Outriders began its journey in 2015, when the notorious Polish studio People can flywith games like Painkiller, Bulletstorm and Gears of War: Judgment, decided to go beyond the traditional linear shooters and bring to life a larger project. After years of development and several postponements of the release date, the game appeared before the public and instantly became a significant news feed in the news feeds of major gaming publications. One side, Outriders drowned under a barrage of criticism of unsatisfactory technical condition, on the other – in the charts Steam it is still at the top of the list to this day, showing excellent statistics on the interest of gamers. Is the game really a kind of rough diamond, or is the reason for its popularity due to the banal poverty of 2023 for fresh releases? We will talk about this in our review.
The game meets us with a brief exposition: in the future, the Earth, after numerous wars and environmental disasters, turned out to be absolutely unsuitable for further living. In a hurry, the best minds of mankind found a planet in the vastness of endless space that could become a new home for earthlings – Enoch. For colonization, two giant carrier ships were built and sent on a journey for a long 80 years. Unfortunately, one of the ships was lost even before departure, and it is even more offensive that it was on it that the entire elite of mankind (scientists, managers, and so on), as well as the entire database of mankind, was located. The second ship was manned on a leftover basis with mercenaries, soldiers and workers, and upon arrival on Enoch, it is these wonderful people who will become the basis for the further development of mankind. However, everything is not going according to plan quickly – as it turned out, anomalies and natural disasters are raging on the planet, which immediately mow down almost zero a detachment of scouts-pioneers, which includes our protagonist. But even here the game has not yet begun. The main character, like his comrades, turns out to be infected with a deadly black fluid (I didn’t come up with it right now – it’s really black fluid, which the scriptwriters don’t explain in any way during the game), but unlike our colleagues, we manage to postpone death by rattling into the cryochamber for more for 30 years. After awakening, the protagonist is first captured by some anarchists, and then dies altogether, finding himself in an anomaly. But that’s not all. The character immediately comes to life and, thanks to the same anomaly, gets superpowers.
The introductory description of the plot may seem chaotic to you, but believe me, this is how the events are presented on the screen. After what he saw in the first 30 minutes of the game, it seems that the writer did not sleep for three days in a row, coming up with a suitable plot of the plot, but in the end he did not find anything better than crossing the intro Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem… Further, the plot enters a more measured channel – now, together with a team of like-minded people, we have to go on a journey, regain control of the carrier ship in orbit, and here, finally, the player himself gets a more active role.
After the anomaly has thoroughly patted our hero and transferred him to the status of a superhuman – Alium (hereinafter I will use the official terminology from the localization, although I do not understand why the word “Altered” is translated as “Alium”), we are allowed to choose one of four classes: Technomancer, specializing in ranged weapons and the use of turrets and grenades, Pyromancer, which deals fire damage over an area, Trickster, a trickster, able to impose negative effects on enemies and teleport them behind them at the right time, and Destroyer, a tank that specializes on defense. Each class has its own abilities – active and passive, as well as developmental features. In addition to the three branches of pumping skills and characteristics that are looking for a bias, for example, in defense, attack power or resistance to elemental damage, each class has another important feature – the mechanics of health regeneration. The fact is that in Outriders there are no traditional first aid kits, although the health bar is automatically restored by only a third. The mechanics of further treatment are different for each class. For example, one gets health for killing an enemy in close proximity, the other is healed only after killing opponents previously marked with special skills, and so on. And here lies a rather noticeable hole in the balance of complexity. Yes, most of the time the game will dump crowds of enemies on you, who die quite quickly, respectively, the hero will not feel a lack of opportunities to improve his health. The situation changes dramatically when Outriders pits you one-on-one against bosses that can withstand a huge number of hits, while dealing impressive damage. And what should the same Trickster do in such a situation, who heals only after killing an enemy in close combat? At the same time, the Technomancer in such conditions feels quite comfortable, just shooting at the target. The possibility of additional treatment due to various weapon perks saves the situation a little, but at high difficulty levels this is not enough.
By the way, it is the recovery mechanics that make the cover system in the game almost useless in the manner of the series. Gears… Firstly, you will simply be smoked out of your home with grenades and units of melee fighters. So it makes sense to hide behind cover only for the duration of reloading.
