Outriders hit the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X / S, Google Stadia and PC on April 1. The game was successful, when looking at the players numbers. However, the game’s servers made the game unplayable for the first few days. Apart from that, it should also be noted that the game crashed constantly. However, the vast majority of these problems have now been resolved.
So the first few days were a bit painful. However, I managed to play the game for around 45 hours in total in the last few weeks. During this time, I played the story from beginning to end with one of the 4 classes of the game. I also played the end game content. Throughout my adventure, I tried playing on the hardest difficulty possible.
In this review, I will be sharing my opinions and see if the game was worth my money. You can also check our preview, where we do a more general assessment.
The Story
To summarize the story without giving too many spoilers: The earth becomes uninhabitable, so some humans got on a spaceship and left it. Of course, these people were successful and smart people. After a long time sleeping in space, we finally reach our new home called Enoch. Although everything starts very well at first, things get wild really quickly.
After encountering a paranormal storm, later called Anomaly, most of our team dies. But as a complete cliche, we survive, and instead of dying, we get superpowers. The objective of Outriders (our group) was to explore the planet and find out if it was safe or not (it wasn’t).
After a chain of event, our main character gets injured and put in to sleep again. When we get awaken, we see that the planet became a very different place. In about 30 years, Enoch got transformed into a post-apocalyptic hell. So we set off in this new landscape, trying to survive while also trying to learn the secrets of the mysterious storm and our new abilities.
The story takes us to the different parts of the planet and overall I would say it offers an exciting adventure. However, the character development is non-existing. Often we don’t see the characters we meet during side missions. People who are part of our team, also can die very easily. On this subject, people die in-game…A LOT. To the point where it becomes a comedy.
With Outriders, producers tried to create a serious story with a pinch of dark humor. However, almost all of the dialogues in the game are beyond horrible. When I played this game with my friends, we laughed at almost every cinematic. So, I this might not be a complete negative.
In general, I found the game one step above average in respect to its world, since the world and the story offered by the game are slightly unique when compared to other science fiction stories. However, it should not be forgotten that it has some real weaknesses.
The Main Aspects Of The Game
In terms of the gameplay, Outriders really got me hooked. Even if the story doesn’t interest you, it’s really fun to crush your enemies with different ability combos. However, the game’s weapons don’t always feel right.
If you just concentrate on weapons, you won’t be able to enjoy this game that much. Weapons felt weak when compared to similar games of this kind. The sound design is also horrible. Most of the time, the sound become really muddy. Because the sound design was not well done. Sometimes your weapon will feel like a rocket, while at other times sounding like a peashooter. Putting this issue aside, the weapon designs in the game is not groundbreaking. Except for the legendries. Although the loot system makes up for this deficiency, I still think that this is an issue.
Although I played the starting area of the game with every class, my main was pyromancer. To summarize the classes; Devastator is the game’s close-range tank class, the Pyromancer is the mid-range class that mainly uses fire (duh). Technomancer uses tools like remote turrets and rockets while also being a long-range support. Finally, the trickster is a close-range assassin type of a class that slows enemies.
What Makes The Outriders Special?
So if the guns don’t feel right, what makes this game so good? The loot and the ability system.
First of all, the potential of the ability system in this game is vast. The abilities are fun to use, while having almost no cooldown. So in the end, Outriders gives its players endless action-packed battles. Almost every skill in the game can be combined with other abilities. So as a result, this translates into a very fluid gameplay.
The second aspect that makes gameplay fun is the perk system. The main purpose of the mods is to determine your play style. Outriders, unlike similar games, has a perk based customization rather than an ability based one. As you can see in the photo, there are 3 different tiers of mods. Mods get stronger according to their tier. However, depending on your build, a lower tier mod, might be better.
For example, tier 1 armor mods affect your abilities, while tier 2 mods have more general affects. tier 3 mods, on the other hand, offer both skill and general buffs. Although there are outliers, the weapon mods are a little simpler. When you go from tier 1 to tier 3, the mods increase their buff power or shorten the duration. So from a certain point, Outriders feels more like a Diablo game, rather than, let’s say Division.
So, you constantly acquire new mods and improve your build to defeat more difficult enemies. People who like customizations, like me, will love this system. Weapons and armor are generally fully customizable. However, there is no transmog system.
