Outriders (PC) Review

Truth be told, when Square Enix originally announced Outriders, I wasn’t terribly impressed. At the time, there were already several notable looter shooters, such as Destiny 2, Borderlands 3, and The Division. All of which originally held my attention but were slowly being moved from my “most played “games to “I can’t stand these games anymore.” I figured I was pretty much done with this sort of game, but I figured I’d give it a fair shake. Suddenly, the more I discovered the game, the more I started getting interested in it. 

Platform(s):  PC (reviewed) PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Stadia
Publisher(s): Square Enix
Developer(s): People Can Fly
Release Date: April 1st, 2021
Price: $59.99

This review was conducted after the first major patch for Outriders was released. I had waited to give People Can Fly the benefit of fixing many issues, including the gear robbing inventory wipe glitch. This is why our review was delayed. That said, on to the review.

You’ve heard it before – Earth is messed up, and now humanity needs a new place to go. That’s the theme of Outriders, and you’re part of a team that’s tasked with finding a new home for humanity but also making sure that home is safe. Enoch, the planet selected, hides a dark secret that will unfond as you progress through hours of gameplay. And safe, it definitely isn’t – because that would be boring. Enter you, the player, as you take the helm of your customized character as you shoot first, ask questions later and snag some loot along the way. Truth be told, I enjoyed the story, even if the character you play is a bit of a prick at times.

Enjoyable Gameplay

The gameplay in Outriders is an enjoyable loop of mowing down the bad guys, collecting loot, and being rewarded for your efforts – thus, the gameplay loop. It’s fairly simple as well; you see a bad guy, you take them down. It’s straightforward, and the combat systems are fairly reminiscent of other games such as Gears of War, The Division, and Remnant from the Ashes. For the most part, the game is a fast-paced venture but does slow down when taking on quests from various NPCs and wandering around towns to buy more loot, converse, and give you some downtime. I didn’t spend much time in the towns and only visited them when I was required to. Speaking of towns, there’s more than enough locations scattered throughout the game, each with its own unique look. Despite that, the gameplay doesn’t change – shoot, loot, repeat.

Taking a page from other similar games, Outriders features what’s called a World Tier, which is Outriders’ version of difficulty levels. The higher the World tier, the harder the game becomes, but also the better the chance of loot. If you don’t gear up and move up the world tier, enemies will become major obstacles, even the lower grunts. As you move up the world tier, you’re going to want to be sure you’re upgrading your gear and becoming better at 

Outside of the gameplay, People Can Fly has implemented what I consider the best example of how a crafting and modding system should be. Each piece of gear you collect can be modified with various perks that augment your character. This lets you either keep a piece of loot that is your favorite or break it down (dismantle) and take the resources to modify other pieces of gear. It’s nearly an endless resource and one that you’ll take advantage of as you progress through the game. 

People Can Fly has nailed the power fantasy experience, and it’s easily one of the best reasons to play Outriders. The game features four different classes; Devastator, a walking tank of destruction, Pyromancer, who loves playing with fire. Technomancer, a ranged support class that can do tons of damage and provides support, and the Trickster, an up-close and personal class. Each class also has access to a massive talent tree, complete with perks and three specific character roles. You can elect to dump your points into a standard build or take bits and pieces from other roles and make your own murder weapon.

I spent my time playing as the Devastator, a class that’s capable of doing decent damage while being able to take quite a bit of damage – if spec’d properly. During my time with the game, I played with a mixture of different specs but ultimately settled with a blood-based build that allowed me to wreck just about anything that got in my way. There’s a nice amount of flexibility when it comes to customization, so you can pick and choose perks to create your own killing machine.  

The classes feel completely different and compliment each other when playing together in a group. Even now, there’s a meta-game being played as to which class is better, and it’s constantly changing thanks to lots of theory-crafting, gear drops, class balancing, and sadly, glitches (more on that later). After playing with all four classes, I can say that there’s something here for everyone. Myself, I prefer the Devastator, just to my passion for being in the middle of the action. You may find something else more your style, and that’s exactly what People Can Fly was going for.

It’s more than just doing damage and taking names. I’m sure you’ve heard that the game isn’t a cover shooter and that hiding behind objects is for wimps. Well, that’s only partially true. Unlike other games that feature a health system that lets you heal your character by getting out of the action and taking cover, the developers took a different approach. The classes and gear all work to heal you as long as your doing damage, based on what’s called weapon and skill leech. Just as it sounds, as long as you’re doing damage with a weapon or your skills, you’re always being healed — all the more reason to get out there and kick some butt. I’ll be honest, that doesn’t always work because of cooldowns or the higher the level of enemies, the harder they become, so taking cover at times is also beneficial. Just don’t make a habit of it.

Co-op is a huge part of the game, and when it works, It’s amazing – when it works correctly. There’s something to being able to play solo or having other players dropping in or out at any given time. And while I figured I’d be the lone wolf, I did rather play online with other players like I normally do. When you have someone join you who knows their class and knows what they’re doing, it makes things much easier. But sadly, co-op still has its fair share of issues that I’ll go into later in this review.

