Outriders
A loot shooter with true grit?
Our hero with no name stands on a dune and tips his hat against the sun as the music swells and a new dawn breaks. Mission accomplished, we see cinematic vignettes interrupt the rolling credits as characters we met along the way react to the new world order we’ve created. It’s very MCU, and feels meaningful in a clumsy SyFy way.
That a loot shooter can raise any emotion after 40 hours of grind (other than cold gambler sweats for all the legendary gear you missed) is testament to Outriders’ focus on narrative progression. Unlike Destiny or The Division, which throw you back to a central hub to restart missions in areas you’ve already shot up, Outriders keeps the caravan rolling with the promise of new adventures.
ENOCH KNOCK…
Humankind is doomed and the lucky few chosen to survive set out to make a new home on the planet Enoch. Shortly after the Outriders – powerarmoured science-fiction cowboy pioneers – land, a strange storm sweeps the planet. Forced into cryosleep to escape, your protagonist wakes after 30 years to discover paradise has become a hellscape as survivors fight for limited resources in the only valley safe from the weird elemental storms. The good news? You’ve evolved anomaly powers. The bad? So have other ‘Altereds’, and they’re causing havoc. But there’s hope in a lost signal beyond the storm. It’s time to chew tobacco, load your six shooter, and posse up with a ragtag convoy of world-savers to see what’s out there.
The writing manages to land its message about taming this land and the suffering of its indigenous people. But the narrative’s real goal is to tease enough twists to keep you heading west, and in that respect it can feel functional. This sense of progression helps, though, to shed the repetition
that can plague loot shooters. You’re never forced to replay maps, and each new area is divergent enough in tone to ensure a sense of momentum.
The change of scenery is needed, because whether you’re cover-shooting creatures in the snow, swamp, or desert, you’re still shooting creatures nonetheless. There is some room to evolve your style of play, as each class (Trickster, Devastator, Pyromancer, and Technomancer) has an anomaly power set and a labyrinthine skill tree. As a lone ranger it’s easy to master the basics of your class. Playing as a Pyromancer we’re able to control the enemy mob and take our time to pick them off with flame-powered ammo and erupting lava plumes. Go co-op, though, and chaos ensues. Trickster’s ability to control space-time and teleport into enemy groups spasms the AI to create new and interesting pockets of combat across the map.
The slower pace of solo play only feels out of kilter when you need to take on a boss. Offline you can orchestrate groups of enemies as you dawdle behind cover to rearm, but against a boss there’s no hiding. They’re designed to be tackled with friends, and it can feel like you’re fighting the system at times. It goes both ways, though, as it is possible to force AI creatures into corridors where you can mop them up – which can create the comical sight of mini-bosses wedging themselves into gaps. Stuck, we cannon shots into the creature until the loot drops. Cheap? Absolutely. But such moments play into the core need to manage the hordes you face.
WICKI-WILD?
There are more strategies to tinker with when you dig into the RPG systems. The usual levelling and upgrades apply to weapons and armour, but you’re able to combine the standard shotguns, machine guns, and sniper rifles with the game’s explosive anomaly powers. It adds a distinctive edge to the standard cover-shooter formula.
On the subject of ‘standard’, the first act is overly familiar in tone and aesthetic, but once you’re freed from the generic mud and trenches and let loose on the later-stage alien temples and ramshackle frontier towns, things feel more interesting.
And each new area your convoy rolls into has a story to tell and a mix of side-quests to complete for loot. On PS5 these areas look fantastic. Technically impressive texture detail mixes with a ‘Star Wars meets western’ art direction in the third act, and it all runs at a smooth 60fps. Remember that Unreal Engine 5 tech demo? We’re getting there.
Yet Outriders still struggles to escape its genre limitations. The muscle-memory of swapping new gear for old often undermines any immersion the world offers. It is possible to retain and develop the best new equipment, though, which can alleviate constant grind. By breaking down old gear and guns and mining minerals, you can develop and level up your favourites. It’s both a strength (who wants to let go of a gun that fires dark energy?) and a weakness; a realisation that many of the items looted from defeated enemies are
You’re able to combine the standard guns and sniper rifles with explosive anomaly powers.
unimaginative hand-me-downs. Retaining and upgrading becomes a laborious mainstay.
A greater sense of progress can be achieved from embracing the Tier difficulty system. Tiers are staged difficulties that affect the AI aggression, number of enemies, buffs, and debuffs. But with great difficulty come even better rewards, and the more you play at a higher Tier, the better the loot you scoop. (In theory. While the world is a beautiful dust-swept sci-western one, the weapons and armour sets are oversized donations from similar shooters.)
THREE AMIGOS
Everything comes to a head, for good and bad, in the endgame’s Expeditions mode. Rather than force you to replay old maps for rewards, Expeditions are new areas tailored for three-player group play (though you can play solo), featuring goals and stories themed around scavenging resources from Drop Pods jettisoned from the orbiting spaceship Flores. The further into an Expedition you get, the more loot you accrue, ensuring even a failure to complete a campaign is rewarding.
With 14 basic Expeditions, and a 15th finale to unlock for gathering 40,000 Drop Pod resources and reaching Tier 15, there’s a lot on offer. While there is a currency at play you’re never in hock to it – with friends in tow you quickly rise through the Tiers. As with the main game, however, loot rarely feels exceptional and the core grind, while enjoyable, is never as revolutionary as the the power-based setup promises.
Though it lacks invention, the solid narrative approach and satisfying endgame ensures Outriders escapes the repetitive trappings of the loot shooter genre. Ian Dean