Outlast Dev Reveals Playtester Fled Studio in Tears

Ever wondered what it's like to work on a horror game so intense it breaks the people testing it? According to Red Barrels co-founder Phillipe Morin, the Outlast series has pushed at least one person right out the studio door.

In a chat with GameSpot, Morin opened up about the studio's famously unflinching approach to gore, violence and nudity. The key takeaway? None of it was a calculated bid for controversy. It was just a "personal preference" shared by Morin and his fellow co-founders. "We didn't start like 'Oh, we've got to make the goriest game out there,'" he explained. "It was just, 'we're making a horror game, so obviously we'll make it gory.'" He even recalled the scriptwriter saying early on, "There's never too much blood."

That commitment to excess has had real-world fallout inside the studio. Morin remembers a playtest where, after a couple of hours, someone associated with Red Barrels "basically ran out of the studio to go cry outside." Apparently, they never came back. Morin doesn't explicitly say whether the person was an employee, but the story says plenty about the intensity of the material.

To its credit, Red Barrels isn't oblivious to any of this. Morin says the studio factors it into hiring, making sure candidates know exactly what kind of content they'll be working with. "People have to be comfortable with that," he noted, because conversations in the studio would land you in an HR meeting anywhere else.

Even that transparency doesn't always work. Morin recalled one hire who started on a Monday and resigned by Thursday. They knew about the gore and violence, but had a blind spot for other subject matter—religion in particular—and weren't comfortable with it. Morin didn't give a date, though it's likely tied to Outlast 2, which centers on a violent Christian cult.

Here's the twist: while some people find the material too much, players can't get enough. The Outlast Trials sold half a million copies in its first week of early access, and the series has pulled in a staggering 60 million players since 2013. So if Outlast 3 ever happens, don't expect Red Barrels to soften its approach.

What do you think—should horror devs dial it back for their own teams, or is brutal content just part of the job? Will you be picking up whatever Red Barrels makes next?