Red Barrels breach delayed Outlast development after 1.8TB theft claim

Red Barrels, the Canadian studio behind the Outlast horror series, disclosed on October 2, 2024 that a cybersecurity event had hit its internal IT systems. The studio said some company data was accessed but that players of its games were not directly affected.

Red Barrels said it had engaged external cybersecurity specialists to investigate and contain the incident and warned that the intrusion would have a significant effect on internal processes. It told its community that development timelines would slip, including work on The Outlast Trials and other planned content.

A group calling itself Nitrogen claimed responsibility and said it had taken roughly 1.8 terabytes of data. Material the group listed reportedly included source code for Outlast and Outlast 2, unreleased game builds, human resources files, financial records and payment card details. The attackers were said to be demanding an undisclosed sum and threatening to publish the data if it went unpaid.

The volume and contents of the stolen files came from the attackers' own claims and were not independently confirmed by Red Barrels, which did not comment publicly on any ransom demand. The studio gave no timeline for restoring normal development schedules and no date for the delayed projects.