Outriders

You remind me of myself.

Remember when I said that there were two upcoming games that had wormed themselves out of the proverbial wood works to surprise me? No? Well I did, and the second game was one that I don't feel quite so positive about. But with the studios involved I feel inclined to pay some vague amount of attention toward this new title, and that title would be 'Outriders' from 'People Can Fly'. (That is what the studio is called, not a personal nugget of advice.) You may remember this particular studio from such games as; Gears of War Judgement and a whole slew of 'co-development' jobs on various Epic titles. But now they have a full blown game of it's brand on the way (Not remembering 2004's 'Painkiller.') and this one has picked up enough traction to sink publishing from 'Square Enix.'

Back when I was younger and still believed in such things, I used to look upon the Square Enix logo as a brand of quality. This perception was fuelled by those incessant articles that read like "We got Square Enix artists to draw this, and look what cool designs they came up with!", making it seem like the entire company was stacked to the brim with imaginative geniuses. Later I learnt that things weren't that black and white, and how, as primarily a publisher, things can actually be rather hit and miss with their games. It's with that perspective that I approach this new title with some trepidation as I'm not entirely blown away by what I'm seeing nor with who's involved, so I've very confused why so many outlets are so insistent on telling me that "Outriders is (my) newest obsession!"

Outriders is a drop-in, drop-out, 1-3 player online shooter RPG set in "an original, dark and desperate sci-fi universe." (Not sure about those first two points, but I'm definitely feeling the 'desperation' behind this marketing.) So straight-off-the-bat you may be noticing some similarities between this title and another co-op RPG shooter that favours 3 character classes, and that is because this title definitely sees Destiny as something of a foster father judging by how all the visuals designs have come out. (Especially with the player armours) As far as I can tell the story revolves around a colony of humans escaping "our dying Earth" and finding themselves on a hostile little planet called Enoch where they must fight to survive as they are beset upon my an army of various alien beasties. So with that in mind the narrative sounds more akin to 'Mass Effect: Andromeda' (Let's hope then, that there's no extended period of questlines that involve setting immigration policy with the world's most unfinished alien race.)

As far as actual story motivation goes,  those human settlers will find themselves immediately struck with an anomalous affliction that grants them one of three classes, then they are sent hunting a "mysterious signal" across the many wild environments that Enoch has to offer. So in that respect it seems that they are rivalling Gears of War for 'most flimsy driving force to base an action game around'. Okay, I'm being rather unrelentingly mean about this title right now, let me try and look at some of the positives. Some of the enemy designs look alright, although by the standards of creativity that we usually see from Square Enix partners Outriders' designs do seem comparatively lame; but the screenshots do look colourful, although the gameplay I've seen does look monotonously brown, so I'm conflicted on that front.

I find it hard to point to one thing about this title which I see as really unique or trailblazing, which is weird considering that's the one thing about this game that everybody else can't shut up about. "It's like Destiny, but so much more!" In what way? What are you seeing that I'm not? Am I going completely crazy? Quite possibly. I'm so disengaged by this title that even seeing some actual, honest to goodness, non-scripted gameplay wasn't enough to shake my doubts. Recently we've begun seeing snippets of gameplay courtesy of a press event held by 'People Can Fly', but the product of these sessions has been hours of gameplay that just look dull. I've seen trenches that look like they've been lifted from a World War 1 game, populated with out-of-place alien beings and a janky over-the-shoulder camera that reminds me of 'Binary Domian', in the worst ways. (BD wasn't quite so bad in hindsight.)

Straight away it's clear that 'Outriders' is trying to place itself as the next big 'Live service' that'll overthrow the likes of 'Destiny' to become the next must-have gaming sensation, and maybe that is why I find myself so inexplicably wary of this game. Admittedly, the marketing material has been very careful not to mention anything about a 'persistent world' and the like, but I've seen the lifeless hub world that player's have to scoot through between missions and I'm pretty sure I know what that means. So with this in mind, what does Outsiders do to insist that our gaming free time is best spent with them instead of everyone else? Honestly, nothing. The gunplay and animations seem average, the special effects are uninspired and the enemy variety is lacking. (Although I'd imagine there's a lot of enemies that the team have yet to show us yet, at least I hope there is.) 

If I'm right about this game's place as a 'live service' aspirant, then that means at it's most basic level that the developers have to deliver us a world that we want to explore, and that's something I'm just not feeling yet. With 'Destiny' we were greeted with a visually spectacular world brimming with haunting music and cool futuristic weapons, Anthem nailed the 'wild, hostile world' aesthetic and used the mystery of 'The Anthem of creation' to get people's imagination going and 'The Division' built upon it's 'teamplay' elements to deliver an unrivalled co-op experience. Of course, all those games spectacularly fell on their face for other reasons, but they had that initial 'wow' factor that got you through the door. Outriders borrows the 'search for a new home' plot from 'Mass Effect'; being granted with mysterious powers from 'Destiny'; having to navigate a 'wild, viscous planet' from Anthem; and chasing a mysterious signal from literally every lazy story ever made. Now an optimist might see this and go "Great, this game combines all my favourite things." but I get lost in wondering "But what does this new game do for itself?"

Maybe I'm just being an arse. (I usually am.) Perhaps you've taken a look at this title and thought "That actually looks pretty cool." And if that's the case then I'd encourage you to explain why that is to me, because I'd honestly want to know. I love being excited about upcoming games, even when they are for genres that I don't usually play in, so If someone could show me why I'm wrong about Outriders I would be very grateful to hear it. Until then, however, I'm going to lay down and likely immediately forget everything about this game like I have done several times whilst trying to write this blog. (Maybe I have brain damage?)