The Outlast Trials vs Call of Duty: Black Ops 7

• Perspective: First-Person
• Setting: Futuristic (2035)
• Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass
• Core Pillars: Co-op Campaign, Multiplayer, Round-Based Zombies
• Unique Feature: A return to the futuristic themes of Black Ops III, with an evolved movement system, specialist abilities, and a story centered on a manipulative tech corporation.

• Co-Op Teammates: The game allows for 1-4 player co-op. Teammates are essential for distracting enemies, coordinating multi-step puzzles, and reviving you when incapacitated.
  Human Players
• Cornelius Noakes: The friendly, cynical engineer located in the Sleep Room. He provides all the Rig upgrades and acts as a rare source of relatively normal conversation in the facility.
  Murkoff Engineer

• Campaign & Zombies Squad: The game's campaign is a co-op experience. In online modes, your companions are other human players. Teamwork is essential for winning matches and surviving high rounds in Zombies.
  Human (Player/AI)

• Evidence Documents: Heavily redacted lore files hidden randomly in the dark corners of the trials, providing deep narrative context regarding the Murkoff Corporation and the MK-Ultra experiments.
• Reborn Tokens: Earned exclusively by completing trials with high grades. Collecting 10 tokens allows the player to enter the final, solo 'Rebirth' trial to prestige their character.
• Cell Decorations: Posters, wallpapers, floor textures, and desk trinkets purchased with in-game currency, allowing players to extensively customize their personal cell in the Sleep Room.

• Campaign Intel: Hidden items and evidence found throughout the single-player and co-op campaign missions that provide additional lore.
• Zombies Ciphers: Hidden codes and messages scattered across the Zombies maps that are essential for dedicated fans to piece together the deep, ongoing Dark Aether storyline.

• Cold War
• Brainwashing
• MK-Ultra
• Mind Control
• Asylum
• Torture
• Stealth Survival
• Found Footage Aesthetic

• Futuristic Warfare
• Spy Thriller
• Technology
• Propaganda
• Co-op
• Multiplayer
• Zombies
• Psychological

• Stun Rig: Tactical Ability
  An essential piece of Murkoff tech equipped before a trial. When thrown, it delivers a massive EMP and electrical shock, incapacitating any enemy caught in the blast radius for several seconds.
• Throwables (Bricks / Bottles): Environmental Distraction
  Scavenged from the environment, these can be thrown into dark corners to lure enemies away from objectives, or smashed directly into a pursuer's face to temporarily stagger them.
• Blind Rig: Tactical Ability
  A deployable proximity mine that, when triggered by an enemy, erupts in a massive cloud of blinding smoke, allowing the entire team to slip away completely unnoticed.

• Futuristic Firearms: Varies (Assault Rifles, SMGs, etc.)
  An arsenal of advanced weaponry appropriate for the 2035 setting. Leaked blueprints are described as 'colorful stuff,' leaning into a sci-fi aesthetic.
• Specialist Weapons: Unique Abilities
  Powerful weapons tied to specialist abilities, such as miniguns or flamethrowers, which become available after a cooldown or by earning score.

• Patient Scrubs: The default, degrading hospital gowns worn by fresh Reagents, cementing their status as nothing more than disposable lab rats.
• Legendary Reborn Outfits: Highly elaborate, terrifying outfits (like bloody butcher aprons or damaged police uniforms) awarded strictly to players who successfully 'Rebirth' and escape the facility.
• Night Vision Goggles: Not optional clothing, but the surgically bolted-on goggles every player wears, featuring heavily in the game's iconic visual aesthetic.

• Operator Skins: The primary form of character customization. Players can unlock and equip a wide variety of cosmetic outfits for their multiplayer Operators through the Battle Pass, in-game store, or by completing challenges.

Unlike previous Outlast games where you were entirely defenseless, The Outlast Trials offers a robust progression system. Players visit various Murkoff staff in the Sleep Room to purchase upgrades. 'Rigs' are active, cooldown-based abilities equipped before a trial (Stun Rig, Blind Rig, Heal Rig, X-Ray Rig, and Barricade Rig). 'Amps' are passive perks that radically alter gameplay (e.g., taking no damage from broken glass, starting trials with a lockpick, or regenerating health over time). Finally, 'Prescriptions' are permanent, tiered physical upgrades that increase the player's stamina, inventory slots, and sliding speed, ensuring that even a failed trial yields progress.

The game features a return of Specialist abilities, offering unique powers like grapple hooks and active camo. A significant change is the reported removal of 'tac sprint,' with players instead having a constant, faster base speed. The beloved 'looping streaks' feature is expected to return in the form of an equippable perk.

