Outlast is a franchise that oozes quality game development. In the horror genre, which sometimes plays off of lowly lit areas and shoddy environment design, it is a pleasure to see a series like Outlast. Red Barrels, who develops the games, recently sat down with Bloody Disgusting. In this interview with developer co-founder Philippe Morin, a number of issues were discussed.
First, Morin discussed the studio's dark horse success and what it was like shipping Outlast for release.
"We always intended to do a DLC for Outlast. 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. 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."
"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. For Outlast, we always wanted a dramatic ending, but we wanted something different for Whistleblower. 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."
"Some of us spent 3 years inside that Asylum. 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."
Next, Morin revealed what we have all been waiting for: Outlast 2, follow up to the series' first entry.
"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."
"After 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."
"So, yes, we are working on Outlast 2."
"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. We might go back to Mount Massive Asylum one day, but for now we have new ideas and themes we’d like to explore and we think we’re cooking up something special."
Not many people know this, but Red Barrels operates with only twelve employees on its staff. When you think about the many nuances of game development, it is pretty amazing that the developer is able to achieve the quality that they do. With the success of Outlast still fresh on their minds, we are very excited to see what this up and coming developer is able to achieve.
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