be earned and upgraded over time. Trials are immersive story-driven therapies requiring sustained effort to complete, while MK-Challenges offer shorter sessions in modified sections of existing maps. Cooperation is never mandatory for objectives but working together carries obvious advantages when the facility's denizens come hunting.
Between trials, your cell serves as home. You can decorate it however you wish, choose your loadout of tools and perks to match your playstyle, and collect documents proving Murkoff's malpractice against its patients. The corporation wants you broken and rebuilt in their image. What you do with the evidence you gather along the way is up to you.
Red Barrels has built a world of distrust, fear and violence where morals bend under pressure and endurance meets its limits. The Outlast Trials asks how much of yourself you're willing to lose in exchange for freedom.