Outriders

The captivating blend of shooter and RPG offers versatile and exciting interlocked skills and classes.

Giving Outriders a score is a tougher challenge than I thought. The core gameplay loop is fun, incredibly so when it clicks, the loot system is well thought out and wielding the powers of the Anomaly is power-tripping. But the game is also a slow burner, enemy variety is disappointingly poor, there is no scaling of content for party members of lower levels, and audio and animations aren’t always that great. But the core is good, and we have faith that People Can Fly will polish those rough edges.

Outriders is a pleasant surprise, in which a looter-shooter fan will find rich and engaging content that will keep him busy for an extensive number of hours, especially if he intends to play with all four classes. Setbacks are not lacking though, such as the repetitive pattern of the arenas, the low-intelligence bullet-sponge enemies and the occasional crashes of the servers, but the conclusion is definitely positive.

Outriders is the type of game where players get what they put in. For those who want a pick-up and put-down RPG with an emphasis on story, Outriders has that covered. For those who want hundreds of hours of gameplay in tense and adrenaline-pumping combat with powerful builds, Outriders has that covered too. Ultimately, the strength of Outriders is how it connects to its players and what they want out of the game, meaning everyone walks away feeling different about it, and that can only be a good thing.

Despite all of the ways that Outriders is stuck in the past, the moment to moment gameplay is so compelling that it’s impossible to say it’s not a blast -- especially with friends. It’s also remarkably expansive in its crafting and skill trees, with plenty of ways to customize your playstyle. I may not be that invested in the story, and this certainly isn’t that different from most first person shooters, but Outriders is well worth the time and effort. Even if there may be extra effort put in because of crappy server connections.

Whenever I decide to try and play Outriders, I enjoy it, but it is a visible crapshoot whether it’ll crash or disconnect on me before I have the chance to do anything fun. Other players have reported losing their entire inventories or having consistent fatal errors. The game flat-out doesn’t feel complete. Again, though, I have cleared the story campaign, so Outriders has a few things going for it. I’d like to see a sequel that addresses some of this, by getting rid of the always-online functionality, ditching some of the petty annoyances like how fast travel works between zones, and generally getting the game to a place where it doesn’t crash every hour or so. As it stands, it’s good, but obnoxious, and might be better after a few solid patches.

The moments where Outriders is taking daring swings at mixing disparate elements are when it's at its best. The game is surprisingly deft at combining things that shouldn't work together: Its story is often funny but similarly severe; its combat requires you to take cover and to charge; its abilities make you phenomenally powerful but prone to overestimating yourself. If you can find the balance in Outriders, People Can Fly's RPG-shooter finds ways to combine well-worn video game ideas into something new and fun. Especially when you're accompanied by friends and put the time in to really understand the game's systems, Outriders rewards you with epic battle moments and a sprawling scope. It left me wanting to continue venturing out into the wilds of Enoch to see what I might find there--and to smash whatever it was with seismic earthquake magic.

Outriders is the tonic to loot-driven games that demand players log in every day. It’s also not gating content behind DLC, seasonal updates, or just pushing for players to grind to an endgame to grind some more....It’s a shooter for those that love blowing enemies to bits, and it’s an RPG for those that want to feel powerful. There’s plenty of fun to be had on Enoch, but for maximum effect, we’d suggest bringing some friends.

Outriders guarantees an enjoyable evening with friends. We had lots of fun clearing out stage after stage, gathering loot, upgrading our gear and improving our builds so they complement each other perfectly. The final score would have been higher if it weren’t for tons of technical issues we had to deal with. [06/2021, p.28]

Outriders is a fun looter-shooter game where both the action and RPG parts of the formula are exceedingly well done. It does falter at the endgame, though, and it comes with a myriad of technical issues, not to mention an antiquated world structure; bear all of that in mind if you're looking to purchase at full price.

Outriders confidently swaggers into your life with sense of bravado and bombast that goes a long way to making up for a host of little niggles and rough edges. A blast of a game that will only get better with time and support.

Outriders is an honest and long-lived TPS like few others, surrounded by a small series of excellent ones and which makes brutality its school of life.

Outriders is a truly entertaining looter shooter, but it fails to produce interesting, varied and engaging postgame content.

