While Outriders suffers from frequent pacing and occasional performance issues, its rock-solid narrative and engaging gameplay make it a must-play for any fans of the looter shooter genre.
Singleplayer.
Co-op Multiplayer.
While some have called Outriders’ campaign rather weak, I feel that is a misrepresentation; it does suffer from pacing issues caused by far too many waves of low-tier enemies intended to make the game challenging for veteran players and small groups, but in spite of that, the story is one worth telling.
Humanity, while forced to flee a crumbling Earth, find themselves exploring a new world (Enoch) that seeks to eradicate them for reasons not revealed until the very last moments of the game, a plot device which shares many similarities with real life, as politicians and pundits bicker over global warming, and tyrants continue to edge us closer to global war, I cannot help but recognise that the issues with the settlers that arrived on Enoch in Outriders, and their real-world Earth-based counterparts have a lot of similarities.
While the concept of fleeing Earth and starting over in a paradise does sound appealing, the main problem with humanity would follow us, despite our best efforts and most valiant attempts to “be better”, when the stakes are high, and the pressure is on, the strength and will of even the best of us is tested.
While it’s easy to point fingers at the evil done by the Axis during WWII and say that “evil people do evil things”, that is only partly true; while evil people do evil things for evil reasons, even good people can be pushed to do evil things for good reasons, with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the bombing raids by the Allies against civilian targets at Dresden and Hamburg showing that even good men will do great evil when those things they love are put at risk.
The problem with man is we were created to be in communion with our creator (God), and our sin separates us from him, and only by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus, who took on the penalty for our sin, can we a fallen race be reconciled with a Holy God.
In many ways, this mirrors the story of Outriders, where humanity’s last hope is in the form of the player character and other Altereds, demigods infused with power anomaly, who use their powers to help (and more often than not) hinder their fellow man.
Unlike the story of Outriders, our world’s saviour, though empowered with the full might of God, used his power not to enslave humanity but to liberate it, heal a broken world, and show compassion to the very same people religion looks down upon today.
I, for one, am very thankful that the Son of God (Jesus) became the Son of Man not only to reconcile us with our creator but to show us how to live.
Looking at modern-day (and partially Western Christianity), it’s very difficult to see the message of Jesus in action, a message that spoke of welcoming in strangers (immigrants), caring for the poor (welfare), visiting people in prison (prison reform), healing the sick (both supernatural healing and universal healthcare), turning the other cheek (avoiding war whenever possible), forgiving your enemies (when holding a grudge is often much easier), and perhaps most importantly loving your everyone, including your enemies, something which frankly the majority of the church has failed to do, with more churches spewing hatred at those they disagree with, than truly, deeply loving them.
The word love is probably the most misused word in the world, “I love pizza, I love star wars, I love fast cars, I love gaming”, a word so often used that few people understand its actual meaning.
True love is all-encompassing and forgiving; when Jesus laid down his life (despite having done no wrong) so we, a fallen race consumed by our sin, could be saved, he showed that true love looked beyond fault, true love was willing to not only talk the talk, but walk the walk, and through his death and resurrection Jesus has made the way open for anyone who believes in him to follow that path, to live and love as he did, to hold no account of wrong, and to love even the most unlovable.
While Enoch has a small group of unstable and often flawed saviours, Earth has one perfect saviour, and his name is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.
While the king of the looter shooter genre may be a live service title (Destiny 2), Outriders has charted its course by adopting a traditional expansion-based model, which saw Outriders released as a content-complete title at launch before going on to receive two expansion packs with the first New Horizons (2021) being released for free to all players and the second Worldslayer (2022) retailing for $39.99.
Both updates focused on improving the endgame for veteran players, as well as introducing a slew of quality-of-life fixes in response to community feedback; however, outside of these updates, Outriders has received no additional content drops, with the developers having clearly stated well before launch that “outsiders would not be a live service game no contain microtransaction”, a promise which they have kept in its entirety for better or worse.
With many players now wishing that Outriders would adopt a live service model and fund continued development by selling cosmetic items, how ironic!
While Outriders at its core is intended to be enjoyed as a cooperative experience, it can be completed in its entirety (including DLC) solo, making it perfect for fans of the Looter Shooter genre who live in remote areas or who prefer not to play with others for any reason.
That being said, Outriders’ cooperative DNA is evident in some encounters, which require players to deal with hundreds of low levels of enemies, a task that, while not overly difficult, is very time-consuming when playing solo due to how the relatively high health pools of late gate enemies and the comparatively small ammo clips on most weapons.
While I have dipped my toes into multiplayer several times, I completed roughly 99% of the story solo without issue; however, during some encounters, I did opt to lower the world tier slightly to make bosses a little more manageable and less time-consuming.
Outriders is one of the few games that allow players to freely move between world tiers (difficulty levels), with each successive world tier granting presenting the player with increasing challenges and comparable rewards, making the system very appealing for players who want the best items, by allowing them to cut down on the number of runs required to unlock high-end content by allowing them to face instead increasingly difficult (but overall less time-consuming) content.
