Did Chemical Leak Actually Make The Outlast Trials Scarier?
Yes, but not because poisonous gas is particularly frightening. Chemical Leak works when it turns an already disastrous situation into an administrative emergency. Its biggest problem is that Murkoff, having apparently developed chemical warfare, also remembered to install the plumbing required to switch it off.
Which is unexpectedly considerate.
Murkoff is an organisation that kidnaps people, psychologically dismantles them and builds industrial torture facilities where practically every object has been repurposed in a way that would void the warranty. Yet somebody apparently looked at the toxic-gas proposal and said, "Hang on. What about health and safety?"
And everyone agreed.
So parts of The Outlast Trials are now contaminated until you find and shut the relevant valves.
This sounds simple.
Turning a valve is simple.
I've never heard anyone return from work, collapse onto the sofa and announce that the valve absolutely fucking destroyed them today.
But valves become considerably more interesting when the building is poisonous and Barry the Murder Fridge is coming down the corridor.
That's where Chemical Leak starts working.
Murkoff has now weaponised bad air, plumbing and your inability to leave well enough alone. See what else is currently happening inside The Outlast Trials before somebody gives the ventilation system a promotion.
Murkoff has invented chemical warfare with an OFF switch
The Outlast Trials has always understood something many horror games forget: you don't necessarily need another gigantic monster with fourteen legs and a tragic childhood.
You can make ordinary things horrible instead.
Open the door.
Carry the box.
Find the key.
Push the button.
These are activities most adults can accomplish without extensive counselling. Then Outlast introduces an eight-foot man who has interpreted your arrival as permission to perform amateur surgery, and suddenly opening a door requires the tactical planning normally associated with overthrowing a government.
Chemical Leak adds another problem to that machinery.
A familiar route can now be contaminated. You can push through the gas or deal with the valves and clear the area. Either way, something has changed. The route you wanted isn't necessarily the route you get anymore.
And when enemies, objectives and other variators become involved, the beautifully simple act of turning off the gas becomes another decision made while everything else has gone completely to shit.
That's good horror.
Not because gas is scary.
Because inconvenience becomes dangerous.
You know what needs doing. You could normally do it without engaging more than three brain cells. But now circumstances have transformed emergency plumbing into a tactical operation.
There must be plumbers playing this update who finally feel seen.
Unfortunately, there's a problem.
People learn things.
Eventually the chemical apocalypse may require an NVQ in plumbing
The first time you enter a room full of poisonous gas, your brain responds appropriately.
BAD ROOM.
DO NOT BREATHE ROOM.
Then you discover the valve.
And eventually you remember where the valve is.
Early player reaction is already divided over exactly this. Some players find Chemical Leak genuinely disruptive, particularly when it combines with other variators. Others reckon the valves make the gas surprisingly easy to neutralise once you know what you're doing.
That could become the event's Achilles heel.
Because there's an enormous psychological difference between:
"THE ENTIRE BUILDING IS CONTAMINATED."
and:
"Hang on, Kevin. I'll get it."
Imagine a Bond villain unveiling his latest chemical weapon.
There's a secret island. Generals. Terrorists. International arms dealers. Somebody with an eyepatch who owns a submarine for reasons never adequately explained.
The villain removes a silver cover.
"With one canister, gentlemen, I can kill everybody in Brussels."
The room falls silent.
"Obviously, each contaminated area also contains a conveniently accessible shut-off valve."
At which point even the terrorists start wondering whether they've backed the right horse.
This is the danger Chemical Leak faces. The mechanic needs dealing with the gas to remain enough of a problem that players sometimes have to make an unpleasant decision.
Do I clear it?
Do I endure it?
Is reaching the valve worth going over there?
Can I afford to piss about with Murkoff's central heating while something that appears to have eaten the previous maintenance engineer is searching for me?
If those questions survive familiarity, Chemical Leak works.
If experienced players eventually trot straight to the correct valve and continue as normal, Murkoff hasn't invented psychological terror.
It's invented boiler maintenance with tits nailed to the walls.
Want horror where being the bastard is actually part of the job description? Head into CRIMENET’s Playable Villains hub and see which games finally let evil have the controller.
The strangest thing is that Chemical Leak may not be the interesting part of Chemical Leak
Season 7.1 also adds two permanent MK-Challenges: Change the Program and Fund the Campaign.
