In Rex Miller’s 1987 horror novel Slob , Chicago is under the blight of “Chaingang,” a 500-pound killer whose hunger for food and flesh is unequaled. Despite his appearance and more odorous stench, the walking death manages to maneuver with little detection due to what’s described as an uncanny charisma. He is effectively camouflaged. Such an unusual make of man, it turns out, is not born. Chaingang was designed by the Pentagon, part of a covert project to create an unstoppable murder machine to turn the tide in Vietnam. A Michael Myers for Uncle Sam.

Then he came home. They always do.

The Outlast Trials is entirely consumed by this boomerang paradigm. In the co-op game, you and other lower rungs of society are subjected to mental conditioning tests. Solve puzzles, elude enemy detection and, occasionally, murder in unthinkable ways.…