GameTech: Outriders goes back to basics for a surprisingly fun game
Outriders, by People Can Fly.
Evolution is a tricky thing. Only the fittest thrive, we are told. Will Outriders survive the latest trends in gaming – or could it even surpass them?
On the colonised planet of Enoch, humanity has been torn apart by the ‘anomaly’, a force that has hyper-evolved the creatures and fauna to hunt down humans. Just when it seems like the settlement is done for, the humans themselves are infected by the anomaly, giving them the powers to fight back.
Outriders is a welcome turn of events for big budget gaming. Made by People Can Fly, who worked on Bulletstorm and Gears of War, Outriders harkens back to those titles and leans away from the modern landscape of ‘live service’ gaming. In other words, this is a game that can be played single-player or co-op, with a complete campaign to finish - and no microtransactions.
Simply put, it’s great fun. Like all successful species do, Outriders pulls from the DNA of its predecessors – you’ll instantly see Gears of War in the third-person action on show. Even better, Outriders has learned from other games too, with glimpses of Doom 2016 in the way players need to be constantly attacking to regain health.
The world of Enoch is a kind of sci-fi western, with a dark horror edge. The writing won’t win any awards, but the characters grab your attention and the set pieces (especially the boss fights) are thoroughly entertaining. There are a few different biomes too, so you won’t be seeing the same surroundings through your 25-hour campaign.
There are four classes to choose from – each one representing a different range of attack. The sniper class attacks from afar; the trickster class is a ninja type; there is a tank class for brutal melee and finally a pyro class for mid-range attacks. In theory, that’s four different ways to play the game from start to finish.
Once you do finish the campaign, there are ‘expeditions’ for high-level characters to take on – a kind of survival mode that will keep the game going until downloadable content inevitable arrives.
Overall, Outriders is a pleasant surprise. It’s not a classic but, during a quiet time in the AAA landscape, it offers high-class action without the disadvantage of live-services. If this is a sign of where AAA gaming is going – a return to the basics – then sign us up for the (re)evolution.
There is no fitter game that Fortnite, so we continue to see developers attempt their own battle royale titles to capture some of the profits.
“There’s gold in them hills!” is what developer Team GRIT were probably shouting as they announced Grit, a western battle royale that will go into early access in the coming months.
As a reminder, the battle royale genre is when 100 players fight it out in one location until there is only one team or person left standing. It’s a simple concept, but one that has taken the world by storm (quite literally in the case of Fortnite’s in-game storm).
Grit looks like exactly what we might expect from a western battle royale, with desert landscapes, saloons, horses to ride, trains to catch and all the tropes of the genre. Players even collect poker cards for power-ups.
Grit is aiming for a full release in September.
Finally, you can choose the evolution of your character in Disco Elysium, the bonafide PC classic that has now arrived on consoles too. A brilliant game that relies heavily on its writing and player choice, Disco Elysium forces you to engage in the twisted mind of its central character – an amnesiac police officer who wakes up with a murder to solve.
Your lead character’s personality is driven by decisions you make internally, such as whether to pursue a delusion that he is a karaoke genius who simple must perform in front of others. In that particular case, the delusion grows as you re-enforce it over time, with special abilities emerging in the character as you double-down on your chosen paths.
You want your cop to be a thoughtful philosopher? No problem. You want him to be a drug-addled maniac? Also no problem. That’s your choice, with often hilarious and fascinating results. Disco Elysium is probably best suited to a mouse control scheme, but don’t let that stop you buying it on consoles – there’s nothing else like it.