The game features several sprawling, multi-objective Trial maps, each constructed as a horrifying, artificial facade built inside a massive warehouse (complete with visible scaffolding and camera rails on the ceilings). Key regions include the 'Police Station', a gritty urban environment focused on hunting down snitches; the 'Fun Park', a twisted carnival filled with deadly games and rollercoasters; the 'Orphanage', a deeply unsettling religious school; and the 'Toy Factory', a sprawling industrial maze. Each map is modular, allowing Murkoff (the developers) to block off certain doors or change objective locations during subsequent 'MK-Challenges' (shorter, harder variants of the main maps).

Multiplayer will feature a variety of maps, including three remastered classics from Black Ops II at launch: Raid, Express, and Hijacked. New maps are described as being more colorful than those in Black Ops 6, with some featuring automated doors instead of interactable ones. Campaign locations include Japan and the fictional city of Avalon.

• The Sleep Room Shuttle: Facility Transport
  The mechanical tram that physically transports the terrified players from the safe hub of the Sleep Room directly into the hellish warehouse testing grounds.
• Objective Carts: Pushable Mechanics
  Not vehicles you drive, but heavy carts (like the Snitch's chair or the Root Canal boat) that players must physically group up to push along a track while exposed to enemies.

• The Skinner Man: Hallucination
  Not an animal, but a terrifying, ghostly entity that only spawns when a player's sanity is completely depleted (Psychosis). It will chase and damage the player until an antidote is consumed.
• Pouncers (Hiding Enemies): Ex-Pop
  Deranged, mutilated inmates who hide inside the exact spots players use to escape (lockers, barrels, trunks). Opening an occupied hiding spot results in a terrifying jump scare and severe damage.
• Night Hunter: Ex-Pop
  A highly dangerous, tall enemy equipped with his own set of Night Vision Goggles. Unlike standard enemies, he can see players perfectly in the pitch black.

• The Reagents: Player Avatars
  Desperate, disposable human guinea pigs abducted by Murkoff. Players customize their faces, voices, and outfits to represent their own personal victim.
• Mother Gooseberry: Prime Asset
  A deeply psychotic, former children's television host whose face is permanently mangled. She wields a deadly drill hidden inside a duck hand-puppet named Dr. Futterman.
• Leland Coyle: Prime Asset
  A highly corrupt, sadomasochistic ex-police officer wielding a powerful stun baton. He enforces his own twisted version of the law inside the Police Station and Fun Park trials.

• David Mason: Playable Protagonist (Campaign)
  The hero of Black Ops II returns to lead a new team against a shadowy technological threat.
• Emma Kagan: Key NPC / Antagonist?
  The charismatic CEO of 'The Guild,' the powerful tech corporation at the heart of the game's story.
• Mike Harper: Key NPC (Campaign)
  A returning supporting character from Black Ops II, assisting David Mason's team.
• Multiplayer Operators: Playable Characters (Multiplayer)
  A diverse roster of playable characters for multiplayer, each with access to different specialist abilities. Leaks suggest some may have a 'zombie people' aesthetic.

• Kill the Snitch (Police Station): Core Trial
  Break into a fortified precinct, start backup generators to open the garage, and violently push an informant strapped to a chair along a track to electrocute him.
• Grind the Bad Apples (Fun Park): Core Trial
  A deeply disturbing trial where players must win rigged carnival games to earn tickets, ultimately pushing a cart of mannequin 'children' into a massive meat grinder.
• Poison the Medicine (Orphanage): Core Trial
  Navigate a creepy religious school, tune specific radio frequencies, and administer hallucinogenic drugs to the water supply while dodging Mother Gooseberry.

• Co-op Campaign
  A cinematic, spy-thriller story mode where players team up to uncover a conspiracy involving the mysterious tech corporation, 'The Guild.'
• Multiplayer
  The core competitive online experience, featuring a variety of game modes across a mix of new and remastered maps, including Raid, Express, and Hijacked.
• Zombies
  A cooperative survival mode where a team of up to four players fights off endless hordes of the undead, completes objectives, and uncovers a deep storyline in the Dark Aether.

The game is balanced for 1 to 4 players. While fully playable and highly terrifying as a solo experience, it shines in cooperative multiplayer. Co-op fundamentally changes the gameplay loop; players can distract enemies while a teammate picks a lock, use the Heal Rig to sustain the party, and physically kick enemies off pinned teammates. The game utilizes built-in proximity voice chat, meaning communication is natural, but shouting will alert nearby enemies, leading to terrifying moments where players must whisper to coordinate.

