This interview has been edited for clarity.
Push Square : What was the inception of making the switch from single player to multiplayer?
Alex Charbonneau: To be honest, the initial pitch was just “let’s make Outlast in multiplayer”. That was the core thing we wanted to achieve from the beginning, just because horror and scare jumps is a place that is fun to share with other people. So this was just the initial beginning point, and then it really did evolve over time.
We explored all sorts of ways it could be played, but it also comes with a lot of challenges. Like making a horror game multiplayer means multiple perspectives on a situation, whereas a horror game that you’re going to be playing solo is a lot more linear. You’re in a lot more control of the situations and the scare jumps and everything, whereas the multiplayer factor changes.
So for the entire team it was a brand new experience, discovering how to do that. And it’s not like we had a lot of references to look at. Outlast at its core, you are super vulnerable, you don’t have weapons, it’s hide and seek, it’s high tension, and all of those things, so we had to discover that. It impacted absolutely everything in the game, from the layout of the levels, to the tools you can use for stealth.
We are doing things that the other Outlast games never did, such as throwing objects or the Rigs. We had to come up with this just to add an element of “players are contributing, they are collaborating in order to deal with the situation”. So it was a very cool learning experience at the same time as we were building the game.
Was there any anxiety making the switch to multiplayer?
It comes with a lot of challenges, just in terms of technology. A solo game doesn’t need to be on the internet, for example. In multiplayer you need a friend system, parties like grouping up together, so there were definitely a lot of technical things to discover.
In terms of concept and design, I think the team was ready for something else. And the early years of Outlast Trials were a lot of explorations, and many different kinds of modes. To be honest, it was a very different game from what we have today, but the whole journey of trying out what the game is, also now serves us like building the future. There are things that we’ve done in the past that now we have a solid foundation could come back.
For example, in this new update we’re adding a new rogue-like mode called Escalation, and it’s something that we wanted to do many years ago but didn’t nail everything required to make it fun. So we sort of abandoned this idea back then, and now it’s coming back and it’s spectacularly fun. Just because the foundation is so strong now.
We were a little surprised by how funny The Outlast Trials is given its horror roots. Were there any gameplay changes you had to make to accommodate the humour as well as the horror, or was it just a byproduct of playing with friends?
It was also a revelation for us in the sense that you don’t plan it to be a funny kind of game, we want this to be intense as an Outlast, and to be honest, when you play it solo it is very intense. You really get that same sense as Outlast 1 and 2. And when you play two players it’s solo with a friend. And then three to four players is chaos. It’s like a sh*tshow.
Everyone is laughing and now we just embrace it. We know our game is this. It’s like a party game when you’re in a full group, but it’s super fun. You do have intense moments, like when you’re getting chased, but also in order to keep the scare factor, that’s where we had to come up with things that were more systemic.
For example, psychosis is something that can occur in any trial at any time, and if you lose your sanity you’re going to start having these hallucinations – and then those can create scare jumps. It’s unpredictable for the player because it’s like the system is managing it.
To answer your question, we are fully aware that it’s a fun sort of party game when you play with a full group, and now we fully embrace it. And we have plans to just keep building. We still want to surprise the player, we still want to keep things like the fear factor in some ways, even if you are a group, so these are things we have in our pipeline to keep improving in the future.
When developing an update like Project Lupara, is there a balance between developing what you want for the players and what the players want from you?
Definitely. It’s a balance in the sense that we have a very active community, and they are very involved and their feedback is critical to what we are doing. Like many many times it does influence the decisions we are making. But the nature of this game is to surprise the player, so that’s why sometimes we are a bit more quiet about the upcoming stuff. If we unveil too fast or too much or too early, it could spoil the surprise of discovering things in the game.
The rogue-like mode is something we had in mind for a while, but the difficulty options we wanted to avoid for a long time. But we’re pivoting to “no, let’s give it to the players”, because we’ve just realised that for some players some trials are way too difficult. And then the message we get is “you don’t let me fully enjoy the game because I can never finish this trial”. Now we keep the philosophy, we keep the intensity, but we give the opportunity for the player to fine tune the difficulty up to their pain tolerance.
I guess it’s a whole balance. But we’re a small studio and very close with the community. We have our community manager spending a lot of time with our players, we have surveys, I read everything that players are writing, and it does influence us a lot. We take a lot of what they are saying, and it really is our fuel for the future. A bunch of listening but also trying to keep things a surprise.
Have you seen much of a shift in your community now that you’re running a live service game?
To be super honest, when we were making the game we were playing around five trials, and that was it. And it’s only in closed beta that we had so many people asking for more content. And when we were looking at the average play session and play time, it was much superior to any other Outlast.
We had demands from people asking for us to make this game something they can live in. So at this point we are like OK, we have to become a game, like a live service, because this is exactly what people want. And it’s not us or anyone asking us to become a live service game, it was just natural progression.
So we shifted a lot of the way we produce the game, in order to add more content over time. And to be honest, we have ideas for many many years, and as long as we’re going to have players having fun in the game being involved and contributing with feedback and ideas, we're going to keep pushing things in the game.
