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The Outlast Trials review
by kz4

7,5 (Early Access) 
For once, a game from a popular "title" that tries itself in the online genre with "early access" mark, turned out to be a worthy triquel / prequel, moreover, an ideal "entry point" into the series for those who play Outlast for the first time, as well as with high-quality technical implementation, and, most importantly, a very competent, at its core, gameplay formula. 
For once, the "Beta" version of the game has a chance to become not at least "playable", but richer and more replayable than the original. 
At the same time, Outlast: Tri als - this is one of the few examples of a good Co-op game, you have to take turns lifting the gate for each other, put your shoulder to lift your partner to the top floor, or, conversely, give a hand to the one below, have to knock trap if friend got into it, share the antidote, hack generators together, take turns carrying heavy objects, use one of the 4 abilities as a team: heal, mine, x-ray vision, and stun, of course, this is not the ultimate dream, not that all this has not happened before, but usually the cooperative genre is just a solo game for two, but there is at least some interaction, 
But, of course, the 3rd Outlast, like any joint horror, cannot be scary, probably, this is generally impossible to implement in a game for friends, 
But when playing solo, in terms of audio design, everything is fine, you can feel the tension, the horror component is done, perhaps, better than in the entire series, the old parts are still a little outdated, just try to play them now, and you will understand what I mean (By the way, the single player game needs to be balanced, there are too many opponents there), 
Well, what's real missing is charismatic hype villains, Crazy cop with a baton is not bad, but "Mother Gooseberry" is already more annoying, and for the third location the antagonist was not invented at all, 
And the biggest problem of the new Outlast, which will scare many away, is excessive replayability, and the same thing again and again in the same missions, which just change the complexity and arrangement of objects a little, 
But even in defense of this, I can say that, firstly, this is at least explained by the plot and the general concept of the game, and secondly, well, you can only complete the main missions, it will take about 15 hours, this is quite enough, no one forces you to go through additional programs, it only gives cosmetics, full leveling of abilities, as well as 1 solo final level, which is a redone location from the prologue, and a weak cutscene, of course, I would like more after 30 hours, well... in general, just don't rely on it, and just give it up if you get tired of playing, 
although the game's formula is so good that almost any level is "replayable" 10 times even with minimal changes, moreover, I I'm sure there will be more new locations,

But still, the main thing I would like is more diverse modifiers for maps, if you have very high-quality stealth mechanics, everything works, no bugs, no errors, and people are ready to go through the same thing over and over again, So improve this aspect - we need more mechanics on the map that directly affect the gameplay, such as, for example, gates that close from the camera, not just increase the number of mobs and take items from the players, but rather add new things to the map that will make the gameplay even more "replayable" ", They can add an Operation where modifiers will drop out randomly, which will make each round absolutely unique, 
Therefore, Outlast Trials, even at the start, provides an incredibly high-quality cooperative experience, but this is still far from its full potential, early access is justified, and perhaps the release version will be even cooler!

 p.s. I completely forgot to say about the Lobby, ooh .. How cool to see the Lobby in a multiplayer game, also with a cool arm wrestling mini-game, and your own room, which you can decorate for the money received on missions, this, by the way, is another important aspect, which can be improved - we need a few mini-games in the general lobby and something for your room that you can interact with and not just admire. By the way, I still really hope that they don't add donation money, which the developers have already briefly asked about in their polls

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