Developed by People Can Fly and published by Square Enix, the new game Outriders has seen a massive launch that has been somewhat plagued by server issues and crossplay bugs. Outriders features a fascinating story with great worldbuilding that makes it feel quite unique. However, this focus on storytelling may have had a negative effect on the rest of the game, as the gameplay itself quickly begins to feel repetitive despite the underlying notes of complex combat mechanics.
Outriders opens with the player creating an character, called an Outrider, whom they’ll play as throughout the game. The character customization options are fairly limited, though it’s not an incredibly important aspect of the game. Players are then presented with some text that explains the game’s premise — Earth has been destroyed and humanity’s last survivors are looking for a new planet to call home after they caused the destruction of their last.
The game’s opening mission serves as both a tutorial for the game and an introduction to Outriders‘ world. There’s a lot here for players to take in, creating a somewhat overwhelming opening. Luckily, many of the key plot elements introduced, such as the importance of Outriders and information about the planet humanity has fled to, are reiterated later on as well.
Despite being somewhere around two hours long, the game’s opening mission feels rushed at certain points. Players aren’t given too much time to interact with the characters before disaster strikes in the form of an anomalous storm that begins to form on the planet. There’s an intense and clever sequence where the player has to run from lighting strikes being sent down by this storm that also serves as a show-don’t-tell introduction to area-of-effect attacks, where players see red radiuses appearing in front of them that are quickly followed by a lightning strike.
What makes Outriders‘ opening feel so rushed is part the result of an important plot point that occurs near the end of the tutorial: the main character is critically injured, and they are placed in a cryo-pod. Thirty years later, they awaken to find that the original green and lush planet they landed on has been torn apart by a new generation of humans fighting for survival against the planet’s anomalous storms.
Despite the level of detail, the game’s fast pace in those opening hours makes it difficult to really internalize much of what’s going on. The introductory mission can feel like a chore to get through, especially since there are quite a few cutscenes and loading screens (on the PlayStation 4 version) that interrupt gameplay. Once players get through the two-hour opening, however, they’re presented with the main combat mechanic that makes Outriders unique from other shooter-RPGs like Destiny or Warframe.
Each of Outriders‘ classes has its own unique set of abilities that fill a different role in combat. They also have passive healing abilities that dictate how they can restore health during combat, as the game has no health pick-ups. For example, the Technomancer has a straightforward healing ability where they gain health back as they damage enemies. Each ability incentivizes the class’ playstyle while still giving players room to experiment with what they find works best for them.
Of course, while it can be played in single-player Outriders is a co-op-focused game, with many of its combat systems being designed to synergize with a party made up of different classes. The Technomancer is described as a support class that can assist allies with increased firepower, which in turn can help the tank-like Devastator with crowd-control or provide long-range support for the melee-focused Trickster.
Enemy difficulty adjusts itself depending on the number of players in a game, and players can make further adjustments using the world tier system to raise or lower the difficulty, though this is at the expense of loot quality. Higher world tiers need to be unlocked, though this happens fairly consistently, as this is tied to the game’s main story missions. Core missions also feature side-missions within them, usually providing a higher-difficulty arena with powerful weapons as a reward.
Outriders‘ weapon system feels simple — in a good way. There’s a limited amount of gun types that sometimes have mods that give them a unique ability. For example, an assault rifle may come with an ability that heals the player, with the amount of health restored corresponding to the number of enemies killed with the weapon. Many of these weapon mods mesh with different aspects of the classes, such as the healing mod synergizing with the Technomancer’s passive healing ability.
There is a lot of complexity to Outriders‘ combat, but, unfortunately, it often goes underutilized. Many encounters require players to simply throw as much firepower as they can at a situation, rather than encouraging teams to strategize. The linear nature of the game’s levels also limits how many options players have to approach different situations, usually forcing them into a head-on charge against waves of enemies.
Still, Outriders manages to remain engaging through its unique settings and environments. Despite how dark in tone the game gets at times, these are still stunning to look at. The world of Outriders isn’t a happy one; it’s a place where as humanity is desperately holding onto any chance of escaping to a better planet. While, as a shooter, Outriders isn’t particularly special (and it’s gameplay can get repetitive fast), the game’s fascinating world and lore helps to make up for shortcomings.
Developed by People Can Fly and published by Square Enix, Outriders is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Stadia. A review copy was provided by the publisher.
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