Every trial ends with a report card, and the report card is fairer than it looks. A+ is the highest grade and F is what failure gets you, and between those two endpoints sits a point system that rewards careful play and punishes sloppy play in specific, learnable ways. The single most important fact is also the most liberating: completion time does not affect your grade. You are not racing the clock. You are being judged on how cleanly you played, and clean play is a skill you can practice on the easiest difficulty first.
Quick answer
Top grade A+, bottom grade F for failure. The middle grade letters and their score thresholds are unverified and are not listed here.
Positive points can offset some negative points. A messy run can still recover if the rest of it is clean.
Side objectives are effectively required for A+. Skipping them makes A+ nearly impossible.
Completion time does not affect the grade. Speed is never the reason a grade drops.
A+ pays extra experience, and a main trial A+ pays about twice what an MK-Challenge A+ pays.
At a glance
What: how trial grades are calculated and how to earn A+.
Where: the second page of the results screen.
Key rule: side objectives required, time ignored.
Last verified: November 1, 2026.
1. What earns points
Completing the therapy itself, the foundation of every grade.
Completing side objectives, the difference between a pass and an A+.
Collecting propaganda posters and documents.
Using items, acting with your Rig, and landing throwable headshots with bricks or the Stun Rig.
Co-op actions, such as pushing a door together with a teammate.
Picking locks to open containers.
Surviving Psychosis, the Survived psychosis point.
2. What loses points
Taking damage, and losing Sanity.
Explosive trap damage and tripping sound traps, such as cans, ground sensors, and broken glass.
Over-relying on hiding spots.
Read the two lists together and the strategy writes itself. The game rewards doing the optional things carefully and punishes taking damage carelessly, which means the A+ route is usually the slow route: clear side objectives, collect everything, use your tools, and avoid damage rather than tanking it. Over-relying on hiding spots is the trap in the list that surprises new players, because hiding feels safe. The grading system disagrees. Hiding is a tool for breaking contact, not a home, and players who live in lockers score like players who are afraid to play.
3. Why side objectives decide A+
Side objectives are the gate, not the bonus. Multiple grading guides agree that skipping side objectives makes A+ nearly impossible, because the positive points from side objectives are a large part of the score that offsets the negative points every real run accumulates. Nobody plays a damage-free trial by accident, and the system knows it: positives are designed to cover some negatives, but only if you actually earned the positives. That is also why co-op groups grade better when they split side objectives instead of racing the main path together. One player pushing the main objective while the others clear posters and documents is not splitting up carelessly; it is farming the points A+ needs.
4. Rewards, co-op grades, and Sanity
An A+ pays extra experience, which feeds Therapy Level progression and Voucher unlocks, and the payout roughly doubles from an MK-Challenge to a main trial. That ratio is the reason main trials are the efficient A+ farm, even though MK-Challenges are shorter: two short A+ runs do not beat one long one. In co-op, the results screen reports both a team grade and a personal grade, and the personal grade goes on your personal record. In solo play there is no team dimension, so the personal grade is the whole story. Sanity deserves its own paragraph because it is the only system that both punishes and rewards in the same breath: losing Sanity costs points, but surviving the Skinner Man that full Psychosis summons earns the Survived psychosis point. The lesson is not to farm Psychosis. It is to stop fearing it, carry antidotes, and keep moving when it arrives.
5. What is not published, and why
Only the endpoints are verified: A+ at the top and F for failure. The middle grade letters, their score thresholds, and any fixed experience table are not verified to a citable standard, and this guide does not invent them. Experience payouts also vary by trial, so a single number would be wrong even if it looked precise. If a guide shows you a full A-through-F table with cutoffs, ask where the cutoffs came from. In this game, the honest answer is usually that nobody measured them, and the useful answer is the one this guide gives: earn the positives, avoid the negatives, clear the side objectives, and ignore the clock.
Frequently asked questions
Does finishing faster improve my grade?
No. Multiple grading guides agree that completion time does not affect the grade. A slow, clean run grades better than a fast, messy one.
Can I still get A+ after taking damage?
Yes, because positive points offset some negative points. Damage makes A+ harder, not impossible, as long as the rest of the run earns its positives.
Verification note
Grade endpoints, point lists, side-objective requirement, time rule, and A+ reward ratio: TheGamer grading guide plus Gamer.org and GetJumpScared guides, in broad agreement.
Team plus personal grades in co-op: multiplayer review and results-screen descriptions.
Middle grade letters, score thresholds, and fixed experience numbers are unverified and deliberately not listed.
Name note: the Steam store pages, including the Simplified and Traditional Chinese pages, still show the English title The Outlast Trials, and no official Chinese name has been verified. Chinese-speaking players commonly use the Chinese community name, but that is a community name, not an official one.
Last verified: November 1, 2026.