Red Barrels has revealed new details of the story of The Outlast Trials, whose launch is expected this year. On this occasion, the Canadian studio will offer us a cooperative horror experience, a prequel to Outlast and Outlast 2, in which the Murkoff Corporation will be the center of the story. So it is more than likely that we will learn more about the company and its link to real experiments, such as the MK Ultra. In the new development video of the title, JT Petty, writer of the Outlast saga, and Matt Jackson, director of the game, have wanted to offer more details of the setting of The Outlast Trials (which will take place in the 1960s) and the real events that have served as inspiration.
The story of The Outlast Trials will be based on real experiments from the Cold War
As Jackson comments, the main reason for placing The Outlast Trials in 1960 it is given by the important political climate of the moment, both at the historical level and at the level of the experiments that began to be developed at that time in Canada and that, later, were adopted by the CIA. Everything indicates that the hospital in which the game will take place will be based on the Allan Memorial Institute, a psychiatric hospital located in Quebec and which is still standing today.
The hospital is mainly known for the experiments carried out by the psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron, who stood out for his investigations in the secret CIA project. MKUltra. This secret project was developed by the CIA from 1953 to 1973 and its main objective was to modify the behaviors and memories of patients. In this context, Cameron’s experiments focused on mind control and memory suppression and replacement of new ones. To achieve results, the project opted for the least ethical techniques, such as paying prostitutes to drug their clients with LSD or creating sleeper agents; spies who don’t know they are as a result of mind control.
Given all of the above, we can get a pretty good picture of where The Outlast Trials is headed. Game that we look forward to this year.