Outriders does a lot of things well, and I can say, after playing the demo, I want to be excited about it, butt, I do worry that some issues I have with the game won’t be ironed out within the month between now and launch.
Performance
Outriders actually performs very well. I didn’t have any graphical issues while running the game on ultra, outside of issues with motion blur and cutscenes.
One thing that the gaming community can damn near-unanimously agree on, is that the motion blur throughout the game as well as the 30 fps capped cutscenes in the demo really hold the game back.
However, People Can Fly has confirmed that these two issues will be resolved in the full release, with motion blur being able to be toggled off, and cutscenes able to render at 60 fps.
The game’s graphics are nothing cutting edge, and while Outriders won’t be remembered for its incredible graphics, they are good enough.
Gameplay and Mechanics
The shooting in Outriders is easily one of the game’s best features.
The guns are really satisfying to shoot. They keep the controls simple, allowing you to swap between your pistol, main weapon, and secondary weapon quickly. I really don’t have any complaints about the gunplay and that is being said without the core gun crafting system being in the demo.
The powers are also a really fun part of Outriders. Each of the 4 classes has its own play style and unique powers. They range from simple attacks to aerial jumps that end in a ground pound.
The combat has an interesting healing mechanic involved depending on what class you play. Each class has a different mechanic related to healing. Of the two classes I tried, one class healed you based on how much damage you dealt with your powers, while another healed you based on you being close to an enemy when you killed them.
It’s definitely an interesting mechanic, but it’s hard to tell how important or critical the healing mechanic will be to the gameplay without seeing how enemies and damage scale in higher world tiers and later in the game.
The aesthetic of the armor sets that I’ve seen in just the demo and trailer footage is great. I can say, without hesitation, that I love the direction that they took with the armor design in the game. The way your character looks in a 3rd person game is incredibly important, and I do think that People Can Fly nailed it.
The cover system in the game needs a lot of love based on where it stands right now. It just flat-out doesn’t work. You can be next to a piece of cover and smash the button to take cover and nothing will happen. While trying to swap from one piece of cover to another, it feels incredibly janky as well. The system as a whole just doesn’t feel as smoothed out as it should be.
Story
The story itself could be interesting if it wasn’t held back by incredibly subpar writing and voice acting.
The world settings are probably the best part of the story. While a good story in a shoot and loot game like Outriders isn’t completely necessary, it is still going to be a large chunk of content, so I would prefer it to be more enjoyable to play through.
The dialogue seems to flip back and forth between a serious story and a witty action-comedy that isn’t very good. The voice acting itself is just incredibly sub-par.
I wish it had some improvements that I think could fix my issues with the voice acting, but I’m just not a fan of the main character’s male voice actor that I played as.
Wrapping up
As I mentioned, I really do want to be excited for Outriders. But I just can’t bring myself to believing that it won’t be plagued with issues and unhappy players on launch.
While it has already been delayed several times, I think Outriders really needs more dev time. It feels like it needs some more polishing all across the board.
For more on Outriders, keep it here.
