The Polish Developers known best for games such as Bulletstorm and Gears of war are back with a great new game called Outriders.
The story starts off with mankind on its last legs as a colony ship lands on a newly discovered world called Enoch, having already abandoned an apocalyptic Earth. Things only get worse from there, with mysterious storms soon revealing that Enoch isn’t really fit for purpose as a brave new world.
As one of the ‘outriders’ whose job is to explore this planet, the player-character is soon on the receiving end of a powerful blast from those storms, which endows you with incredible abilities. You’ll get to pick from four different character classes: the fiery Pyromancer, the zap-happy Technomancer, the tank-like Devastator or the sneaky Trickster. Each one has its own unique strengths, which are explained to you when the choice is presented.
Jump forward a few years and things have really gone to hell on Enoch. You’re not the only person to be ‘altered’ by the unique local weather patterns, but lots of your powerful peers have veered off onto villainous paths. The game takes the shape of a shooter, albeit with some super-powered perks, as you’re sent off on missions to battle various foes.
The game itself feels like a mix between Mass Effect, Gears of War, and Borderlands, Basically a full RPG With third-person shooter elements. The core of outriders is shooting, They have as many guns as you’d pick up in a game such as borderlands, You’re allowed to carry two main weapons and a sidearm, be it a pistol or a sawn-off shotgun. You’ll likely cycle through a ton of loadouts in a very short amount of time all depending on your own playstyle and the situation you are put in, Half the time I was running with a Legendary LMG, and an Automatic shotgun for close range encounters as you get rushed quite often in the game. The guns themselves have many different status effects, such as ash, freezing, and even stasis. You can also recycle old weapons to get their mods and apply them to your new higher-powered weapons. This mix of powers helps you survive the game even if only barely.
The game itself doesn’t really have a difficulty level but relies on World Tiers, each world tier you max out allows you to gain access to the next higher leveled world tier. World Tiers are quite useful as they allow you to get increased chances of higher-tiered weapons and armor. The game has a max of 15 world tiers, however, at around World Tier 8, you’ll start to find the game difficult to play Solo.
This is where Matchmaking comes in. The game allows you to play with two friends to form a three-man party. You can self revive twice while in a party and your friends can also revive you, This makes the game considerably easier.
The only major flaw i’ve found at the time of writing are the endless server issues people are plauged with, Outriders servers seem to just drop randomly for a few hours, i’ve also had crashes upon completing missions and when retrying a coop expedition online. However Outriders Twitter channel is really active and are aware and working on these issues.