The Outlast Trials has a new limited-time event, and The Outlast Trials went with puppets, mannequin children, and a lot of acid. Program Geister arrives under the Project Boneyard banner. Its gameplay trailer shows two new MK-Challenges built around carrying dangerous things through places you would never volunteer to enter. The trailer’s closing slate says the update is out now on every platform the game supports.
Quick answer: Program Geister is now available in The Outlast Trials on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Its two MK-Challenges are Compel the Children, alongside Sanitize the Factory.
Program Geister MK-Challenges in The Outlast Trials
MK-Challenges are the game’s objective-driven missions. Your reagent, the custom test subject you play as, works through a set of tasks with other players while the Trials’ staff tries to kill everyone. Geister adds two of them, and each one has its own location and main task.
| MK-Challenge | Setting | Core objective |
|---|---|---|
| Compel the Children | Orphanage grounds and mansion | Escort the “CARRY THIS” reliquary |
| Sanitize the Factory | Duck Duck Toy Factory | Pour acid into sanitation tanks |
Both challenges follow the series formula. You get one main task, a few side chores that stand between you and that task, and enemies who make every trip across the map more painful than it should be.
Compel the Children: The Orphanage Escort
Compel the Children opens outside a set of orphanage gates. A row of TV monitors there flashes one instruction: ESCORT THE FATHER. The “father” in practice is a glowing reliquary box marked with a lit “CARRY THIS” sign. It first appears on an altar while habit-wearing nuns and mannequin children clap in rhythm around it.
From there the job is moving that box through the grounds. The footage shows reagents crowding around it before setting off, and the escort is clearly a group effort.
The escort is not the only task. The same stretch of footage shows several smaller jobs along the way.
- Interacting with haunted paintings, one of which a creature bursts through.
- Activating objective consoles around the grounds.
- Charging a battery dispenser, labeled “BATTERY DISPENSER IN LOBBY,” from 0/100 to 100/100.
- Working through dark rooms with night vision, past meat-cutting tables and a mannequin that moves on a bed.
- Operating spiked mechanical gears inside the mansion while fighting off attackers.
The gears look like the most physical puzzle in the orphanage. The trailer frames them up close, in first person, with the player standing right next to a lot of spikes.
The mansion also sets the tone. “COMPLICITY IS DEATH” is scrawled on a wall, and a room of mechanical mannequin children performs a synchronized dance while a stalker drops in from above. Whether the dance is a puzzle, a hazard, or pure set dressing isn’t clear from the trailer. It is unsettling either way.
Sanitize the Factory: Acid Disposal in the Duck Duck Toy Factory
The second challenge moves from the orphanage to an industrial site. The Duck Duck Toy Factory opens on a courtyard full of trucks, and reagents have to raise shutter gates to get inside.
Inside, conveyor lines carry bodies instead of toys, and a heavy enemy with a cleaver patrols the floor. The objective is right there in the name. Players pick up yellow canisters stamped “HANDLE WITH CARE,” which hold CRYSTALLINE OXALIC ACID, and pour the contents into a SANITATION TANK. The factory is split into lettered zones, Section A through Section D, each with its own acid lockboxes.
Getting acid from a lockbox to a tank means passing through a run of hazards:
- Swinging blades on the factory floor.
- Tripwires stretched across walkways.
- Rolling security doors, like the one marked “OFFICES 00,” that players slide under as they close.
- Enemies who give chase while you carry a canister.
That last item is the tension the challenge is built around. One trailer shot shows a player hauling a canister to the tank with someone right behind them. It plays out the familiar Outlast problem of needing your hands for the task and your legs for running away.
Geister Enemies and Hazards
Geister’s look leans on twisted childhood imagery. A Mother Gooseberry puppet stage shows a bloody slaughter scene, a gloomy carousel turns nearby, and a weeping figure sits off to the side. Flesh-like tendrils cover corridors and turn into red hallucinations mid-chase.
The trailer shows these threats across both challenges:
- Cultist nuns who gather around the reliquary altar.
- Animatronic puppets and mannequin children.
- An attacker in a pointed hat who stabs a victim against a wooden wall.
- A gas-masked enemy who lunges at the player, and a spiked-face enemy who slashes at the screen.
- A pale creature that bursts out of a framed portrait.
- The cleaver-wielding brute in the toy factory.
Players can fight back a little. Late in the trailer, first-person takedowns show enemies getting knocked back, electrocuted, and beaten down. As usual, reagents are a mix of custom looks, with plague-style beak masks, trench coats, boiler suits, and night-vision rigs all in the squad.
Program Geister Platforms and Availability
The trailer’s closing slate reads “PROJECT BONEYARD – PROGRAM GEISTER UPDATE OUT NOW.” Project Boneyard is the same banner on the game’s Season 7 trailer, which introduced the Prison Farm environment. Geister is the limited-time event running under it. The update is live on:
- PC through Steam and the Epic Games Store
- PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4
- Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One
Geister is billed as a limited-time event, but no official end date has been confirmed.
If you already own The Outlast Trials, Compel the Children and Sanitize the Factory should appear among the game’s MK-Challenges once the update is installed. Because the event is temporary, its puppet stages and acid tanks are best visited sooner rather than later.