Each class also has a skill tree. However, this part often offers passive bonuses. However, the fact that you can customize this, at any time, with no cost, means that you can constantly change your build on the go.
The Gameplay
So let’s talk about the general gameplay of the game. Like Division, Outriders has a cover system. However, this aspect is completely different. While cover forms the basis of Division, in Outriders, it is a last resort mechanism.
In the game, you generally have to be aggressive. It is almost impossible to play while hiding behind a cover. Because all classes in the game get healed by damaging enemies. You constantly have to push the enemies and squeeze them. If you don’t, the game’s AI will do the same to you. In this regard, they can sometimes be a little too smart.
Here is a short video, if you wonder how the gameplay looks like:
The feel of the cover system is not very good. However as I said before, it does not need to be good, as it is a last resort mechanism. It almost feels like, developers intended this system to be used by the enemies, not the players.
All in all, Outriders is not a perfect game in terms of gameplay. However, it has a very robust customization system that I am ready to forgive its shortcomings. I honestly do not understand why no one made such a Diablo-like 3rd person shooter before. I hope we can see more of these types of games in the future.
The Endgame In Outriders
Considering that Outriders is not a live game, the endgame experience it offered, surprised me. Expeditions are the name of the endgame missions. These missions, which have a separate map, are the hardest things in the game. Of course, if you complete these difficult missions, you will be swimming in the loot.
In the normal game, there are 15 different tiers of difficulty tiers. Expeditions however, are also divided into 15 different tiers that are different from the base game. For example, if you reach tier 15 in the main game, you will start at tier 6 expedition.
These missions generally lack in the story department and are based on killing tons of enemies. To get the best rewards in missions, you have to race against the clock. Here, the build potential of your character really starts to shine. Because the difficulty levels of these missions are substantially higher. So you really have to min-max.
The only weak side of the endgame experience is that the game really has a pacing problem. It takes a long time to unlock mods for your armor and weapons. When you make it to the endgame, you will have at most 2/5 of these mods. So some players might get bored mid-game.
Overall I liked Outriders’ endgame experience. Those who like the game can level up all 4 classes and test them in these hard missions. So if you like the game, the replay ability aspect is there.
Outriders: Pros & Cons
So what can we say to summarize Outriders’ strengths and weaknesses?
The game is generally fun, but it also has many weak points. Outriders seems to be somewhere between an indie game and a AAA game. It can differentiate itself from its peers, however, there are also some annoying aspects.
The character creation screen remains the same as the demo version. So you don’t have many options to customize your character. Most of the faces are already ugly, this cuts down on your choices. So in the end, the player characters you see in the game are mostly identical.
The map structure looks like it came from a decade ago, and the transition between maps is really outdated. The Maps themselves also fail to highlight themselves artistically. There are standard places such as snowy mountains, forests and deserts. On the map, you can see the area you are currently in, however, you do not know the exact location. This caused me to lose my way a lot of times.
The story, as I have already mentioned, is very poor in terms of character development. Dialogues are really funny for a game that tries to be serious. It’s not horrible, but don’t expect too much from it.
Although the weapons do not feel that good, the game offers a fun gameplay as a result of the ability and mod combinations. The endgame experience is also good , but doing the same missions over and over again will of course bore the players after a certain point. The lack of different activities can be seen as a weakness.
Note that Outriders, is not a live game. It will not constantly receive updates like Division and Destiny. The producers said that if the game is successful, they can make some DLCs, but that’s about it. So this game has an ending. After you finish it, you have to switch to another game.
The Final Verdict
Let’s come to the most important question. Do Outriders deserve your money?
I paid $60 to play this game. I did everything the game had to offer on a single character, and it took an average of 50 hours. Did I have fun playing the game? Yes. So would I recommend other people to buy it at full price? No.
I can only advice someone to buy a fully priced $60 game, if it is a masterpiece. Let me tell you: Outriders is not a masterpiece. However, if you have an Xbox console, I would like to remind you that the game is on Xbox Game Pass. Assuming that you will finish the game in 1 month, it is definitely worth it that way.
Everyone else who is curious about the game, should wait for a sale. I can recommend the game when it gets at least a 50% discount. Also, I highly advice you to play with a full party. As a solo experience, you might get bored in the mid-game.
That is it, thanks for reading our review. If you have any questions regarding the game, you can ask them in the comments section down below.