The former revolves around spreading Murkoff propaganda. The latter involves political money and violence.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Because this is where The Outlast Trials becomes more interesting than Generic Horror Game Number 847, where you're trapped in an abandoned hospital because apparently nobody in videogames has ever considered simply demolishing abandoned hospitals.
Murkoff isn't frightening merely because horrible people work there.
Murkoff is frightening because horrible people have management.
It doesn't just torture you.
It administers torture.
There are programs. Procedures. Objectives. Research. Somebody somewhere has presumably created a spreadsheet containing a column called HUMAN SUFFERING and another called TARGET, and the worrying thing isn't that the first number is high.
It's that they're behind schedule.
That's the wonderful nastiness of Outlast's world.
A lunatic chasing you with an axe is frightening, certainly, but the organisational structure is reassuringly straightforward. There is one employee. His department is Axe. His current project is Your Head.
Murkoff has committees.
Somewhere, someone approved Change the Program.
There was a meeting.
Minutes were taken.
Coffee was available.
Greg from Psychological Conditioning explained that forcing traumatised prisoners to distribute propaganda would create valuable synergies with Corporate Communications. Sandra asked whether this would affect the Q4 budget. Somebody promised to circle back.
Then they all went for lunch.
That is far more unsettling than another monster jumping out of a cupboard.
Murkoff takes insanity and puts a lanyard around its neck.
Meanwhile, Red Barrels has abolished healthcare
Then there's Escalation.
From Trial 21 onward, damage persists and revives are unavailable.
This is magnificent.
Red Barrels has apparently examined players capable of surviving twenty consecutive Trials and concluded that the main problem with these people is morale.
So they've removed hope.
Damage now follows you.
Previously, getting smashed in the face was mostly an immediate concern, which is traditionally when getting smashed in the face causes the most inconvenience.
Now it can become debt.
You acquire it through poor judgement and continue paying for it later.
That stupid decision you made several Trials ago is still travelling with you. It's sitting quietly in the passenger seat. Occasionally it leans over and reminds you that you've got almost no health because forty minutes earlier you looked at an obviously catastrophic situation and thought:
"I can probably make that."
You could not.
Videogames normally forgive this sort of thing because videogames understand that human beings are idiots.
Red Barrels has apparently decided forgiveness encourages weakness.
And there are no revives.
Nobody is coming.
This makes deep Escalation substantially more interesting because a mistake acquires a future. Damage stops being something that happened five minutes ago and becomes something you own. Every unnecessary risk potentially changes what you're willing to attempt later.
Caution isn't cowardice anymore.
It's financial planning conducted with organs.
Which is exactly the sort of pressure Outlast needs at the deep end. Simply making enemies tougher eventually produces the videogame equivalent of trying to kill a wardrobe with a teaspoon. Persistent consequences are nastier because they attack the player's decision-making instead.
You don't merely fear the thing currently chasing you.
You fear becoming the idiot who makes Trial 26 impossible because Trial 23 contained a shortcut and excessive self-confidence.
Chemical warfare somehow wasn’t enough horror for one evening? Enter CRIMENET’s horror coverage and continue making recreational decisions your nervous system specifically advised against.
So, did Chemical Leak actually make The Outlast Trials scarier?
Yes. Just perhaps not in the way its name suggests.
The gas itself isn't especially clever. What matters is what happens when it contaminates a route you wanted, interrupts an objective or forces you to choose between dealing with the leak and dealing with whatever enormous bastard has just entered the room.
That's when Chemical Leak becomes Outlast.
Whether it stays effective once everybody knows the valves remains the unanswered question. If familiarity turns contamination into a quick maintenance stop, the headline mechanic could lose its teeth surprisingly quickly.
But Season 7.1 has more going for it than gas.
The new MK-Challenges push further into Murkoff's corporate nightmare, where atrocities don't merely happen, they're apparently assigned a project manager. And deep Escalation now weaponises your previous mistakes by making damage persistent and taking revives away.
So Red Barrels has added poisonous gas, propaganda, political corruption, institutional torture and a healthcare system where being seriously injured means you're largely on your own.
Come to think of it, Murkoff hasn't invented the future.
It's invented Belgium.
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