Outriders Preview: Diamond In The Rough?

Outriders is an upcoming cooperative role-playing third-person action video game developed by People Can Fly.

One month before the game’s release, the developers decided to release a demo. I want to emphasize the term demo here, as most developers instead use the term, beta. By calling the early access versions of their games betas, they are actually trying to make the buyers believe that the errors and bugs are temporary. However, when we look at it, we see that the beta versions are almost identical to the day 1 version of the game. By calling this a demo, People Can Fly earned my respect.

In the preview, I’ll be talking only about my experience inside the demo version of the game. This is by no means a full-size review.

What Does Outriders Offer?

I played the game for almost 10 hours and finished all the demo content. During this time I played all of the 4 classes as much as I could. In the following paragraph, there will be light spoilers regarding the story.

As a result of the earth turning into an uninhabitable place, humanity leaves to find a new home for themselves. They find a new planet named Enoch. The game begins with our landing on this planet. As a result of few events that happen afterwards, you gain superpowers that you will use in the game.

The game’s character creation options seemed lacking to me. As you can see in the photos, we do not have many options. I hope we get more in the full version or with an update. The positive side here is that you can change all kinds of features of your character, except gender, without paying any fees.

After creating your character, you’ll be playing a cinematic-filled prologue that lasts around 1 hour. In this part, you will learn the basics of the world. While talking with different characters, you can go into the details of the topics thanks to the dialogue screen. The character you control in the game is very talkative. Those who come from games such as Destiny, Warframe, Division where the main characters do not speak can see this in a positive or negative light, depending on the situation. Personally, I liked it.

Regarding the 4 classes, all of them have different abilities and movement sets. There is no healing packs or items in the game. In this regard, each class has a different way of regaining its health.

Each class has 8 different abilities and these are unlocked over time. You can only have 3 abilities at the same time. Although I was upset that there were no super abilities, the fact that the talents were plentiful and too different from each other made up for it.

In addition, there is also a skill tree in the game. You will have 20 points until you reach the highest level in the game. You can create a unique game style by using these points in the skill tree.

There are also modding and crafting systems for armors and weapons in the game, but these were not available in the demo version. To summarize this part, I can say this: The RPG side of Outriders is deep enough and is open to customization.

If you want to see how different classes feel and how the game is played in general, you can watch the video down below:

The game is not an open world and has a more traditional map design. The tunnels and split roads in the demo map reminded me of the Dark Souls. The color palette in the game may not be to everyone’s liking. In this respect, although the demo map looks a little pale, the green area at the beginning of the game was really heartwarming. As far as I understand from the trailers, there will be many different maps in the game, from deserts to snowy mountains.

I liked the general gameplay of the game. If anyone has played Division, you can catch the similarity. However, the biggest difference is that Outriders has a more aggressive combat system that does not rely on cover-based shooting. Although many people have said that the cover mechanics are poor, I think it’s hard to see this as a negative point. The game constantly pushes you into the heat of the action, so there is no need to use the cover system 90% of the time anyway.

I’m really pleased that the perks that come with weapons and armor modify the abilities of your class. In this respect, I compare Outriders more to Diablo 3 than Destiny and Division.

The demo did not give me the impression that this game will make a new breakthrough in the industry. However, I think it has set itself apart enough from other similar games. I will definitely be playing this on day 1, and writing a proper review.

Outriders will be released on April 1 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S and Stadia platforms.