It’s been a little too easy to write off People Can Fly’s upcoming “RPG shooter” Outriders. A particularly beefy Destiny 2, from what’s been teased so far. The loot-shooter that’s willing to show some heads exploding. But today saw the devs post their first in-depth look at Outriders in what intends to be a series of monthly broadcasts – and there’s some fascinating depth behind all the exploding goons and burst heads.
The first monthly Outriders broadcast aired earlier today, giving us a lengthy dive into the gory loot-shooter coming later this year.
Outriders may still awkwardly come across as Destiny’s space-knights by way of a Gears Of War bro-fest in its visual language. But this week’s clip does help bring clarity to how Outriders will actually play. Thankfully, it seems a suitably brutal affair for the folks wot made gruesome murder-juggler Bulletstorm – roadie-running at mutants / bandits / alien beasties and making them explode with bass-boosted shotguns. Aye, alright.
While our vid starts with a brief look at the Pyromancer class, a full rundown for that firestarter won’t come ’til next month. Instead. it’s the Trickster that gets the most love in the latter half of today’s vid. The close-range damage dealer specialises in confusion and disruption – with abilities that let them swap between clone bodies, or drop time-distorting bubbles as they disintegrate baddies with explosive blades.
Granted, the ease at which you’ll turn folks into bloody pulp will come down to what World Tier you’re on. Like its namesake in The Division 2, World Tiers are a kind of general difficulty level that rises as you keep killing with efficiency, though it also seems Tiers can be manually cranked up or down a step to shift the difficulty accordingly.
What sounds particularly neat is that, starting from Tier 4, loot may start to drop that’s higher than your current character level. As long as you remain in that Tier, you can keep yourself kitted out in kit well beyond your level.
The devs also showed off some neat UI customisation options. It appears nearly every part of the interface is toggleable – letting you go full-MMO with damage numbers and status effects, or else turn off everything but the crosshair over some alien gorilla’s head. Elsewhere, the stream flaunted a few scant story scenes, outlined NPC progressions, and teased some crunchy, crowded tech trees.
Outriders is still set to land sometime around the end of the year. Keep an eye out for more months broadcasts for more deets over the coming year.