The Outlast Trials launched in Early Access on PC in May 2023, before achieving its 1.0 full release across PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on March 5, 2024. The game is available in a Standard Edition and a Deluxe Edition, which includes the base game and the 'Reagent Starter Pack' (featuring unique cosmetic player skins, cell decorations, and player icons). The game uses a live-service seasonal model, continuously adding new Trials, Prime Assets, and cosmetic battle passes (called Catalogs).

Red Barrels treats the game as an ongoing live-service horror experience. Since launch, they have released massive seasonal updates, such as 'Project Lupara', which introduced a brand-new map (The Docks) and a terrifying new Prime Asset (Franco 'Il Bambino' Barbi, a mobster armed with a sawed-off shotgun). These updates also bring limited-time events, new MK-Challenges, escalations, and completely free gameplay modifiers to keep the trials unpredictable. Cosmetic catalogs (battle passes) are added regularly, allowing players to unlock new outfits and room decorations.

The game is expected to follow a seasonal model with weekly challenges and events, similar to Modern Warfare III, to maintain player engagement. These events will offer rewards like animated camos and aftermarket parts. New maps and content will be added with each season.

• Q: Do I need to play Outlast 1 or 2 first?
  A: No. The Outlast Trials is a prequel set decades before the main games during the Cold War. While it shares the same universe and the Murkoff Corporation, the story stands completely on its own.
• Q: Can I fight back against the enemies?
  A: You cannot kill the enemies. You can only temporarily stun them using throwable bricks, bottles, or your Rigs (abilities), forcing you to rely on stealth and evasion to survive.
• Q: Is the game playable entirely solo?
  A: Yes. The game dynamically scales objective counts and enemy behavior if you play solo, but be warned: it is incredibly difficult and terrifying without teammates to distract the enemies.
• Q: What happens when I finish the game?
  A: When you earn enough tokens, you undertake a final solo trial to become 'Reborn'. This acts as a prestige system; you unlock exclusive legendary outfits and return to the facility as a brand-new Reagent, keeping your upgraded Rigs and Amps.

• Q: What is new about the movement in Black Ops 7?
  A: It evolves the 'omnimovement' system but removes the controversial 'tac sprint,' providing a constant, faster base movement speed for more fluid gameplay. It will not feature advanced movement like wallrunning or jetpacks.
• Q: Does Black Ops 7 have a campaign?
  A: Yes, it features a full, cinematic co-op campaign set in 2035 that continues the story of David Mason from Black Ops II.
• Q: Is Zombies round-based again?
  A: Yes, it features classic, round-based Zombies. The launch map is set in the Dark Aether and will feature a mix of characters from the original and Black Ops 6 crews.
• Q: Will Black Ops 7 be on Game Pass?
  A: Yes, it will be available on day one for Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers.

Powered by Unreal Engine 4, the game pushes the visual boundaries of the horror genre. The environments are hyper-detailed, grim, and dripping with gore, perfectly capturing the twisted 1950s aesthetic. The iconic Outlast 'Night Vision' returns, seamlessly integrated into the players' surgical goggles, casting the pitch-black environments in a terrifying, grainy green glow. The character models for the Ex-Pops and Prime Assets are grotesque and highly varied, showcasing the horrific surgical mutilations inflicted upon them by Murkoff.

Sound design is the absolute pinnacle of The Outlast Trials. The game utilizes complex spatial audio; stepping on broken glass, triggering a sound trap, or sprinting makes distinct noises that AI enemies will investigate. The Prime Assets constantly taunt the players with deeply unsettling, brilliantly voice-acted dialogue that echoes through the warehouses. The music, composed by Tom Salta, is a horrific, pulsating mix of Cold War-era orchestral pieces and dark, industrial synths that escalate dramatically when a chase begins.

The UI is deeply immersive and Diegetic. Health, sanity, and battery life are represented by minimalistic, color-coded bars in the corner of the screen. Night vision is indicated by a classic green tint and a draining battery icon. When players suffer from 'Psychosis' (sanity drain), the UI deliberately lies to them—spawning fake player nameplates over hallucinated enemies, distorting vision, and producing horrific auditory hallucinations until an antidote is consumed.

The game includes robust accessibility options, particularly regarding visual and auditory feedback. It features fully customizable subtitles with speaker indicators, a colorblind mode, UI scaling, and toggleable settings for holding vs. pressing buttons during quick-time events (QTEs). The game also offers an 'arachnophobia' toggle and warnings for photosensitive players, given the heavy use of flashing lights and strobe effects during psychosis events.

