Outriders: the Looter Shooter RPG coming to PlayStation, Xbox & PC. Set for release Holiday Season 2020.
Outriders is an upcoming RPG looter shooter game that’s showing a lot of promise. We’ve got to see quite a lot of the game recently, from story to lore, to gameplay mechanics. And it looks like it could be a really good game and one to keep an eye on.
The game’s been developed by People Can Fly, known for Gears of War Judgment and Bullet Storm. And being published by Square Enix.
We first saw the announcement trailer almost a year ago at E3 2019. Since then we’ve been given more info periodically through video via the games YouTube channel. Each time giving us a little more new information about the upcoming game.
The developers announced they’re starting a series of monthly broadcasts where they’ll show off new clips of gameplay and discuss mechanics. Thursday 28th of May aired the first episode, where we got to see ton more gameplay and learnt about one of the games classes, The Trickster.
So I’ve went through all their videos and website to gather up all the major info I could about the game. Here’s what we know about Outriders so far.
One thing to mention beforehand is that anything in the game can change or be taken out before launch. So bear that in mind.
Story
The Outriders are part of a colonization group. Earth is no longer inhabitable and they’re in search of a new planet. They come to Enoch, which is where the game will be set. A beautiful second planet which can sustain life. You play as an Outrider, an elite military trained group that will be the first boots on the ground on the new planet.
Shortly after arriving your team discovers a strange signal. They follow it only to find what they describe as ‘the anomaly‘. The anomaly is a source of great power and it becomes unstable. This brings about a large storm that drives the planet into chaos.
The storm destroyed any type of advanced electronics. You brought down a large of part of your space station, expecting to use it. But the storm rendered it useless, leaving the colony without any amenities. Soon after, food and water became hard to come by.
Fast forward 30 years and you play as the last of the Outriders. The world of Enoch has become a dangerous place, full of enemies. For the last 30 years, the surviving entities have been battling it out and are now hostile towards you.
The storm brought about by the anomaly turned physics upside down and tore living life down into its molecules, then built them back up, altering them. You and the last of the Outriders now have abilities. Special powers that will help you in your quest.
But it’s not just the Outriders that have been altered, creatures and humanoid type enemies from the world of Enoch have developed abilities too.
Even though the anomaly destroyed all technology, you can still detect the signal. Considering all technology with the capabilities to project such a signal have been destroyed, it’s now more important than ever, you and your team find its source.
Game Play Features and Mechanics
- Cover based system
- 1-3 player co-op – difficulty scales with number of players
- Create you own character
- Customizable Hud – strip back everything for clearer viewing
- You’ll fight both humanoid and creature type enemies
- You can use a mixture of gun-play and abilities to fight your foe
- Quick cool downs on skills – making them a constant part of your power play
- There’s 4 classes, each with their own powers and play-style
- Team synergy with friends – playing complementary play-styles and abilities
- Interesting boss fights
- Healing mechanics differ depending on what class. The trickster for example gets more armour and shielding the closer they are to enemies. Playing aggressive will actually heal you
- Large amount of rich lore to be found in-game
Classes
“Those who survived the anomaly moved beyond their physical limits and grew abilities”.
There will be 4 classes to choose from. 3 that we know about, and the 4th will be revealed later. Each class has it’s own 8 unique abilities that you can switch between and a skill tree that you spec points into. Allowing you to build your own play-style within each class.
PYROMANCER: Minipulates explosive volcanic energy, coming out in devastating explosive flames. Blows stuff up essentially.
TRICKSTER: Messes with the fabric of time and space. Can teleport and freeze things in time, slow down enemies and their attacks.
DEVASTATER: Shatters the earth in an earthquake like motion. Brute force powered by the planet itself. Tank class possibility from it’s skill tree.
Each classes skill tree has several branches spreading out. But you can’t fill these out completely. Thus you create your own version of the class through your choices. Your Trickster for example, might play completely differently than your friends, based on what choices you both make.
You can re-spec your points anytime, if you don’t like the road you’ve gone down in the skill tree.
Having a range of different abilities, the classes have been designed for team play synergy. Your Trickster for example could slow down the enemies, while your friend blazes in with the Pyromancer and sets them all on fire. That’s just one of many possibilities!
World Tiers
There are 15 world tiers. You start at the bottom, and as you progress through the game, your’re given world tier xp which progresses you up through the tiers. As you level up, the tiers get harder by adding more damage, health and armour to your enemies.
The later world tiers will require you to optimize your loot, probably into builds, to take on that specific content effectively. You get greater loot rewards from the higher tiers. You also get a reward every time you level between the tiers.
But watch out! You will lose world tier xp when you die. This is to prevent you from levelling through the tiers too quickly. To ensure you’re gear is good enough for the later tiers and that you’re fully prepared for them.
The game will offer re-playable missions. So you can go back and replay earlier missions, but on harder difficulty tiers.
The World of Enoch
The world of Enoch was a planet with lush green vegetation and blue skies, perfect to sustain life. But when it fast forwards to 30 years later, it has become a dark and dangerous world. Full of monsters and mutant humans. The animals and plants have been altered by the anomaly, to make them ultra aggressive.
As you play through area to area, you’ll set up camps called a hubs. After you’ve set up any of these hubs, you’ll be able to fast travel between them. At these places you’ll find NPC quest givers and vendors etc. Each area has its own look and feel, or mood to it.
We haven’t seen all of the areas of interest in great detail yet, but one that’s been mentioned is The first City. This was where the first colonization happened. It used to be a city, full of life. Now it’s a broken down wasteland, full of hostiles.
Release and Platforms
The game is set for a holiday season 2020 release. So no official date as yet. Although with events such as the PlayStation event happening Thursday 11th June. I can imagine we’ll get more info soon.
The game will feature on ps4 & ps5 / PC via Steam / Xbox one & Series X
The game will not be a live-service type game. They claim we will get the whole story as a full package, at launch. Full game will be released “straight out of the box“. And there will be no micro-transactions!