The Outlast Trials’ third season arrives on April 22, kicking off Project Relapse and the fallout of Amelia Collier’s failed escape in Season 2. I attended a hands-off preview event hosted by developer Red Barrels to learn more about this new chapter and to witness its signature new baddie, The Jaeger, in action.
Following Amelia’s failed rebellion, she’s been captured and incapacitated by Murkoff. Her unconscious body is suspended above the starting hub, serving as a constant reminder to players that all hope is lost and there’s no escape. Of course, that won’t stop you and your fellow Reagents from trying, but Murkoff has a new terrifying ace up his sleeve: The Jaeger.
This powerful, persistent enemy now appears during trials to stalk players. The Jaeger was formerly known as Henrietta Grubbs, a familiar foe transformed into a much bigger threat. I mean that literally; she towers over players with her powerful, muscular frame punctuated by a creepy and intimidating iron mask. Like Jason Voorhees, the Jaeger is slow but extremely powerful and durable. Hitting her with bottles and other projectiles only causes her to flinch slightly. When timed correctly, however, that split second makes the difference between escaping her grasp or suffering one of her clubbing blows. I watched her seize victims, lifting them to her eye level before delivering a rib-shattering gut punch that often downed them in one blow.
I watched the Red Barrels team jump into a trial to demonstrate the Jaeger’s impact on the experience. This new story trial, Liquidate the Union, unfolds in a new level called the Suburbs, a faux town populated by unsettling mannequins. As the team works through this section, solving environmental puzzles like locating scattered symbols tied to a pin pad code, the Jaeger begins to stalk them. She’s not the swiftest foe, so she usually targets a single, random player to hunt with what the developer describes as a “Terminator-like” determination.
The designer currently targeted attempts to lure the Jaeger away from everyone else as they worked to solve a pin pad puzzle to open a door. While this is a smart strategy, she won’t keep her sights on one victim forever. The Jaeger eventually finds a new quarry, and things quickly devolve into chaos as the developers scramble to avoid her without losing track of the task at hand. It doesn’t go smoothly for them, and several drop like flies when they can’t escape quickly enough.
Red Barrels also used this encounter to demonstrate the new (and much-requested) nudity filter introduced in Project Relapse. Toggling this feature adds a pixeled effect to the naughty bits of naked characters and bodies, including the largely bare Jaeger. While neat to have, especially for content creators, the visual of a largely blurry Jaeger adds a layer of unintentional comedy to the otherwise tense experience that I can’t decide is good or bad.
The team eventually learns the correct code and opens the door to reveal a union boss strapped to a standing bed on a conveyor track moving backward through the stage. This turns the Trial into an escort mission, as the developers must protect the “payload” while fending off attackers. It’s a chaotic scene I don’t get to see the end of, as the developers stop the demo to avoid spoilers.
The Jaeger will be a permanent presence in all trials during the season’s first month, so players will get to know her very well, very quickly. With all of the chaos she wrought, The Jaeger is my favorite addition of several updates coming to Season 3, which also includes a Trial Maker, a new tool-making kit that lets players create custom Trials using unique combinations of Challenges and Variators to share with other players, two new MK-Challenges, a new deluxe catalog, and more. Things may look bleak(er) in the Sinyala Facility, but Season 3 has the potential to be the best chapter for The Outlast Trials yet.