• System requirements are rigorously verified against official Steam and Red Barrels storefront data. The Outlast Trials runs on a highly modified version of Unreal Engine 4, emphasizing dark environments, dynamic lighting, and complex enemy AI pathfinding over large player counts.
• Laptop Performance Note: The game relies heavily on real-time lighting and shadow rendering, as staying in the dark is a core gameplay mechanic. Mobile CPUs will face moderate loads calculating the AI behavior of multiple Ex-Pops wandering the map simultaneously.
• Laptop Consideration: G P U T G P: A minimal TGP of 60W (e.g., RTX 3050 Mobile) is perfectly adequate to hit 60 FPS at 1080p on Medium settings. For max settings and 1440p, an 85W+ TGP is recommended.
• Laptop Consideration: Cooling Thermals: Adequate cooling is required. The game is highly atmospheric; if thermal throttling occurs, the ensuing stutter can cause you to miss a crucial vault or fail a noise-based lockpicking mini-game.
• Laptop Consideration: C P U Power Limits: Standard power profiles are sufficient. The game is highly GPU-bound due to the lighting engine and volumetric fog.
• Laptop Consideration: M U X Switch Optimus: A MUX switch helps reduce input latency, which is crucial when performing split-second evasive maneuvers around charging enemies, though not strictly mandatory.
• Optimization Detail: Upscaling Tech: Supports NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR. Using upscaling is highly recommended to maintain perfectly fluid framerates during intense chase sequences.
• Optimization Detail: Key Settings Impact: Volumetric Fog, Shadow Quality, and Post-Processing (which controls the night-vision grain) have the highest impact on GPU performance.
• Game Name: The Outlast Trials

• SPECULATIVE PC SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS. As official specs were not provided, these are hypothetical projections for a next-generation title, likely with requirements similar to or slightly higher than Black Ops 6.
• Laptop Performance Note: A title like this would demand a high-performance gaming laptop. Actual performance would vary significantly based on the final game's optimization and the laptop's specific hardware configuration.
• Laptop Consideration: G P U T G P: Maximum TGP for the laptop's GPU would be essential to handle the advanced graphical features and maintain high framerates in competitive multiplayer.
• Laptop Consideration: Cooling Thermals: The game's fast-paced action will require a laptop with a cutting-edge cooling solution to prevent thermal throttling and sustain performance.
• Laptop Consideration: C P U Power Limits: A powerful multi-core mobile CPU will be critical for handling the complex physics, netcode, and maintaining high framerates in 128-player modes.
• Laptop Consideration: M U X Switch Optimus: A MUX switch or NVIDIA Advanced Optimus would remain a critical feature for reducing latency and ensuring the best possible performance and responsiveness in a competitive FPS.
• Game Name: Call of Duty: Black Ops 7

• Upscaling Tech: Supports NVIDIA DLSS and AMD FSR. Using upscaling is highly recommended to maintain perfectly fluid framerates during intense chase sequences.
• Key Settings Impact: Volumetric Fog, Shadow Quality, and Post-Processing (which controls the night-vision grain) have the highest impact on GPU performance.

• G P U T G P: A minimal TGP of 60W (e.g., RTX 3050 Mobile) is perfectly adequate to hit 60 FPS at 1080p on Medium settings. For max settings and 1440p, an 85W+ TGP is recommended.
• Cooling Thermals: Adequate cooling is required. The game is highly atmospheric; if thermal throttling occurs, the ensuing stutter can cause you to miss a crucial vault or fail a noise-based lockpicking mini-game.
• C P U Power Limits: Standard power profiles are sufficient. The game is highly GPU-bound due to the lighting engine and volumetric fog.
• M U X Switch Optimus: A MUX switch helps reduce input latency, which is crucial when performing split-second evasive maneuvers around charging enemies, though not strictly mandatory.

• G P U T G P: Maximum TGP for the laptop's GPU would be essential to handle the advanced graphical features and maintain high framerates in competitive multiplayer.
• Cooling Thermals: The game's fast-paced action will require a laptop with a cutting-edge cooling solution to prevent thermal throttling and sustain performance.
• C P U Power Limits: A powerful multi-core mobile CPU will be critical for handling the complex physics, netcode, and maintaining high framerates in 128-player modes.
• M U X Switch Optimus: A MUX switch or NVIDIA Advanced Optimus would remain a critical feature for reducing latency and ensuring the best possible performance and responsiveness in a competitive FPS.