The Outlast series has surpassed 15 million copies sold, further proving that horror — especially good horror — sells.
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News of the impressive sales milestone comes via a new feature article from GamesIndustry that dives into how Canadian developer Red Barrels went from a nobody, to one of the biggest players in the horror space.
According to the article, Red Barrels took what was initially a $1.4 million budget (which is very small in the game development world) and transformed it into a $64 million franchise that boasts over 15 million in sales.
Such a sales figure puts the series amongst the most popular new IPs from an independent studio this decade, with the studio earning $64 million revenue from sales (or $45 million after distributors have taken cuts). The studio’s bank account was literally zero when it launched Outlast in 2013, which makes its massive success all the more impressive.
For those that don’t know: Outlast, a first-person survival psychological horror game, debuted back on September 4, 2013 via PC. Upon launch it quickly gathered a storm of attention for its impressive and original effort in a genre riddled with both trite copycats and downright bad games.
In 2014, the title then came to PS4 and Xbox One, which further projected it towards the center of the industry’s mind-share. The following year it hit Mac and Linux, and then earlier this year, it came to the Nintendo Switch.
During this time, DLC for the game, called Whistleblower, also released. Serving as a prequel, it is considered by many as some of the best content in the series.
Cementing itself as one of the best and most important horror games this generation, it obviously spawned a sequel, dubbed Outlast 2, which released last year on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, before hitting Nintendo Switch this year. While not as critically acclaimed or impactful as the first game, Outlast 2 also generated quite the buzz, and presumably sold a healthy amount of copies.
Red Barrels is currently working on another game within the Outlast brand, but that isn’t Outlast 3. According to the Canadian developer, it will be “a departure” from the gameplay experience of the first two games.
If you’re fan of Outlast, then be sure to check out the entire feature piece on the series by GamesIndustry — it is brimming with interesting tidbits.