PC Performance

When the Outriders demo was first released, the performance was terrible – there I said it. If you played it on the PC, there were several issues. Issues that sadly extended to the full game. This is why I delayed my review as I wanted to give People Can Fly the benefit to address those issues. And to their credit, they did. The game runs better now with the first few updates than when the game was first released. Gone are the numerous performance drops and crashes that made playing the game less fun than it should have been.

Having tested Outriders on several PCs; low-end (Ryzen 3 1300 + GTX 1080 Ti), mid-range (Ryzen 5 5600x + RTX 2080), and a high-end (Ryzen 9 3900x + RTX 3090), I was able to hit a respectable 1080@60FPS on the low-end and 1440p@120FPS on the mid-range and 4K@60FPS on the high range PCs. With the addition of Nvidia’s DLSS tech, I was able to dial the settings and keep the framerate high without sacrificing quality.  As for the official requirements to play Outriders,  you’ll need To play Outriders on PC, at least an Intel I5-3470 or AMD FX-8350 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 Ti GPU, 8GB of RAM, and Windows 10.

I tend to play these sorts of games on a keyboard and mouse, but I wanted to give the controller a try, and while it wasn’t perfect, it did get the job done. There were some issues with aiming, but it wasn’t enough to make me put the controller down. Keyboard + mouse is definitely the way to go on the PC front. But that’s just my call; feel free to play the game the way you want.

Online needs some work

Attempting to play an online session in Outriders varies from being playable or a trainwreck. I talked about this in another article before this review, and I stand by that. There are better ways to allow someone to jump into a game instead of blindly thrusting them into a session where the latency is so bad that players aren’t able to use their abilities due to noticeable delay or hit registration being off. Ending up in a session where the host has AFK for 20 minutes – this happens, and I’ve timed a few of them. Or ending up in a session that your character is completely undergeared, underpowered, and shouldn’t even be there. Yet, this happens much, and it’s not fun.

Launching Outriders without a basic server list that would allow gamers to see the location being played, connection rating, and difficulty was a big mistake, in my honest opinion. That’s right up there with electing not to include centralized dedicated servers, which would help remove some of the latency issues with the game. Instead, you’re left at the mercy of peer-to-peer connections, with games that could be played over Wi-Fi connections, and/or with a host who decided to kill the session because they got bored, kept doing, or for any number of reasons. Oh, and if they do that, you lose everything. I’ve had that happen at the very end of the session right as I was able to be rewarded.

Overall Thoughts

Despite how much fun I’ve been having, steamrolling through the game and online sessions, it all hasn’t been pleasant. Outriders is damn similar to a love/hate relationship, thanks to all the ups and downs that have plagued the game ever since it launched. I’m referring to the online authentication servers constantly going down for all platforms, denying anyone access to the game, including the single-player portion, which has been a sore subject for the entire Outriders community. The authentication servers constantly went offline, denying access to anyone attempting to play the game.  Then we have the constant worry that a glitch could wipe anyone’s inventory at any moment. First, it was only occurring to those who went online in a co-op session but has crept up on the single-player portion of the game as well. Thankfully that’s been resolved, but it took weeks after the game went live properly to address this. Ever since People Can Fly was able to rectify the issues, the servers have been merciful. I haven’t experienced any additional disconnects and have clocked in 200+ hours with the game. Now the endgame content, called expeditions, has been kicking my ass. 

My biggest concern with Outriders is the end game content or the lack of end game content. When you’ve finished the campaign which can take anywhere from 20-30 hours, you’re treated to the resolution of the story, and your heroes then set themselves up for what’s to come next. Except what’s to come next is a bunch of timed runs through instances that you’ve already played through, called the Challenge Tier. That’s it! A glorified timed horde mode. You set the difficulty to the one you believe you can handle, and you try your best to beat the instances within the times presented to you. This can be done solo or with two other people helping – though the more people that join in, the harder it gets. And when I say hard, I mean enemies become bullet sponges, and thier damage output is multiplied. This can lead to an exercise in frustration – frustration that I’ve experienced first hand.

You beat the times, you loot, and then you continue this loop, over and over. If you manage to satisfy the difficulty for the challenge tiers, you’ll continue to make your way up to the highest level, and then it all stops. Mainly because once you reach the highest difficulty, you’ve already ground out everything to get to that point. Again, that’s all. I have over 80 hours in the game, I’ve played through the main campaign twice and played through the end game content, and even now, I’ve found myself wanting more, but something other than the challenge tier grind. Hopefully, People Can Fly will announce something else, but as it stands right now, I can’t recommend the end game as it stands.

Outriders is a fun game. I enjoyed the gameplay loop, collecting and trying to maximize my gear and trying new builds to get optimal ass-kicking potential. All that is great, and if that’s all you care about, then Outriders is perfect for you. However, there are still several outstanding issues with the game. The online sessions are still a mess, despite crossplay finally being playable again. The sign-in bug still rears its blasted head, despite supposedly being addressed, and now there are character skills that aren’t working correctly and haven’t been acknowledged by the developer. 

So, where does it leave me with a recommendation? I’ll leave you with this -If you care about your money, I’d wait a bit longer for People Can Fly can get the game to a better place. Unless you have an Xbox Game Pass subscription, then give it a try without dropping the full price for the game currently.

Review Disclosure Statement: A copy of Outriders was provided to us by Square Enix for review purposes. For more information on how we review video games and other media/technology, please review Review Guideline/Scoring Policy for more info.