Story and Gameplay
Whether you’ve been following the news around Outriders or not as of late, games like these are making making our jobs as reviewers very difficult, especially when trying to assign a score. Either way, People Can Fly’s looter shooter has been upon us for a bit now and instead of rushing through to be the first review out there, I’m glad we’ve let the game bake for a bit to get more enjoyment out of it. Overall, the game is packed with exhilarating highs and some disappointing lows that we’ll dive into. Being an online only game has caused some stability and availability issues which is unacceptable for solo players especially.
First off, a lot of Outriders story is based in mystery and without going into spoiler territory, you spend a lot of the game uncovering your exodus from Earth and your time lapsed landing on the extraordinary planet Enoch. You hunt scraps of journals, relics, and conversations about both Earth and Enoch as you hop from level to level. To be honest, there is some fascinating and well-written sci-fi within the game but there is also a fair amount of cheese and fluff. The entire game suffers from a massive identity crisis between extremely dark subject matter to poor attempts of humor to mystery and wonder, sometimes shifting multiple times in a few moments. I’m all for variety but I think the overall story and tone needed an anchor. More on that later.
When it comes to gameplay, Outriders absolutely shines. People can Fly (of the Bulletstorm fame) know how to create solid gun and gameplay. Mix in the loot system and overall, I had an absolute blast playing the game as a Pyromancer, roasting and thermal bomb exploding enemies. Legendary loot items are fun to get and super detailed, making the loot hunt a great time, especially with friends. At endgame, you open up Expeditions which are basically a 15 tier system of endgame. That is where things really are head scratching as the higher tiers are too hard to finish with the gear you have when you beat the game but lower tier expeditions have absolute garbage loot. Hopefully loot is tweaked as the game progresses but as of time of this writing, expeditions need serious loot tweaking. Overall though, the story is solid and gameplay is absolutely fantastic.
Visuals and Sounds
One area that Outriders absolutely excels in is the audiovisual department and I can comfortably say that it was one of the best looking and sounding titles of 2021 so far. Starting off with the graphics, we played at 120+hz on an ultrawide PC setup and besides some stuttering in DX12, the game is absolutely gorgeous to look at and with over 1,000 screenshots taken, I can say that Outriders is a technical and artistic triumph. The variety of locales and effects are mesmerizing, a showpiece especially if you have a beefy PC with a good GPU. Lighting is also stunning especially in cutscenes.
Just as good as the visuals, the audio effects and music are top notch that will leave your speakers with a workout, especially during moments of heavy gunfire and explosions. The voice acting is definitely a mixed bag, like the tone of the game, varies between fantastic to groan inducing, especially the characters that are written to be super edgy and gritty, spewing profanities like a high school locker room conversation. Developers overall would benefit from smarter writing, not more profanity to appeal to that audience IMHO.
Replayability and What Could Be Better
For great news about Outriders is there is a ton of content just in the base game to not only play, but replay on World Tier difficulties that drop better loot. Also, loot issues aside, Expeditions are intriguing and a blast to play with friends. Even if you just make it through the base game and all the side quests, there is a ton of content and since you can shift to any story point, at any unlocked World Tier at any time, it just sweetens the replay pie.
On what could we better, I’ve mentioned items briefly but to summarize, here we go:
Expedition loot drops need to be tweaked. Running a 20 minute expedition and having several garbage blues and a few subpar purples is an absolute downer
Tone swings wildly between extremely dark to strange attempts of humor to deeper philosophical themes, sometimes all within 10 minutes
Excessive profanity doesn’t make the game, story or atmosphere any better. Smarter writing > non stop f bombs
Solo/offline mode is a must for games like this. Server issues at launch hurt the player base.
Conclusion
In the end, this is a very tough game to score. As I think back, I had an absolute blast playing Outriders both solo and with friends. Niggles aside, the game is a fantastic looter shooter that is super fun to play but due to to some endgame issues, what could have been legendary, loses a bit of steam due to the limited Expedition tiering. That being said, there is a ton of value in the base game with a lot of very solid content, side missions, loot and it’s a title I wouldn’t hesitate recommending to fans of loot based games and especially solid shooter fans.
