Outriders came out the gate swinging with an attempt to shake up the genre with some big changes, and a different way of handling the dreaded content drip. This single purchase 3rd person shooter doesn’t want you just hanging behind cover, it wants you to be using your powers as an altered to make meaningful waves on the battlefield, with the reward being all of the color-coded loot you could ask for!
Outriders
Developer: People Can Fly
Price: $60
Platform: PC/PS/XB
MonsterVine was supplied with a PS5 code for review
I have played a ton of looter-shooter games over the years, Destiny, Warframe, The Division and Borderlands just to name a few. Somehow the running on the hamster wheel grind to see bigger numbers appeals to my monkey brain and it just keeps me plain ‘ole entertained. But alas, I’ve kind of fallen out of them lately, too many other games to play and things to do other than occupy time with the kind of things I’ve come to expect from the genre. Upon seeing the build up to Outriders, I put it on my radar as something I may be interested in checking out. Lo and behold, I come upon a review code for it to write for this lovely website we know and love that you are on at this very moment! Excited to get into this experience, I popped it on and was met with what most large online multiplayer releases deal with on day one, the ever present server issues! I had a real hard time actually playing the game, but when I did get in and put some hours in with the rest of the MonsterVine guys, I think there is enough to set this apart from its compatriots that is worth talking about.
Outriders draws the camera back compared to Destiny or Borderlands and instead opts for a 3rd person camera angle filled with chest high walls for you to utilize for you rooty tooty mcshooty antics that this title is filled with. Not content with just shooting and grenades, Outriders has 4 different classes that have a TON of different abilities for you to use in addition to your usual guns. Whether it be the temporal assassin, the Trickster (This is what I played!), the mid-range support class, the Pyromancer, the long range support class, the Technomancer or the up close and personal tank class, The Devastator, the classes and the build choices contained within them are sure to accommodate a WIDE variety of gameplay preferences. I really appreciate that this game eschews traditional slower 3rd person shooter combat by heavily encouraging you to be mobile and aggressive in the game by giving each class a different way to recover their health beyond the smaller threshold that will naturally regenerate like you would expect in most games. The Trickster especially felt refreshing because I would gain health and a shield when I killed enemies in close range so I always felt like I was rewarded for making big plays that would normally have some big risks associated with them because I was able to close in, and make lots of big damage close range assaults to keep my health up and my rampage going.
Outriders puts its story front and center compared to its peers, and I’d say it’s certainly more interesting than a lot of the other kids on block. I love a schlocky Sci-Fi story filled with all kinds of made up sciences and nature fluff, and Outriders didn’t disappoint me in that aspect. While I wouldn’t say this is some amazing epic tale that will have you on the edge of your seat the whole time, it kept me at the very least entertained as we moved from story beat to story beat to get to the next area full of chest high walls and baddies. The Earth has been tarnished, depleted of resources and it’s starting to essentially collapse in on itself. The rich, famous and intelligent all hop into a big ole space ark and they travel for decades, their sights set on a planet considered to be habitual. Being a part of the first group on people to get feet down on the planet, you unsurprisingly run into trouble as it turns out this planet might be no so nice, and it also happens to be ravaged by indescribable forces of nature that rip and tear at the very fabric our reality is made up of, oh boy! Outriders quickly lets you know that no one is safe from a swift bullet, or a bit of the ole reality tearing, so don’t get attached to most of the characters you will meet. Luckily, you are a special little person, and someone gained powers from these spooky forces of nature, and after you take a nice, long cryo nap you wake up to find out this world has not progressed too kindly to anyone as this war torn world is locked in a never ending battle between forces! Guess who gets in the middle of it, I’ll wait. Did you guess? Ding ding ding, it’s you! Your powers as an “Altered” are the key to turning the tides for the good guys, and you can bet your butt they are going to put you to work.
One of my absolute favorite things about Outriders is that it has you making meaningful build choices early on, instead of basically holding all of that ransom for the endgame power grind. I was able to pick from a big number of abilities, modifiers and skills that would meaningfully impact gameplay from the get go. I especially love how the crafting system was put in place to let you basically save special abilities from one piece of equipment, to let you put it on whatever piece of equipment you would want! No more grinding for that specific gun with the bone explosion perk, you can just pop that bad boy on there and get to popping skeletons like no one’s business. The skill tree feels massive, with three distinct trees per class and lots of opportunities to sneak into another tree and cherry pick a few skills that work for you as well.
I think it’s admirable that the devs set out to make a game in this vein that isn’t supported by a “Games as a Service” style system that is held up by microtransactions. Based on what i’ve seen so far, this game is pretty much a complete package, with the devs saying they may be interested in a big expansion, but we have no drip fed “2021 content roadmap” system trying to keep our interest. It’s a change for the genre, and we can’t say yet if it’s a successful idea but I think the idea of these being a little less massive and a bit more definitive is a fun idea, a good experience you can enjoy, but eventually put down and be done with it unless something big comes along. You don’t have to sign on every day to do arbitrary daily missions offering bait on a hook to keep you playing, but I also wonder quite how much content is here for the average one and done type. I have zero doubts this game will heavily resonate with some people, inspiring them to try out every character class, different build, replaying the story utilizing the world level mechanic to make the story harder and drop more powerful rewards, as well as doing all the end game content they have built so you aren’t just repeating the story to get stronger, but it remains to see if this will be a majority or a minority.
The Final Word
I had a good time with Outriders, I really hope they make it through this rough start, and the game sees some success. I love to see a dev set out to tackle some of the issues that have arisen in a genre, and manage to actually do it in an innovative and satisfying way. I will absolutely be playing more Outriders myself, the first time I sliced someone with a temporal blade of time to see them lose their skin and explode, I was sold. Give this one a try, it’s a one time purchase and I think you will get your money’s worth, especially if you enjoy shooting and looting.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4 out of 5 – Good
