We'll get into story spoilers in another article, but it suffices to say that, while Outriders starts out as a rather familiar story of humankind fleeing a dying Earth in the hope of colonizing another planet, only to drag the species' worst and best qualities along for the ride, it soon turns into a twisting, turning tale, offering up an entertaining sci-fi mystery to go along with all the headshots and explosions. That's as good a combo of RPGs and shooters as I've seen, and Outriders does it all in a satisfying way. So while you never quite get in-depth enough with the characters to want to write fan-fic about them, there's still something friggin' cool about gearing them up, slugging it out in literal trenches against human and creature (and more) enemies alike, and seeing them safely out the other side with only 1HP and a dream. Both the narrative and the gameplay complement each other quite well. The story of Outriders doesn't necessarily break new ground, but its narrative is well-executed, its characters are paper-thin yet still somehow compelling, and the brutal pace of it all wastes no time dashing headlong from one shocking moment to the next.ĭepending on your approach to Outriders and what you're looking for, the story could act as waypoints that interrupt the somewhat same-y feeling shoot-em-up action set pieces, or vice versa. You can do this by lowering World Tiers to an easier difficulty if you're interested in story more than progression and gear.)ĭo you know what slowing down and actually enjoying the story allowed me to do? Get immersed in the saga of the Outriders, the mysteries of planet Enoch, and the shocking reveals and betrayals that take place along that journey. (Unfortunately, I did have to rush main story anyway, otherwise I'd still be struggling through it. But I'm glad I chose Dev because it organically forced me to slow down, take my time, seek out side missions to bulk up my experience and stats a bit, and get brawly enough to survive as the World Tiers climbed and the enemies got tougher and tougher. mostly.) The poor Dev has been much maligned by the Outriders community so far because it's far and away the toughest class to progress through the main game as intended, doubly so in the endgame crucible. The second mistake I made was starting out with the Devastator class. Your mileage may vary, but the good news is that if you're a diehard looter-shooter fan who only plays for the endgame, or if you're in it for the story, the character progression, and the many and varied RPG aspects, Outriders has what you crave either way. Again, that was a mistake, because not only am I not a "World's First" type of player, I also actually really enjoy story and lore. All of that experience, including tuning in to streamers like and primed me for a mad dash to the finish line-the end of the main campaign-in order to get in on the endgame grind. That was due in part to my own inherent bias about looter-shooters (that they're basically short on story content and long on endgame loops) and from playing the demo over and over in an attempt to grab Legendary weapons ahead of the full release. The first mistake I made going into Outriders was a hard-scoped focus on the loot grind and endgame min-maxing. Spoilers follow from here on out, and for transparency's sake, I'm playing on the PS4 Pro.
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