Are there any narrative challenges or changes you've had to make to continue telling the story of the Outlast series via the live service format?
That is also part of the challenge, but at the same time it’s kinda cool the opportunity it gives us. We have to use more of the environment for storytelling. Like The Sleep Room is a nice opportunity for us to push a bit of the lore with the NPCs that are around. They have stuff to say, you have documents to find. So from the beginning of the game, the narrative, the lore was critical. It was not something we wanted to put away. We just had to develop new ways of dealing with narrative.
The villains were always an important aspect of the game for Outlast 1 and 2, and we continue this philosophy with Gooseberry, Coyle, and now Franco joining the villains in the game. So yeah, multiple angles of narrative, and also that’s why we still push for what we call Major Trials, built around one of the Prime Assets in particular. It’s a way for us to express the backstory and the lore around this villain.
Will you ever make the switch back to single-player for a potential Outlast 3?
I have to be careful now because marketing might slap me… but they’re not around (laughs). It’s always up there, Outlast 3. We know we have the audience that would like to play Outlast 3. Our focus right now is obviously The Outlast Trials, just because we have players, we have fun making it, and we have plenty of ideas. We do some experiments in solo within The Outlast Trials. For example, the story at the beginning is solo, but also the final trial is also more of a solo experience. So it’s also a tool for us. Maybe we want to push a bit further in the future, where we explore more solo moments in the game or something like that, so yeah I guess that’s kinda what I can say for now.
Do you think there are more opportunities presented in a multiplayer game than single-player?
The funny thing is, the whole concept of the game is that players are reagents, who are going to become sleeper agents, and it’s Murkoff making experiments on their reagents. So for us the developers are making experiments on the player, so we are super willing to do things that are not existing right now in the game.
We are often having conversations around the idea that it could be fun to have some kind of competitive aspect in the game. We’re not saying take out Coyle, that’s not what we have in mind. It’s more about what if multiple teams of reagents have to complete a trial. But somehow they can be in the same place together, but they are not friendly. So that’s an aspect we're thinking about.
It’s going to sound a bit cliche, but The Outlast Trials is a perfect platform for us to try new experiences and expand in all sorts of directions. So in a sense we have this liberty, whereas maybe a more solo linear kind of game would not allow us to do that many tries or experiences. That I guess is the difference, but both are super cool, it’s just right now our mindset is more about Trials and in the future it might be something else.
How do you balance the presence of microtransactions elements in The Outlast Trials?
To be fully transparent, it’s a multiplayer game and there are servers that we have to pay for players that are playing. It’s as simple as that. But at the same time, it’s a premium game so we want to give as much content as possible to the player. And that’s why we are always going to keep giving more and more.
To be honest, the cosmetics are a big surprise, because it’s a horror game, first person, but the demand for new stuff is insane. So we set things up in a way that it’s easy for us to keep giving and showcasing the new stuff. That’s why we’re introducing the catalogues. It’s a way for the player to see what they are going to be acquiring over time.
In terms of DLC and paid DLC, we see the players are super involved and they are basically like “give us a way for us to support you guys”, so for us it’s a win-win situation. And we’re going to maintain this as long as we can, just because in the nature of our game, and the spirit of our company, the respect we have for our players, that’s where we want to go.
Right now, what we’re adding is just because people want more stuff to grind, more stuff to unlock, so let’s give you this new progression system because it makes sense, it’s something that people want, and it’s going to keep them busy the whole summer until the next big update.
Do you ever need to remind yourself of the series’ core while experimenting with the format?
It’s definitely something we keep in mind. Like we always wanna keep the DNA. We’ll never introduce a machine gun in the game. At the same time, it gives us a lot of cool opportunities to be creative in ways that player behaviour guides us.
For example, right now we’re adding the barricade, and the reason why is simple because we’ve seen people struggle to complete some objectives in some areas and trials. And it became super natural that we should give a tool where they can delay the pursuer or the enemy, so they can focus on completing the puzzle box or something like that.
The pillars are going to be respected forever – they are guiding us. We make decisions everyday based on the fact that it is Outlast, but it needs to evolve. We also need to keep in mind that there are always new players. Every new sale there could be a bunch of new players discovering the game for the first time, so at its core we want to make sure it’s always the same clean, plug-and-play experience.
Even though it is a very intense game, we try to always keep it super simple to pick up and play. You don’t have to be good at shooting or anything like that to play the game. You just pick up the controller and you behave naturally, and that’s the core of the game that we are always going to try to maintain.
How does it feel to finally launch an update like Project Lupara?
Oh, it feels amazing. It’s our biggest update ever, and to be honest we’re changing many many things based on a lot of feedback that we got. I think I feel as excited as the release. Like every milestone that we hit, the team is super pumped to release the content, and see the reaction of players.
Obviously, when the update comes out we all go on streams and we watch our players discover the new content. It’s a very exciting moment for us, and it’s motivating to be working on an update to see the reception of the players.
We'd like to thank Alex for taking the time to speak with us. Project Lupara is available for free to players of The Outlast Trials, adding a ton of new features to the game, including a brand new villain in Franco “Il Bambino” Barbi. Have you checked out the new update? Let us know down in the comments below.