Outriders does not revolutionize the genre, and does not have the ambition to do so. The title from People Can Fly and Square Enix recites the ranges of the perfect Looter-Shooter while abandoning the Game as a Service dimension inherent in this type of game. It stands out first and foremost with its science-fiction-inspired universe, fantasy and punk movement. The explosiveness of its combat, its extremely well thought-out customization system and this propensity to motivate players with ubiquitous power gain make this Shooter-RPG an outsider to consider. However, the anecdotal scenario, the sketchy staging, the redundancy of the missions and the instability of the game do not allow Outriders to fully assert itself on the Looter-Shooter scene.

Mixing the well-known mechanics of Destiny with a Gears of War-like gameplay, Outriders is a good game. But, even if we can get bored very quickly of its gameplay, the class and character progression systems compensate a little, by inviting us to make our character always more powerful. Even if it doesn't revolutionize the looter shooter genre, Outriders has a few arguments capable of convincing those used to TPS.

While familiar and somewhat basic, Outriders has a lot of riveting action and a compelling gameplay loop that will satisfy people looking for their next looter shooter fix.

Killing everything that moves with bullets and magic while enjoying picturesque alien vistas is good enough for 20 hours (30, if you’re into Expeditions), but don’t expect anything more substantial out of Outriders.

That it proves so rewarding as a solo venture in spite of these launch issues speaks to Outriders' finely honed mechanics, and the success of its central "cover shooter but not really" principle. [Issue#358, p.100]

Outriders is a good looter-shooter at times that has some moments of greatness buried beneath a generic if well-realized sci-fi veneer. In short, Outriders is not going to dethrone the likes of Destiny from its throne, but it is a welcome distraction that’s fun for being fun, even if there are parts of it that shine less brightly.

Outriders is a brash and bold looter shooter that will keep you entertained through the campaign and side missions, but its endgame content gets repetitive fast.

Outriders would have been a much better game had the campaign been half as long and the end game had twice as much content. I had fun exploring the dozen or so environments throughout the story mode, but the game doesn’t start firing on all cylinders until the gear you get becomes meaningful. The disposable nature of gear during the campaign/leveling process makes the game feel a lot more shallow than it actually is, and getting players to that end-game grind sooner would likely have exposed a lot more players to the best that Outriders has to offer. I hope that Outriders gets DLC, but only if it’s content that builds out the end game even further. If an Outriders expansion is just another story-driven campaign, I likely won’t even bother playing. If I do, I’ll almost certainly set the difficulty to easy, skip all the cutscenes, and rush to the new end game. If you’re playing Outriders for the first time, I highly recommend you do the same.

Outriders' fast-paced combat and imaginative sci-fi setting make it a journey worth taking. And for all its flaws, this could be the start of something very special for developer People Can Fly.

Outriders is one of the games which is blocked by only-online features. This game is a brilliant third-person shooter but needs to be improved on the technical side.

I'm hooked. I love Outriders' shooting, skill, and loot mechanics and how they work together to form a highly addicting co-op shooter. While it has a lot of features that I'm not fond of, the core gameplay is solid enough to easily carry the rest of the experience. If you're into looter shooter or dungeon crawler games, Outriders will scratch that itch — if you can play it. With its current matchmaking and server issues, we cannot help but score it lower than we'd like. Whenever the technical issues are resolved, the experience could be as high as 8.3, making Outriders a co-op shooter that's well worth experiencing either alone or with friends.

Buried by an unsatisfying combat loop and bad campaign, Outriders is a forgettable loot game that ends right as it's getting started.

Outriders offers a deeper narrative than its looter contemporaries, but it's ultimately a run-of-the-mill shooter that leaves no lasting impact.

One of the most polarising game in the last months: Outriders serves fun and entertaining gameplay but also dishes out a clichéd story and a vast number of technical issues. Most glaringly: the inevitable online-connection to play the game, which is undermined by the server problems. Being full price and a Triple-A-production, players should be able to expect more.

Outriders has great ideas and those come shining through at various high points to spectacular effect, but it is pushing against the weight of inconsistent execution and unstable systems.

Outriders feel like a game designed by two different teams with no communication. The result is a discordant third person combat experience that arrives 10 years late.

Gears of War meets Destiny… and the end result is mediocre. Take away the "coolness" of playing a gun totting superhero, and all you are left with is basically one more generic looter shooter, that doesn't manage to impress, neither with its repetitive gameplay, nor with its boring story and world building. Add to that a couple of technical and network issues, and you are in for a - pricey - treat.