Outriders looks like Gears of War meets Destiny and I am down for that

There’s a new generation of video games on the way, and one of the first such titles looking to bring the idea of enemy heads erupting in a geyser of maths all so that you can score some sweet loot, is Outriders. Developer People Can Fly, they of the dick-killing fame behind the criminally underrated Bulletstorm, are dipping their toes into loot ‘n shoot territory on the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5, and so far the game looks kind of neat.

Is it basically Gears of War meets Destiny? Absolutely. Am I hot under the collar for that fusion? You bet your daily prayers to RNGesus I am! Here’s a look at the snippet of gameplay that was shown off:

And here’s a quick breakdown of everything that was revealed in that stream by creative director Bartek Kmita and lead writer Joshua Rubin:

• The anomaly has killed all electronics “more complicated than a light bulb”
• Pre-World War One technology with trenches and tanks, but on an alien planet
• The main enemies are the Exiles, but they are known as the Insurgents that players take on
• Understanding the tragic tale behind the war is part of the mystery that players will solve
• The first class shown off, the Trickster, can form a sword of chronal energy that slows all enemies down in the radius of the attack, called Temporal Slice
• Tricksters can also pop a bubble of temporal energy that slows down the world outside for some quick bullet time action
• Another class shown off was the Devastator, who receives more health the closer they are to enemies
• The more the better, when it comes to the numbers of troops thrown at the Devastator

• One of the skills shown off was Armour, allowing the Devastator to clad himself in indestructible rock and charge into the fray
• Third class shown off was the Pyromancer, who looks like an anti-ADS class
• Not too much of the Pyromancer was shown off, but he can conjure walls of flame with which to burn enemies
• One of the first large hubs in the game, Rift Town, was shown off
• Rift Town is one of the few places on Enoch where civilisation has survived, albeit barely
• A desolate but hopeful world
• In-game currency is called Scrap
• If you have bad luck getting a rare loot drop, you’ll be able to buy your gear from vendors
• While the story will move you between locations, players will be able to fast travel and return to captured hubs from which they can launch a new exploration

Considering how their previous games had a certain meaty feeling to the combat, going for a faster pace and throwing in some cover-based systems ala The Division and Gears of War sounds like a winning recipe to me. There’s no release date yet for Outriders, but you can probably expect it to launch not long after the PS5 and Xbox Series X pop up as People Can Fly look to establish their own beachhead in the next console generation.

Last Updated: February 14, 2020