Red Barrels celebrated the Halloween season with a substantial sale on The Outlast Trials, a move that significantly boosted the game's player count and exceeded the developer's expectations.
Philippe Morin, co-founder of Red Barrels, stated that the period around Halloween, including October, November, and the holiday season, is typically the strongest for sales. "We act as if Halloween is ours," Morin remarked, indicating the studio's focus on this period.
The sale, which offered a 90% discount, proved to be highly effective in attracting new players. The game's concurrent player count on Steam surged, reaching an impressive peak of 147,955 players. This figure represents a significant achievement for a horror game that has been available for over three years.
"We knew with that 90% sale we'd get a lot of new players, but we didn't expect that many," Morin said, describing the first week of October as "insane." He noted that player counts continued to climb daily, surpassing his initial projections. "Every day I was waking up checking the numbers... and then it's gonna start to go down, but every day it kept going higher and higher."
While the player count naturally decreased after the sale concluded, Morin expressed satisfaction with the stabilization at a higher level than pre-sale figures. "It's pretty satisfying to see that after being out for more than three years, the game still finds a new audience. And it's very satisfying to watch all these people play the game and suffer," he added.
The Outlast Trials is recognized for its ability to maintain a high level of fear even in its multiplayer format. Unlike many cooperative horror games where the presence of friends can diminish scares, The Outlast Trials often induces "frantic nervous laughs" amidst moments of intense peril. The game's premise places players in the Sinyala Facility, a Murkoff Corporation testing ground where they endure experiments with the ultimate goal of escaping.
Adding to the Halloween festivities, Red Barrels introduced a new in-game event. This event provided players with a pathway to escape the facility, a feature that had not been available for about a year. Players collaborated to help an NPC named Amelia escape, a task that was completed on a Sunday night. Following this success, the escape route became accessible to all players, though Morin cautioned that this opportunity is temporary as "Murkoff is always watching."