This system continues in the World Slayer DLC, with players being able to access 40 new tiers of apocalypse tiers, with each tier increasing the chance of apocalyptic quality gear, which offers a 3rd customisation slot, making it very desirable to endgame players who like to optimise their build to its fullest potential.
Outriders give players the opportunity to progress in a wide variety of meaningful and easy-to-understand systems, which encompasses not only the rational quest for better gear but also cosmetic items, skill points, accession points (which increase base statistics), and finally, in Worldslayer Pax point, which allow players to utilise skills from another of their main classes subclasses.
Outriders launched with four classes, each offering distinct subclasses, allowing players to access three distinct playstyles for each character, which, when combined with a massive variety of unique and interesting items, helps to keep Outriders feeling fresh.
I enjoy playing as a Technomancer (Tech Shaman class) while carrying elemental damage weapons, a build that allows me to speed through solo content with ease while still contributing meaningfully when playing as part of a team.
Despite its horrific performance and unstable matchmaking at launch, Outriders remains surprisingly active in 2023, which seems to be mostly comprised of PS Plus Premium and Xbox Game Pass/PC Game Pass subscribers, both of which have access to Outriders as part of their monthly subscriptions.
Subscription services aside, both Xbox and Playstation are doing considerably better than PC, where the Steam community for Outriders hovers around 200 players for much of the day, with peaks of 500-600 players during the evenings.
Fortunately for all involved, Outriders offers robust cross-platform support, which ensures that no matter which platform you call home, full lobbies can be found in as little as 15 seconds for much of the day in more populated regions.
According to both its developer (People Can Fly) and publisher (Square Enix), Outriders sold poorly and failed to hit expectations; however, Square Enix has a habit of setting very higher expectations for new titles and spends too much on marketing, which often results in them declaring a title has “sold poorly” despite appearing to have sold a lot of copies.
However, the developers confirmed that Outriders failed to make a profit in 2021 and that they had yet (as of December 2021) to receive any royalties, which seems to indicate that whatever reason, the majority of the Outrider community access the game via subscription services such as Xbox Game Pass and Ps Plus Premium.
Despite selling poorly and failing to make a profit during 2021, a community liaison has indicated that while Outriders is no longer in development, the IP will return in some form, giving fans hope that Outriders 2 may be beyond the horizon.
While I (like many others) was more than ready for more Outriders and willing to pay for it, like most others, I felt the Worldslayer DLC was a step backwards, and except for its narrative and progression system, it felt like it took more away from the base game than it added.
While the narrative of Worldslayer was on par with the base game, it was over far too quickly, with just 1 hour of narrative content and 3 hours of fighting waves of enemies for a total of 4 hours of content, around 14 hours shorter than the base game’s excellent narrative campaign,
Due to Worldslayer selling poorly, the cliffhanger ending of Wordlsyaer is unlikely to be resolved until Outriders 2 (if ever), leaving a sour taste in the mouth of those who played the original game primarily for narrative reasons.
While new endgame content is welcome, opting for a vertical progression system (increasingly powerful items) instead of a horizontal progression system (introducing new sub-classes, unique builds and cosmetic items), world slayer essentially nullifies the endgame content of both the base game and new horizons DLC, essentially limited players who are interested in the best loot only to the limited endgame and narrative content that Worldslayer has to offer.
Outriders is a shooter video game developed by People Can Fly and published by Squire Enix, it was released on 1 April 2021 and retails for $39.99+.
Outriders is available on the following platforms: PC, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Outriders is no longer in active development, and the developers have moved on to other projects; however, one of those projects may be a sequel to Outriders, with a community liaison confirming that while Outriders was no longer in development, the IP was not dead and that fans should look out for news about future titles in the series.
While we do not know how many people play Outriders across all platforms, it is estimated that it has around 180K daily active users with a peak concurrency of around 10.8k each day as of May 2023.
While Outriders is not doing very well on Steam, due to Outriders’ robust cross-platform support, the community is striving, and matchmaking remains viable and swift for much of the day.
On average Outriders takes between 16 and 50 hours to complete.
Estimated completion times are derived from various sources and may vary based on the skill level of each player.
Outriders supports:
Outriders offers the following matchmaking options:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Outriders is rated PEGI 18+ and contains:
Outriders is a fantastic game, and while it does suffer from pacing issues when playing solo, dropping a world tier or apocalypse tier or two helps the story progress at a better rate for those who are playing for purely narrative reasons, and for that reason I fully recommend Outriders for those who wish to play alone or with others.
However, I do not recommend the Worldslayer DLC as a standalone purchase due to its limited narrative content and repetitive level structure, making it unenjoyable for solo players and uninspiring for those groups playing for more than loot alone.
That being said, if you can purchase the DLC or sale or as part of the Outriders World Slayer edition, the added narrative and endgame content, while repetitive, is worth experiencing just once and gives helps flesh out the lore of the world, as well as give a glimpse into what the developers have planned for the future of the franchise.
