Game Review: Outriders

Outriders made a bit of a splash when it first was announced back at E3 2019. While it was overshadowed for a time, Outriders came back into a spotlight with a beta demo that seemingly showcased what was to come in a very positive light. The mechanics were solid, the graphics were decent, and you even got to keep whatever progress you made if you purchased the game after it released. With promises of cross-platform compatibility and a development team that promised a finished, functional product at launch, it seemed like Outriders was shaping up to be a hit. So ... what went wrong?

Outriders launched with a slew of technical issues. Some of these stemming from poor choices by the development team. The most notorious of which being the game's server connections. An influx of players on day one made the game nearly unplayable, with disconnects being frequent enough to keep some players from even completing the introduction. While the server issues did eventually get fixed, the impact left a sour taste in many player's mouths. Couple this with the fact that the game has a very minimal online aspect, and it leaves you wondering why this game requires a dedicated connection in the first place. The only online element is an optional three-person multiplayer. While this could be seen as an anti-piracy measure, the choice is reminiscent of EA's Sim City debacle, where forced disconnects impeded progression and enjoyment of the game. The server situation is made even more concerning because it threatens the longevity of the game as well. Once People Can Fly or Square Enix (the game's publisher) decide to shut down said servers, then that's it for Outriders entirely. There will be no playing the game at all.

The much-anticipated cross-platform play has also suffered tremendously. While the server issues were resolved in a matter of days, cross platform wasn't functional for nearly two weeks after launch. Even to this day, the cross-platform is only functional enough to say that *technically* works. Enabling cross-play at all can cause your game to immediately crash, and playing with people from other platforms increases overall instability by a significant margin. Couple this with the fact that the game already has existing instability issues, and you may as well just leave cross-play disabled entirely.

The core game-play is very much one of the better aspects of Outriders. Overall, it's reminiscent of games like The Division, that meaning that it's a cover-based looter-shooter. The world and level scaling see to it that you're always facing some level of a challenge, with the ability to dial said challenge back if the game ramps up too quickly for your liking. Aside from this, the game is also class based. Currently, there are four classes. Each class has different active and passive abilities that make them unique and viable in their own ways. The largest downside to the gameplay is the end game content. Where most of the game has been objective based up until such a point, the endgame switches to a time trial format the likes of Diablo 3's greater rifts. You must complete what Outriders calls "expeditions" within a certain amount of time in order to obtain better, higher tier loot. While this concept may seem decent on paper, it inadvertently ostracizes the tank class seeing as it doesn't have the damage output to effectively clear the trials in the allotted time. This means you'll need to rely on the kindness of strangers in order to progress, which is actually an issue as most players will boot the tank class from the fireteam because of the above damage output issue. After all, why would you want a third wheel that can't clear waves in a timely manner dragging you down? While many players hold out hope that the end game content will be altered to better fit the rest of the game, so far People Can Fly has only made the time trials worse by shortening your timer and nerfing builds that were able to make it through the trial with ease. What they don't seem to understand is that adding artificial difficultly doesn't add to the longevity of your game, it simply makes your player-base want to walk away.

Another strong aspect of the game is the writing. While I wouldn't say the story is award winning, by any means, I often find myself amused by the interactions between characters and the remarks made by the player character. The voice acting is also fantastic, in my opinion, which makes the entire game just that much more enjoyable. People Can Fly have also done an arguably fantastic job building the lore around this title, creating an IP that stands out as unique and interesting.

This title is very much a 6.5 out of 10. In overview, Outriders suffers most from questionable development choices and poor online/multiplayer functionality. With that said, the gameplay and story are both fairly enjoyable. The game is decent for what it is, but it feels like there's also a lot of wasted potential. Outriders has a chance to be a game with great longevity, if only the developers would listen to the fanbase and play their cards right. Only time will tell, however, if that will come to be. As it stands now, at the time of writing, I absolutely advocate that you pick this game up on a sale or through Xbox's Game Pass. It's very much worth a try, but not worth the full retail price that's being charged.