Explosive action

Outriders takes a mundane sci-fi trope with lazy dialogues and spices it up with wild action and lots of gore

Outriders starts off with the colonisation of a beautiful alien planet. However, things quickly go sideways. A quick 31-year time jump and your protagonist has cryo-slept into the future. Armed with superpowers, they are now fighting a war on the desolate remains of the planet. The story mode takes around 35 hours to complete. I wish I could tell you it’s all good, but it isn’t. There are moments where the dialogues and the voice acting are so bad, your eyeroll will do its own little eyeroll and still not be done. So why play this game? Well, it is all about the action.

Outriders shines in its gameplay, levels and unique creatures. The game is entertaining from start to finish, and if you play co-op, its entertainment levels go up by several notches.  

Let’s start with the class selection. There are four different classes to choose from—Devastator, Pyromancer, Technomancer and Trickster. Devastators are close-range experts. Your powers give you exceptional melee strength and you can recover health by killing enemies that are close by. Pyromancer, as the name suggests, is a fire-skilled class. This class is great at killing groups of enemies.

Technomancer is a long-range weapons class and you have an array of deadly gadgets at your disposal. Tricksters are the most unique; they are close-range fast attackers and can teleport in and out of combat as they please.  

If you noticed, there are no support classes and that’s part of the fun. This means even if you are playing it alone, you have a chance to finish the game just as much as the next guy. Though it will be a tough long road ahead, if you plan to play this solo.   

I played my game with a Technomancer, and though your skills for close-range combat are lacking, many devices fill the gap.  

As this game is a looter-shooter, there is a lot of looting and shooting and grinding to be done. As I mentioned, the levels are tough, especially solo and this means you will keep doing smaller missions and side missions to level up. Though grinding in most videogames is a chore, in Outriders, it is actually fun. The combat and the monsters are well thought out. I loved the exploding gore and blood-soaked 
adrenalin rush you get during missions and this is true for all combat in the game. Add a few friends in co-op, and you are in for a fun session of expletives and bonding.

Gear is a huge part of Outriders and the game doesn’t truly start till you find your first elite gun. Speaking of guns, the design of the guns in this game is brilliant, everything just feels fun. You can also upgrade your guns and tweak them with newer parts fairly easily. You can also transfer mods to newer better weapons. So, all the grinding you end up doing has significant value in the end.

Graphics of the game are pretty good. The load screens for fast travel were a little longer than I would like them on the PS4 Pro, but once the area was loaded, there was no stuttering or lag. The design team of this game requires a standing ovation; the monsters, guns and gear all seem to have been painstakingly laboured over. With all this weaponry, I would be into a deathmatch mod for Outriders. I think it would be fun to play.  Outriders does have some bugs though. Several times during the game I would have enemies stuck in objects like walls and boxes, making it really hard to kill them. The game also hung on me on two occasions.   

Outriders, overall, is a lot of fun and I found myself enjoying it despite the janky voice acting, glitches and crazy tough levels. The story mode is long and while all of it is not great, it is satisfying to play. The multiplayer aspects make this game infinitely replayable. If you are looking for a nice third-person sci-fi shooter to sink your teeth into, go for this, just try not to cringe at the voice acting.  

Outriders
Rating: 4/5
Developer: People Can Fly 
Publisher: Square Enix 
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, XBO, XSX 
Price: PC: Rs 2,999; 
Consoles: Rs 3,999

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