Review of Outriders-a co-op shooter that evokes Mass Effect and Diablo

Review of Outriders 23 / 06 / 20 William Hunter Visitors: 639 Rating: ★★★★★

Outriders is a third-person shooter created by People Can Fly (Painkiller, Bulletstorm). The game, which is still called by many as a service MMO and another clone of Destiny, although it has almost nothing in common with either of them. What if it's actually an inventive action game in terms of gameplay, which is played quite differently from what some imagine? And that's how it is.


The closest analogues of Outriders are Mass Effect and Control


In Outriders, there is no global multiplayer, hubs for several dozen players and limited-time events. This is not Destiny, The Division, Anthem, or Marvel's Avengers. This is, imagine, a story game that allows you to complete a 25-hour campaign and be satisfied.

Outriders is much closer to Mass Effect than to any of the popular service games. It certainly doesn't rely as much on RPG elements as Mass Effect, while remaining primarily a shooter, but it's still full of NPC dialogues, side quests, and lore details hidden in the notes. There is no role-playing outside of battles, however-you will not be allowed to make an important decision for the plot or adjust the character's character in a conversation. Outriders isn't about that at all.Belonging to the RPG genre is determined by the ability to choose one of four classes at the beginning of the game — Technomancer, Pyromancer, Trickster or Destroyer. It is this role that you will then have to play most actively, since each class behaves differently in battle. And when you play in a co-op of up to three people, it becomes even more important, because the skills of different classes need to be combined wisely.

For example, the Trickster is subject to "space-time" forces: he can move opponents behind his back, cover the area around him with a slowing dome, cut with an energy blade, and behave like an Overwatch Tracer, "rewinding" himself to a pre-planned point. The pyromancer, of course, controls the fire by throwing bombs around him, summoning columns of fire from the ground, and slowing down enemies with ash. The Destroyer, a local "tank", has skills related to the use of soil and stone. A Technomancer is able to put a turret on the battlefield, heal allies and use a rocket launcher.The skills of all classes are different, but there are also those that are essentially similar to each other. For example, each player will probably have an abilka that allows you to control a crowd of weak mobs. It will not do without the ability to quickly get out of the part of the location where the grenade just arrived. And for the mini-bosses, everyone has something. You can unlock the full potential of each skill in co-op, and the most striking example of a combination of different abilities is when the Trickster puts a slowing dome, collecting enemies there, and the Destroyer or Pyromancer conducts a powerful attack on the area. Although this is not the only possibility — there are many of them.

Outriders

Each class is self-sufficient — Outriders can easily be completed alone, just the style of the game will depend on the chosen direction. In the single, all this is more like Control, which was also tightly tied to the use of supernatural skills. It's almost the same here. Playing, for example, as a Trickster, you will often risk breaking into a crowd of enemies and killing them in close combat, but that's the point — this class makes up for health just for killing at a short distance. You can't sit behind the shelters-sooner or later the enemies will come and crush you.Actually, in the way People Can Fly worked with classes and their unique skills, lies, I think, the main charm of Outriders. This is a cover shooter where hiding behind cover is the worst tactic. This is a game that rewards out-of-the-box thinking and atypical application of skills.

More Outriders calls up Diablo in memory

Mass Effect and Control aren't the only games that come to mind when discussing Outriders. There is also Diablo-with it, the shooter People Can Fly shares an attitude to loot. In Outriders, there is a lot of it, it is divided into colors depending on the rarity, it falls from killed enemies, it is given out as a reward for completing quests, it lies in boxes at locations. It is for the sake of loot that everything is often started here.

Loot is armor (helmet, something for the torso, pants, gloves, and boots) and weapons. The rarity of the item depends on the level of the world. The latter is upgraded as the game progresses when you kill enemies, and decreases slightly whenever your character is killed. And the higher the level of the world, the better things are — and at the same time, the harder it becomes to play. There is no usual level of difficulty in Outriders.The loot system itself is quite simple, but crafting makes it more complex. Things can be improved for the resources that are extracted during the passage: increase the degree of their rarity, increase the characteristics and change their modifications. There are one or two slots for mods-it depends on how rare the clothes are. The modifications themselves are either an increase in physical damage, or a strengthening of special skills, or a completely different, unexpected effect. For example, there is a mod that, while you are changing the clip, slows down all the enemies that have just come under fire from your gun. There is a mod that freezes opponents. And a mod that sets them on fire. And so on.

Digging in the window for crafting, picking up clothes for a particular mission, changing the characteristics is exciting — you can spend a lot of time on this. And it is extremely important, because at high levels of the world, no one will give you perfect things — the resulting stuff will have to be brought to mind yourself.

Outriders — fascinating science fiction written as a category B movie

Battles and crafting-of course, not the only thing that attracts Outriders. This is still a story-driven action game that tells a rather fascinating story about the colonists from Earth. The third planet from the Sun became uninhabitable, and people went in search of another home. They found Enoch-a planet that looked like the best place in the universe, but in reality turned out to be extremely dangerous and uninhabitable due to a mysterious anomaly and crushing energy storms. The units that hit them acquired incredible abilities, but many others were destroyed by the alien force.

The main character was one of those who were affected by the anomaly during the first landing on Enoch. And one of the lucky ones who managed to survive after that. However, the character, just in case, was still immediately sent to the cryocamber, where he spent 30 years. During this time, the surviving colonists established several settlements, quarreled among themselves, started a civil war, and turned the inhabited part of Enoch into a military zone.The hero after waking up, of course, is shocked, but still agrees to help his old comrades — and at the same time do everything to find out the secret of the anomaly. The plot is not the most impressive, I agree. But, believe me, Outriders have something to surprise you with. The main thing is not to take this story too seriously. This is a story written as if for a B-movie, and the main character in it is like an action movie character from the 1980s. He solves all problems with a shot to the head, does not worry much about the fate of others, and immediately makes it clear that he wanted to spit on other people's problems. Often this becomes a reason for jokes, sometimes — funny.

The last story boss in Outriders Doesn't Mean the end of the Game

After you complete the campaign, the only element of its serviceability will appear in Outriders — the post-game "Expedition" mode. These are particularly challenging missions designed for co-op. You can pass them alone, but it will be very difficult to defeat the enemies on your own.

The reward for completing the "Expeditions" will be even more valuable loot and additional details of the lore. At the same time, all the missions in the mode are unique — they were created from scratch specifically for the post-game. You will not have to pass the locations from the story campaign.Outriders is a stunning shooter that can easily be confused with games with which it has little in common. This is a fascinating co-op action game with inventive gameplay — there are not so many similar games, if you think about it. The only thing that comes to mind is Borderlands, but it still has a slightly different genre. So take a closer look at Outriders if you're looking for a story game that you can play with your friends. The action game People Can Fly will not disappoint you.


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