Outriders

Game Pass game of the Week. 

April 12, 2021

Last year Microsoft went on a buying spree adding studios to the Xbox brand. And with each announcement was the promise of new games available day one on Game Pass. So while we were waiting for this plethora of games Square Enix and People Can Fly dropped Outriders on Game Pass on the day of its' release.

I have been tracking Outriders ever since I saw the first game trailer. It looked to have the mechanics and game play of some of my favorite games … like Borderlands or Rage 2, At some point I got the idea in my head that Outriders was a co-op multi-player game without a significant single player campaign. Or maybe it would have a light-weight single player mode like the Destiny or Titanfall franchises. It turns out that I was right on the first point (I like the game mechanics) and wrong on the second (it has big single player campaign).

Outriders is a science-fiction third person shooter where the protagonist acquires special powers. These powers are called anomalies and your character gets them because she has been altered. The game has a lot in common with Borderlands. That includes a wide range of weapons that you regularly trade up for new guns. It has a linear plot that moves from area to area, but each area has a set of side missions and content that can be tackled in any order the player desires. Outriders has humor, but it's not laugh out loud funny in the same way that Borderlands is. The humor is more subtle.

Like Borderlands, you choose a character class to start the game. You can also choose a male or female character. Once chosen these cannot be changed but other aspects of your character can be easily adjusted at your camp later on. Camps, by the way, are your home bases in each of the areas in the game. I chose the Trickster class which excels at midrange attacks. I found battles easier at close range and relied on my melee power and a shotgun. With the Trickster I never use a sniper weapon.

The game has a unique method of setting the difficulty called "World Tiers". You start out at World Tier 3, which is normal. By default, the game will automatically increase the difficultly by increasing the World Tier as you gain experience and improve. You get better loot at higher tiers and the game is certainly more challenging at tier five and above. But I had the most fun staying in tiers three and four.

What I like

Without question, the highlight of Outriders is the combat. Gun play is fast and smooth. And aiming is pretty forgiving. Using the anomaly powers is a lot of fun and very necessary. The game will overwhelm you with enemies fast and your powers are the best way to escape.

I found the control scheme easy to pick up. And I like the realistic art style.  I also like the World Tier system that I described earlier. I even found myself switching difficulty mid-battle. It's that easy. I like that you can re-spec your class-tree at any time without cost. That makes is simple to experiment with different combinations. 

What is just Ok

At times the game feels somewhat tedious. Pretty early on missions start to feels the same. This is most true when battling human enemies; that can get downright grindy. Many of the characters are video game tropes; I can't tell if that is tongue-in-cheek humor or lazy writing. In any case, the voice acting is very good

What I am not crazy about

The story gets off to a really slow start. Skyrim slow. And the gameplay during the prolog is very rudimentary. It might as well be just one long cut scene up until the first storm. I don't understand the point in having us invest ourselves in characters that don't survive long. Spoiler, most of the people you meet during the prolog don't survive until the start of the actual game.

I found the game's boot up time to be very long. There are also a lot long load screens, well on the Xbox One in any case. Many scenes are stitched together with short cuts that are a bit jarring. Thankfully you can press the B button to skip cut scenes.

Things to be aware of

The control are fairly standard, so the learning curve is easy. Guns use left trigger aim and right trigger fire. The bumpers activate your anomaly powers. You can equip two guns and three powers in your loadout. There is no true pause, so once a battle starts you shouldn't attempt swapping your gear.

There is no verticality in the game. You will climb and descend stairs, but there is no jumping, wall running, or even scaling ladders. At most you will leap-frog some obstacles.

All in All

I love this game. I have every intention of playing the campaign through to the end. Game Pass has made a lot of promises around "day and date" releases. Other than The Outer Worlds, quality day and date releases just haven't materialized. That is, until Outriders. Outrider is not from Microsoft Studios and its' time on Game Pass may be limited. But for now it's the best new game to hit the service. This one is highly recommended.