Saw’s theatrical franchise may not be everyone’s favorite horror series, especially in its later entries, and its game adaptations may not have had any better reception. But Saw is still an IP that could potentially be adapted to games in a meaningful and satisfying way, so long as it has the right developer and the right gameplay. Considering the torture puzzles that typically constitute a Saw experience, there are few designs that would work. Fortunately, Red Barrels’ next horror title will be The Outlast Trials, which could offer the perfect formula for a co-op Saw game.
Further, it’s not like there hasn’t been an attempt to revive the franchise in games in the recent past, since it is already publicly known that Bloober Team passed on the Saw license in favor of Blair Witch. If the intent is to remove the IP from the shelf and give it a home with a new developer, Red Barrels might find success with it following the third installment of its Outlast franchise. Only scarce details have been shared about The Outlast Trials, but its survival-horror co-op gameplay may lend itself well to having players help one another escape Jigsaw’s traps.
The Outlast Trials Seems to Follow the Saw Formula
Relinquishing the story-driven premise of Outlast and Outlast 2, Red Barrels has decided to take its third installment in a relatively opposite direction with The Outlast Trials. Set during the Cold War, players are involuntarily dragged off to be scientific test subjects and endure sadistic challenges that it considers therapy, with survival being the only goal that players have.
The environments shown thus far for The Outlast Trials are incredibly elaborate set pieces, not unlike the ones established in the Saw franchise. This gives Red Barrels an unending amount of ingenuity and potential with the trials it proposes for players, especially when it is considered that The Outlast Trials intends to feature co-op with up to four players.
Outlast’s traditional cat-and-mouse gameplay may be reprised here in some regard, but The Outlast Trials already looks more robust with new gameplay mechanics that players should expect. Such mechanics include setting remote trap devices as a way to finally fight back instead of exclusively hiding or running.
Red Barrels Could Be the Perfect Developer for a Saw Game
Outlast’s simplicity is likely what made it so popular back when it was released, even if nowadays that same simplicity is critiqued for not having much substance to it. That is a fair argument when considering that the entire experience consists of hiding and peering out of cabinets while looking through a night vision camcorder.
However, The Outlast Trials seems fairly emergent for Red Barrels in terms of what it can offer in gameplay, and it could be an easy transition from The Outlast Trials to Saw in the future. On paper, the premise for both The Outlast Trials and Saw is the same: victims gain consciousness and learn they are part of a horrific experiment that is proposed to them under the guise of therapeutic enlightenment.
Individuals are coerced into performing a horrible act of violence, or trapped in a delicate mechanism and must put themselves through irreparable anguish to escape. The Outlast Trials claims that players will be freed if they successfully survive, and whether that is true or not, that is the same promise made by Saw’s Jigsaw. Of course, most Saw traps are engineered to be inescapable. But because both The Outlast Trials and Saw seem to share so many similarities, Red Barrels should absolutely be considered as a developer if the license is still being offered around.
The Outlast Trials is in development.