Riders on the storm
Outriders (PEGI 18) PS4, PS5, XBOX One, X/S, PC
★★★II
IT’S fair to say that as gaming goes, 2021 hasn’t exactly been a stellar year so far.
Not even six months on from the release of two spanking new consoles – which sold by the millions – gamers are still struggling to find titles to play on them.
The odd thing is that thanks to the pandemic, the video game industry is absolutely booming. Last year households in the UK spent more on gaming than ever before, as we sought to amuse ourselves while trapped in our homes.
But while we seem to be awash with titles, we seem to be lacking in truly exciting gaming experiences. If I’m being brutally honest, I wasn’t holding out much hope for Outriders.
One of the biggest releases of the month, it comes from an impressive pedigree, developed by People Can
Fly – the studio behind 2006’s Gears of War, and Bulletstorm.
But on the surface – set in a dystopian world, humanity on the brink, yadda yadda yadda – it sounded like it was following a well worn template.
How wrong I was. Outriders feels like a melting pot of elements, some which feel familiar – like the looter shooter bits of Destiny, or the RPG portions of Mass Effect – and yet underpinning it all is the beating heart of a solid new adventure.
Earth destroyed, humans arrived on Enoch and were immediately hit by a raging storm – the Anomaly – which ravages electronics and pretty much wipes out the human race. Those who don’t perish in the storm, find themselves altered by it – gaining some fairly impressive new powers.
With heavy character cutomisation, you can choose between four classes – the fire manipulating Pyromancer; the technology manipulating Technomancer; the time-twisting Trickster, or as a Devastator, who can unleash crushing, seismic attacks.
While each ‘class’ will eventually shine, early on they all feel pretty familiar. It’s only through building that skill-system that your character’s abilities truly emerge.
The story’s narrative makes surprising shifts, with you initially believing the Outrider is there to help beat back the insurgents, before twisting away as you try to make contact with an orbiting vessel to get the colony moved to a safer location away from the Anomaly. I’m not going to lie, the plot and character acting does leave a lot to be desired in parts, making it feel more like a straight-to-DVD sci-fi tale, than a blockbuster release. But where Outriders excels is during the gun play, when you are blasting your way through hordes of bad guys with a couple of your mates in toe.
These pitched battles are gritty and visceral, leaving the environments blood soaked and your adrenalin surging.
This game has some of the most inventive weaponry I’ve seen. There’s one gun which causes your enemy’s bones to detonate, another which causes them to be struck by lightning, and another that conjures up a sandstorm.
And you’re going to need all the firepower you can get, as there are a plethora of monsters, mutants and insurgents wanting to wipe you out. The good news here is that healing is tied to attacks, so you can afford to be more aggressive with your tactics, and not spend time quaking behind half walls and trees for cover – and shorter recovery times mean your abilities are available to you much faster.
The bad news is that to get the guns that have these magnificent powers you’re going to have to loot grind, building your weaponry from a boring old shotgun, to a ‘doublegun’ that looks like it’s been welded together by the A-Team, to a ‘legendary-tier’ weapon that turns your enemy’s bones to shrapnel and takes out the surrounding baddies. Quite aside from the mutant creatures you’ll be fighting inside the Outsiders universe, the game itself has been beset by bugs and glitches from the off.
While many issues have been patched and corrected, there are still a few clunky interfaces and lingering gremlins that pop up at infuriating moments.
That being said, this is the scope and quality gamers have been crying out for from a title for months now, and playing it was an absolute breath of fresh air.
■ Buy it: