After getting bored of The Division 2 and Destiny 2, I was dying to play another great looter-shooter that I could really sink my teeth into.
Especially after finishing the Borderlands 3 main campaign, I’ve been wanting my loot-fix so bad for a long time.
And the new third-person shooter from Square Enix, Outriders, was exactly what I was looking for.
After a successful demo period, Outriders launched with mostly positive reviews. There were some server issues that bummed out some users. But things are back to normal now.
I was more than lucky to have experienced the game with minimum issues. I managed to beat the main campaign in about 22 hours playing solo, without doing most of the side-quests, hunts, and bounties. And only experienced one crash.
The story in Outriders is pretty good but it’s nothing extraordinary. Basically, the earth is destroyed so you’ve found a seemingly habitable planet that later turns out to be a nightmare.
This planet has weird anomalies and creatures that turn you into a superhuman (or altered) with weird powers. Your job, as one of the last surviving of the first landing team, is to help the remaining humans stay alive.
You go on a quest with a scientist and a band of companions to find more resources for the people. That’s basically what the main story is about.
On this path, you encounter many different types of enemies and creatures that makes up for some nice boss battles.
Each area in the game is different from the others. And the environments are gorgeous to look at as well.
You get to choose from 4 different classes in Outriders. I went with Trickster as it seemed like the most fun to play.
Trickster has some cool powers but he’s very fragile. Needless to say, I died a lot in the game. Which made my World Tier progression slow since it takes a small hit every time you die in the game.
But that didn’t get in the way of my overall experience with the game. My favorite part of the game was experimenting with gear mods. When combined with my class abilities, mods make my build more powerful. It was really fun playing with mods to find the right build for my play style.
Outriders also allows you to reset the skill tree without a cost so I’ve been trying different skill paths as well.
I rarely stick with the same game for a long period of time without getting distracted by another game. But with Outriders, I’ve been continuously playing the game. That says a lot about this game.
Outriders is not a revolutionary looter-shooter that takes the genre to the next level. In fact, it has very basic and common RPG mechanics that you’re already familiar with.
That’s what makes this game so addictive and enjoyable. Because you already know everything there is to know about the game mechanics. So you can freely experience the game as it is.
Even after finishing the main campaign, I’m constantly going back to the game to complete the side-quests and attempt at the extremely difficult Expeditions. I’m determined to finish an Expedition solo, somehow.
Expeditions allows you to go beyond the default World Tier difficulty levels and experience a time-trial raid-like game mode that continues to get more difficult as you play.
You get plenty of loot and rewards in this game mode, which you can also use to buy legendaries too.
Overall, Outriders is a must-play for anyone who enjoys loot and run-and-gun gameplay. But, it’s not a game for everyone. At times, the game can be very difficult, especially when playing solo.
And you would easily get bored if you’re looking for a game with an emotional story that you’ll remember for years. Or a game that makes you gasp in every mission. This is not a story game or the usual RPG game.
However, Outriders does a great job living up to its genre as an almost-perfect looter-shooter. You will definitely be playing this game for hundreds of hours, I know I will.