The game will be a survival horror experience and it will take place in the same universe as Outlast, but it will have different characters and a different setting. It’s important for us to be passionate about whatever we’re working on, because we believe it’s the only way to achieve quality.Īfter shipping the XB1 version of Outlast, we took some time to analyze our situation and we quickly realized we had at least another horror game in us. Governments come and go, but these entities are like immortals.īD: I could happily chat about Outlast all day, but the world wants to know: what’s next for Red Barrels? What can you tell us about your next game? These corporations have become so powerful, that it’s unthinkable to get rid of them these days. A lot of these companies made their money drilling for oil and then eventually became so powerful they could expend their activities to a lot of other areas, including scientific or medical research. We based Murkoff on some of the big corporations founded in the late 19th century or early 20th century.
So far, Outlast has been downloaded by more than 3 million people across all platforms and YouTubers have played a big part in its success.Īnd, it was also a way for us to get useful feedback because we could see when and how people reacted to the events in the game.īD: I’m sure the Murkoff Corporation has plenty evil left in them to warrant a sequel are you interested in returning to the series down the road, or is its fate undecided? So, YouTubers were a great help and we thank them. Our budget was tight and we didn’t have a lot of money for marketing.
But we quickly realized the opportunity it represented and we decided to take full advantage of it.
When we started production, we were not really familiar with the whole YouTubers phenomenon. I have to be honest and say it was a happy accident. Was designing a horror game that’s as fun to play as it is to watch others play it a goal early on, or was it a happy accident? Its gorgeous visuals, jump scares and streamlined mechanics made it the perfect kind of game to play through on video sites like YouTube. That’s part of the advantages of being a small independent studio, we don’t have to worry about diluting the experience to please a wider audience.īD: Outlast spread like wildfire online. We’re in the business to deliver emotions and we like the idea of going places where others don’t go. Making the game was our therapy! We had fun coming up with ideas and situations we knew could be disgusting, scary or provocative. We started working on our trailer to help us find the money back in February 2011 and we shipped the game on XB1 back in June 2014, so the ending of Whistleblower meant a lot to us and we wanted players to share those emotions.īD: Did anyone on the team need therapy (or at the very least, a well-deserved vacation) after it released? Some of us spent 3 years inside that Asylum. Although both games have a different protagonists, we approached it as if it was one journey, because after all, it’s more about the player. For Outlast, we always wanted a dramatic ending, but we wanted something different for Whistleblower. We took some time to gather all the feedback we could find and decided that the DLC needed to start before the events of Outlast, but end after them.
Right from the start, we had a few ideas of what the DLC could be, but it was only a few weeks after shipping the game on PC that we decided exactly what we were going to do.
It made sense production-wise to do it, because the programmers would be busy working on the PS4 and XB1 ports, so we couldn’t jump on a new project right away. We always intended to do a DLC for Outlast. What did it feel like being able to wrap up the story of Mount Massive Asylum? You’ve left an indelible mark on the horror genre and made an impressive debut for such a new studio. We won’t know much about it until development is a little further along, so until then we’ll have to make due with the few precious details Red Barrels co-founder Philippe Morin was able to share with me for this exclusive reveal.īD: Between the release of Outlast and its Whistleblower expansion, it’s been an exciting year for Red Barrels. Outlast is one of my new favorite horror games, and at some point in the future it will get a sequel. I didn’t know what it was until today, but that didn’t make the wait to share this exciting bit of news with all of you any less excruciating. I’ve known for awhile now that Outlast developer Red Barrels had begun working on a mystery horror game, seemingly immediately after wrapping up Outlast: Whistleblower.