Outriders
Fun and foul-mouthed, but rough around the edges.
Outriders is a game in the throes of an identity crisis. It’s an interesting amalgamation of Gears of War, Destiny, and Bulletstorm, with gameplay that oscillates between surprising and same-y. It has moments of rare beauty, offering up sweeping vistas of gorgeous alien monoliths surrounded by swirling blue clouds, and then it has you trudge through seven hours’ worth of muddy brown landscapes. There are flashes of variety mixed with pangs of repetition.
It’s hard to pin down Outriders, a game that’s constantly pinning you down in open areas littered with chest-high walls. It shines when it leans into how it was marketed: as a bloody, messy, foul-mouthed looter shooter that lets you beat the piss out of aliens. However, Outriders has so many other moving parts that make it muddier than the majority of its landscapes.
That doesn’t mean it’s not fun – quite the opposite. Outriders is thoroughly enjoyable. Even playing through the entire campaign solo and getting my ass whooped by unfairly challenging bosses didn’t stop me from forging ahead. In fact, I only wanted to power down my PC and take a walk around the block when the damn game kept crashing on me (six times in one sitting).
Outriders isn’t the best game you’ll ever play and it’s far from the worst. While the squandered potential can be frustrating, there are still 30-40 hours of enjoyable gameplay waiting for you past the main menu. Outriders is fun, foul-mouthed, and rough around the edges.
It’s funny that Outriders will be so frequently compared to Destiny 2 when you consider the games’ respective plots. While Destiny 2 makes you search far and wide for a crumb of lore and often leaves you wondering why the hell you’re chasing a four-armed alien who speaks in clicks through a snowstorm, Outriders’ story is pretty clear. It’s just not that interesting.
To be fair, Outriders really isn’t about the story. It’s about thrusting you into a raucous looter-shooter that rivals Borderlands 3 - and in that way, it certainly delivers.
After beating the campaign, you’re introduced to the only current endgame content: Expeditions, or missions that send you to retrieve weapons and resources by fighting waves and waves of enemies until you reach the goods in question. Expeditions allow you to choose a Challenge Tier, with the higher tiers doling out some seriously sweet loot.
Outriders is a brash and bold looter shooter that will keep you entertained through the campaign and side missions, but its endgame content gets repetitive fast.
Alyssa Mercante