Outriders Review

The Polish studio People Can Fly is remembered by many thanks to the successful Painkiller, who shone with his collaboration on Gears of War: Judgment. For me, it resonated mainly with Bulletstorm, which was released in 2011. Since then, not much has happened in the studio until 2019 came and the announcement of his new game. I have to admit, with a little soul, I was kind of hoping that the developers could bring a sequel to Bulletstorm, which I’m still expecting. Unfortunately (at least for me) this did not happen and a chance for a completely new brand again. Her name is Outriders and the studio has bold plans with her. There was even talk of a possible sequel here and there. The novelty was created in cooperation with Square Enix and, in the words of the developers, it is an intensive shooter with RPG elements, where cooperation plays an important role. And, of course, there is collecting loot. Can I hear hooray? Not? Well, keep reading.

As a singleplayer player, I wasn’t really blabbering on either. Similar things go beyond me. However, my opinion was changed by the fact that Outriders is a story shooter, which you can also play peacefully on your own. The length of the game, which could take you 25-30 hours, definitely belongs to the positive list. There are also cover elements that we know from Gears of War, and I will remind you again that the game is performed by authors who have really successful titles behind them. You have to admit that it sounds decent and the chances of disappointment are minimal. Well, no matter how perfect this introduction seems, the launch of the game was not perfect. The path to success was lined with thorny server errors, but if you did not let yourself be discouraged now, I dare say that this will be one of the best games we will get this year. It’s not perfect, but sit comfortably and let’s be fine. I promise it will be worth it. As you can see in the evaluation, Outriders have their qualities and are definitely worth your attention.

We find ourselves in the future, which has become a fatal planet on a war-torn planet. The remnants of our civilization must thus seek a new home in an infinite universe in which life will be possible. The prologue of the game shows that it could be the hospitable planet Enoch. You are a member of the Outriders unit, whose task is to explore an unknown planet and find out if it is suitable for humanity for a new beginning. As usual, appearances sometimes deceive, and you soon discover that Enoch can be anything but a sweet home. A mysterious anomaly will appear on the planet, which triggered a huge storm. As a result, most of your people are dead. However, this unexpected weather intervention gives you special abilities, thanks to which you become a so-called altered.

As a result of the events, the game is postponed by 31 years into the future, where after waking up from the cryospan you find out that the originally new home has become a war zone. The planet is still plagued by mysterious anomalies, fights between factions are taking place here, and there are also mutated extraterrestrial life forms. In addition, you will come into conflict with other alters who have their own plans with Enoch. At the beginning of it all, you have more questions than answers, which will trigger the launch of a darkly tuned sci-fi story, where there are various motivations of characters, intrigues and drama. Exaggerated in places, which also creates space for light moments.

In Outrides apply – especially do not spare lead.

If you are interested in Outriders, it is likely that you have completed the game. The authors chose a nice tactic here and released a demo for all platforms before the sharp launch. However, they did not gain my sympathy for him. The biggest problem was the slow story start, which had its flies and as such did not involve everyone in the game. I also join the group of those who played the demo for a while and I said to myself that Outriders will probably not be for them. But then came the code to review the full game, I thought of the beautiful memories of playing Bulletstorm and out of sheer goodness gave the news from People Can Fly a second chance. You don’t even know how grateful I am for that in the end. So if you didn’t give up at the beginning of the game, I can promise you that the Outriders will really start and, most importantly, you will have a great time playing the game. The story then gets tangled, the questions are gradually revealed and each of the characters has certain motivations. If you follow the action at least a little bit, you will definitely be interested in what happens next. You will ask where the anomalies come from and whether it seems that uneducated humanity still has hope to start over.

It is the main storyline that pushes the Outriders ahead of most cooperative “looters”, in which not much is happening in terms of the story, but you collect 10 tons of game items while playing, and that’s supposed to be great fun. Well, maybe for someone. this is the case of Outriders and the story holds up nicely here, the missions are also very nice, the whole is complemented by various film and in-game scenes, in which I was a little bothered by the camera shaken by places. These are qualitatively different, while some are weaker, others are surprising and interesting, but the biggest plus is that when you perform them, you will learn more about what is happening in the game, characters or the planet and they will also take you to interesting places. some short talk with the NPC character, but they are complemented by nice cut scenes, which gives them the important main story feeling, and it’s also good to play them because you can choose a reward after completing them and improve your equipment.

