WARNING: This article will spoil many aspects of the first few hours of story and gameplay of the OUTRIDERS demo. Square Enix has stated that this demo encapsulates the first chapter of the full game. Avoid reading this if you want to experience the game without any spoilers
OUTRIDERS is a third person co-op RPG looter shooter set to release on April 1st, 2021. The game is developed by People Can Fly and published by renowned publisher, Square Enix. People Can Fly have developed and co-developed many popular third person games, including the Gears of War franchise and Fortnite (the Save the World mode, not the Battle Royale mode). OUTRIDERS will release on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Steam, Epic Store and GeForce Now on PC, and Google Stadia on April 1, 2021. The small slice of OUTRIDERS that we were able to experience show a lot of promise for the game but some fundamental problems specifically with the story and pacing may spark some red flags in many a gamer, especially those familiar with similar games such as Anthem or The Division. Ultimately, this is a demo, not an alpha or beta and should be treated as such. Most of what OUTRIDERS is showing us so far will end up in the final release and unfortunately, it will take looking at the game as a complete package to know whether some of these growing pains from the demo are limited to it or if this is an early indication of a game that will simply crash and burn into irrelevancy two months after launch.
Show, not Tell
What is going on? That is the main question I have when I started playing OUTRIDERS. I would constantly like I was missing a giant chunk of story or game. The introduction and the super exposition heavy cutscenes somehow don’t explain much. I can sort of understand the general story, but the story and the initial introduction to the main characters feel super generic. The pacing also feels a bit off. The prologue feels like it’s moving at a snail’s pace and then within about 20 minutes, most of which are cutscenes, like a million things happen. The game’s pacing does improve slightly once the player can choose quests as they please, but I think the first hour or so will definitely rub some people the wrong way.
The player character’s dialogue is also pretty boring and uninspired. There’s a lot of exposition that sets up a backstory for our player character, but for a game that seems to want to put me into the shoes of the character, to role play, I could care less about the bog-standard cliché backstory the game gave me. I’d prefer it if there was either no backstory (using our imagination to come up with one) or if they really wanted our character to have one, allow us to choose a backstory, even if all it changes are a few dialogue lines. The backstory doesn’t even really matter outside of the prologue anyways and this demo is only the first chapter. If the exposition they set up in the prologue is irrelevant within 10 minutes of finishing it, what’s the point? I can’t really “role-play” if the game is making my character act in a specific, linear way. This could just be weaknesses of the first chapter and prologue. Other RPGs like Mass Effect tend to open up story choices and dialogue trees further into the game so I’m not going to judge OUTRIDERS too harshly based on the limited scope that I’ve seen so far.
The characters are much more interesting after the prologue, but this is more due to the fact that our character interacts with them in a more natural way. I feel more attached to a certain vendor if I had to do a side quest to rescue them and their more personal dialogue with me makes sense since I *know* our backstory. There’s definitely a really interesting world and a lot of lore in this game – it’s just that it’s told in a really dull and uninteresting way. If the game lets me experience the story of OUTRIDERS in a more organic and better paced way, I could see myself really falling in love with this universe.
The Dark Souls of 3rd Person Shooters
OUTRIDERS’ gameplay feels like any other third person shooter. If you’ve played Gears of War, Mass Effect, The Division, or Anthem, this will feel very familiar. OUTRIDERS does throw a major wrench in this saturated genre. There is no natural health regeneration. Regenning health is dependent on the unique classes’ special perk. For example, the Pyromancer class will regen health when you defeat enemies that you’ve tagged with your abilities. Therefore, the gameplay loop around that class will be to save your abilities for when you need healing or risk losing out on health regen at a critical moment when your abilities are on cooldown. This makes a lot of the fights super challenging because the game likes to throw a lot of enemies at you at once.
The boss fights can also be a real challenge if you’re not careful. Running at enemies with a shotgun will quickly fall apart if you can’t escape or if you have no way of regenning health. I can see how this may make the gameplay slower than a lot of other games, but so far, it seems like it’s used to challenge the player without making annoying bullet sponge enemies that are common in other similar games like The Division or Destiny. The enemies’ relatively low health and the number of them means using abilities and engaging with the gameplay is always fun and rarely boring.
“Now that’s a skill tree.” This quote by my friend really summarizes how I felt when I first pulled up the massive skill tree. There is a ton of unlocks here but because this is a demo, we don’t get to explore all the possible builds and combinations that are available in the full game. There’s a lot of potential here for deep, enriching gameplay and the ability to constantly reset your points and reallocate at will means crafting your perfect build for whatever playstyle you like will be a constant endeavor.
The brief look at the gear economy and loot of the game makes me incredibly excited to explore it more. Every gun feels good to use, even the akimbo (!) pistols. Shotguns tear enemies to blood and guts and rifles are viscerally punchy, shaking your screen depending on the caliber and power. Machine guns will send your reticle to the sky with their blisteringly fast rates of fire and the unique double-barreled rifles are difficult to control but will shred any enemy that dares come close. The weapons, even the common and uncommon ones that are present in the demo, are unique and have interesting designs. Hopefully, higher rarity weapons are even more unique and look even more badass. Higher rarity weapons also come with perks although clearly this demo won’t show every perk that would be possible on every weapon.
So far though, the perks are definitely impactful. My level 4 assault rifle had a perk that would give me health based on how many enemies I killed with a single magazine. That meant I could play a bit riskier; I could afford to lose more health because if I made sure I had some of my abilities ready and I kill a bunch of enemies, I’ll be back to full health at the end of that engagement. If all the perks are as useful during normal gameplay, I can see weapon grinding and collecting as a major selling point for playing OUTRIDERS.
A Little Bit of Déjà Vu
The OUTRIDERS demo shows a lot of promise. I’m reminded of my time on the original Destiny demo, falling in love with the gameplay and being teased with a larger universe. OUTRIDERS is giving me serious déjà vu, even using the “Eyes up _____” tagline that has become a popular meme in the Destiny community. I want this game to be good and to have a good launch. We’ve seen too many games similar to it rise and fall. Mass Effect Andromeda, The Division 1 and 2, Destiny 1 and 2, and Anthem should act as examples of how not to launch an RPG shooter. The gameplay is fun and challenging, the loot and gear economy is exciting, the skill trees are extensive, and the classes are all interesting. There were so many exciting things just about the game’s mechanics that I barely have room to mention how beautiful the game looks and how well it performs. I had a few frames drop here and there, but even on Ultra settings, OUTRIDERS ran smoothly, and the environments were all still amazing to look at. I hope that the problems I had with the story are only limited to the first few hours of the game and won’t be a major weakness of the full release. The game has great bones, let’s just hope the meat that’s on it is a nice prime rib-eye steak and not table scraps.
Check Out the ’10 Reasons Why You Need to Play the OUTRIDERS Demo’ video here: https://youtu.be/L6pwBLm6CXk
The OUTRIDERS demo is available now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, as well as Steam and GeForce Now on PC.
OUTRIDERS will release on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Steam, Epic Store and GeForce Now on PC, and Google Stadia on April 1, 2021.
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My name is Matt Tran and I have been playing video games since I could remember holding a controller. I've always been a hardcore gamer growing up, from the hectic MW2 and Halo 3 lobbies, my many journeys through several Halo clans and my current exploits with my Destiny 2 clan. I love shooters and RPGs and overanalyzing every component of every game I've played, from weapon stats to ideal perks. When I have time to play other games, I currently play Genshin Impact and Star Wars Squadrons.
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