Outlast II blew me away when I checked it out on GamePass a couple years ago, and I was very enticed by the promise of Outlast gameplay with friends. For the first several hours, The Outlast Trials is just as breathless and exciting as you could hope, with the terrifying cat-and-mouse gameplay totally intact even with friends at your side. Completing objectives is often a super tense scramble.
Where Outlast Trials didn't work so well for me was the gameplay loop. Instead of being a linear adventure that you play to credits, this game instead encourages you to replay the same missions over and over with increasing difficulty levels. This extends the runtime for sure, but it also makes it feel like the game wears out its welcome much too quickly. I got over 16 hours out of this which is double the length you'd get out of the second Outlast game, but the diminishing returns made the whole experience feel less satisfying unfortunately.
I can say confidently that this game is super well polished and fun to play with a whole crew of friends. It's not a revelation in horror or anything but it's a good step forward for the genre in terms of co-op.
Where Outlast Trials didn't work so well for me was the gameplay loop. Instead of being a linear adventure that you play to credits, this game instead encourages you to replay the same missions over and over with increasing difficulty levels. This extends the runtime for sure, but it also makes it feel like the game wears out its welcome much too quickly. I got over 16 hours out of this which is double the length you'd get out of the second Outlast game, but the diminishing returns made the whole experience feel less satisfying unfortunately.
I can say confidently that this game is super well polished and fun to play with a whole crew of friends. It's not a revelation in horror or anything but it's a good step forward for the genre in terms of co-op.