In terms of gameplay, Outriders is a proper and hearty action like an old school. People Can Fly make no secret of the fact that they love shooting games and that’s what Outriders can see. Gunplay is good quality, it whizzes bullets on the battlefield and there is no lack of brutality. The authors do not spare blood, blasted heads, torn limbs, and cruelty also appears in cutting scenes. The event itself is tuned in a similar way as we know from Gears of War, ie supplemented by a cover system, which works just as well here. I dare say that the fans of this series will get their money’s worth here and not only them. Add to that the collection of loot, perhaps a comparison to The Division might be better. Although Outriders is not as flat and certainly does not suffer from the repetitiveness of today’s Ubisoft games.

The action is much more lively and the game is fun even after the hours you spend in it. Fans of Borderlands and Destiny can also have a slight déjà vu while playing, but they can also feel the previous work of the studio here. Outriders may be such a mix of several familiar things, but it’s definitely not harmful and it works nicely. In addition, the gameplay is enhanced by the special abilities of the altered person, which you will get to at the beginning of the game. A choice of four classes awaits you, which will affect the overall gameplay. Each of the classes offers a total of eight super abilities and other options for improvement, which you will gradually unlock.

I chose the path of Pyromancer, because playing with fire is sometimes really fun and Outriders is no exception. Pyromancer can literally fry his enemies on the battlefield. It can also send out flames, burn several antagonists at once or use abilities to restore your health. The restoration of health does not take place here automatically, but the addition of the life indicator depends on the abilities of the class you choose. In practice, it’s a really creative way that I liked.

In addition to Pyromancer, you also have Trickster, who controls the teleport, Devastator with heavy short-range attacks, and Technomancer, which can slow down enemies, for example, while you pour lead into them. Special abilities nicely complement your firepower, while you have three weapons at your disposal. Usually two heavier calibers and one pistol. However, your inventory can carry much more, so you can change your weapons at any time. There are quite a few of them and rifles, submachine guns, snipers and the like are waiting for you. I guarantee you will choose.

Another important role in Outrides is the already mentioned prey, during the game you collect everything possible. It is mainly the elements of your equipment that improve you, thanks to which you become more durable and better. You know it. You will also acquire new weapons or raw materials. You can use everything collected for production, which offers several options, or sell it classically in stores where you can buy new equipment at the same time. The system of using prey is well designed and what you will definitely collect in the game. Although the amount of finds, raw materials and things that will be gradually unlocked to you is decided by the so-called world tier or in free translation a layer of the world. Either way, it’s not enough.

World tier in Outriders is also synonymous with the difficulty of the overall game. Setting a new level adds a lot of loot or various specialties that you can find, but also increases the difficulty of the game. You can expect more enemies with a stiffer root. However, it is a good balance, because as I mentioned, the world is also rewarding. You get more XP and more interesting findings. Points to kill enemies unlock a new layer of the world. These are added to the so-called world tier bar, which will unlock a higher level when filled. You can always automatically set the layers to the highest you have unlocked. If you find the game too difficult then, you can adjust this setting manually at any time. Thus, the authors avoided the frustration of the players and opened the game to virtually everyone. Thumb up!

Outriders is also quite rich in RPG elements. There is an extensive tree of abilities and their improvement, sometimes you have choices in dialogues and the already mentioned things like inventory or loot. The enemies have life indicators above their heads and after hitting them, the numbers whistle from them as wild. You also have level indicators, world layers and other details that are well known to RPG players and fans of this type of game. At least that’s how the game is set to the default mode. If you don’t like such things, Outriders offers a great opportunity to customize your HUD and all of these things to your liking. Right at the beginning, I turned off the life indicators, the level indicator and the many hated XP numbers. Visually, I adapted the game to a classic action shooter, in which my attention was not distracted. Adjusting the HUD is up to you, so everyone can customize it to their liking.

You can also approach RPG elements. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to solve them completely in depth and you can also enjoy Outriders as an action from a third-person perspective. Although some elements are important mainly for your progress and at least it pays to pay attention. And collecting prey isn’t actually me that annoying. In the end, it offers you the benefits. Actually, I want to say that if the term “third person looter shooter” focused on cooperation did not inspire you as much as I did, you can enjoy the game even if you belong to singleplayer players. Outriders are definitely worth considering and will offer you long hours of gameplay and hearty shooting, even if you can’t avoid a few multiplayer elements, there is an online cooperation or a special expedition mode that is on time and will bring you interesting loot.

With the online mode, however, there were also minor inconveniences. For example, running a game was sometimes a done art at the time of writing the review. The servers experienced a large influx of players, probably caused by a suitable release window and possibly the presence of the game in the Game Pass. I often had a problem with the connection, once I even crashed the Unreal Engine, once the game disconnected me while playing (it really pisses me off) and once the whole thing was canceled by an anti-cheat tool bug. So the launch was not very ideal, which is also becoming more experienced fish in this genre. For People Can Fly, this is a new situation for which they immediately apologized and are working to solve problems. Even so abundantly that I felt that with each passing game the connection problems would diminish.

In addition, I did not register any bugs here, and without the inconvenience with the servers, there would be nothing to blame in this regard. The mentioned problems can be solved and solved relatively quickly. It is likely that you will not come across anything similar after completing the review. In connection with all the online components of the game, I must add that it is not a game as a service, you will not find microtransactions here and you get a complete experience for the full price. Its expansion in the online part can be expected, but it already offers enough content when released. See. mention of about 25+ hours of playability.

You will enjoy long hours of fun in various environments, which is not only really great with this type of game. Dusty battlefields, forests, arid wastelands, a futuristic city, caves, mountains and maybe even snow are waiting for you. The transition through the game is not a complete corridor and you will be able to explore the environment to some extent. Somewhere you will find interesting prey, elsewhere side tasks, and so on. You will be uncomfortable with various enemies – wait for soldiers, well-crafted mini bosses, faction members, but also extraterrestrial and mutated creatures. The game of antagonists mixes well, the overall diversity is great here and playing is fun thanks to it.

This fight look almost mytologicial

However, you will also come across flies. Not extraterrestrials, but those that have plagued the gaming industry for years. They are mainly related to the movement of the character, so for example you will not climb a certain gap, even if you fit in, you will not jump from a meter high, skipping a pit will trigger an unnecessary cutting scene and you will not climb on a raised surface, even if it is knee-deep. You may have encountered similar flaws in beauty in Gears of War, but also in God of War, where Kratos chanted representatives of Norse mythology, but absurdly he could not cope with the basic obstacles in space. This is a relatively widespread ailment of linear games. You may not even register it anymore, but sometimes it doesn’t really make a good impression and I have to mention it. Am I weird? Well … let’s move on.

On the contrary, the artificial intelligence of enemies who hide nicely and do not run into your wound deserves praise (we do not count Cutthroats). They seem to be a little tactical and even trying to surround you. These are solid opponents who will face you with all due respect, whether you decide to play alone or with friends. He also looks good at Outriders. Although it is not the most graphically beautiful game you can find on the market at the moment, and a weaker texture appears here and there, but the graphic coat built on the Unreal Engine will definitely not offend. The audio is also good, the weapons are resonating properly and the sound on the battlefield is rumbling exactly as it should. The whole thing is accompanied by music, which is sometimes unnecessarily dramatic for me. If the authors dropped a rock bomb there at least occasionally, it would definitely have something to do with it.

If you belong to PC gamers and you do not have the most modern set-up, Outriders will please you with a very good optimization. I played on RTX 2060 in 1080p with graphic rendering on ultra. I stuck at a nice about 75 fps. It was not bad at all, even during the most demanding action scenes, where there are crowds of enemies and various effects. It dropped there occasionally, but I don’t think I went below 60 fps, only if exceptionally and very gently. So the optimization is great here and I registered that the game runs well on the new consoles. If you happen to be playing on the still strongly represented last generation, feel free to add your observations to the comments.

I didn’t find Outriders an interesting game before the release and the situation didn’t change for me even after a short rehearsal of the demo. However, the opposite is true and I have to tell the developers of People Can Fly przepraszam (sorry). The launch was not exemplary, the start is weaker and there are a few details that may bother someone, but when the game starts, it is difficult to break away from it. Outriders is such a very pleasant, action-packed surprise that will offer you more than two dozen hours of fun, during which you will shoot a lot. Whether you decide to play alone or with friends, you will enjoy the game to the fullest anyway.

In addition, an interesting dark sci-fi story, diverse environment, well-incorporated RPG elements, catchy gunplay, a lot of loot and even more possibilities for improvement await you in Outriders. In addition, the game gives you nice customization options, while not forgetting the HUD so that you don’t be disturbed by things you don’t want to see. In addition to the main storyline, Outriders will also offer you interesting side quests, various enemies and, most importantly, you will definitely not be bored. We only have April, but I won’t be surprised if the Outriders are at the forefront of the TOP games that we could play this year. If you don’t have this news yet, be sure to fix it.

8.5Expert Score
Pretty good

It sad that nobody is talking about this game because it have pretty solid story and one of the best NPCs

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