Outriders may be a tough sale for some people. The reviews right now are either not many on Metacritic, while the scores that have been published are generally middling. Outriders is by no means a bad game but it has had some launch problems. These issues have not been as bad as Cyberpunk 2077’s debut on PS4 and Xbox One, but they are still worth noting.
Thankfully, those with Xbox Game Pass have no excuse not to try Outriders as it is available on the service. For everyone else on the fence, here are the game's best and worst qualities.
10 Best: Load Times
It’s not great that Outriders did not launch with a PS5 or Xbox Series X version. That said, load times are super fast on those systems regardless. There is a lot of backtracking as one can imagine in a looter shooter like this, so loads are necessary. It is thankful then that the new consoles, like most games coming out on both systems, almost negate the wait entirely.
9 Worst: Graphics
What is not great about playing Outriders on either PS5, Xbox Series X, or the actual older consoles are the graphics. Many of the textures look like JPEGs. This can be especially funny if one enters the volcano section of the game wherein the lava shooting out can look like it is coming out of a PS2.
The beefier new systems do not help much with these overall graphics, which also suffer from pop-ins and other weird glitches. Do not go in expecting a graphical masterpiece.
8 Best: Item Organization
One of the best aspects of this game is the item organization. Not only can one sort through their gear, like rearranging them according to power, but there are better uses too.
A player can select multiple gear pieces to sell off to a vendor and/or dismantle, for example. Plus users could highlight an entire colored tier to get rid of all of the green gear.
7 Worst: Character Customization
One aspect of customization that is not great in Outriders is the character creator. The lack of faces or hair is disappointing for one of these games. That said, other contemporaries like Destiny are also bad in this area.
Companies like Square Enix seem to find more value in giving players unique gear pieces or weapons to make them stand out since most people may obscure their heads through helmets anyway. While that may be true, the lackluster character creator is still a bummer.
6 Best: Over The Top Violence
Something Outriders has above other looter shooters like Destiny is the violence. People Can Fly is known for its over-the-top gore in games like Bulletstorm, or the studio's previous design work with Microsoft on Gears of War.
Seeing someone explode into a fountain of blood can be entertaining in a silly way. The graphics, again, aren’t that astounding, so the violence is not that gross or realistic.
5 Worst: Environments
Besides the graphics not being that awe-inspiring in the game, the overall design also lacks appeal. Like Gears of War, the colors are very muted and bland with a lot of browns and grays.
Some places add some color to the mix such as the snowy mountains or through the anomaly storms, but it’s never as vibrant as someone would hope to see on a new planet made up for a video game. That’s one thing no one can bad mouth Anthem on.
4 Best: Interesting Take On Healing
No matter what class someone chooses at the beginning of Outriders, all of them can heal themselves in one way or another. For example, a Pyromancer can sort of leach HP away from an enemy hit by one of the dozens of fire-based attacks.
The more one hits, the more health is gained back. This is an interesting approach to a class system that negates dedicating one player in a three-person team to the healer role as often tends to happen in a typical RPG.
3 Worst: The Story
The story really does not know what kind of tone it wants to go for. Sometimes Outriders wants to be serious like The Last of Us, while other times it’s trying to be goofy like Borderlands.
This inconsistent tone on top of the actual dialogue being oddly written makes it hard to care about anything going on. What’s more, there’s really no solid villain for a main portion of the game.
2 Best: The Guiding Beam
It may not be the first, but Dead Space seemingly popularized the guiding beacon system. A simple press of the button shows players in a direct line exactly where to go.
This mechanic is included in Outriders and it is a pleasant surprise. Sure, it can be glitchy and it’s obviously not an original invention, but it certainly makes navigating this world easier.
1 Worst: Powers
No matter what class someone chooses, be it the fire-based Pyromancer or the electric-based Technomancer, most of the powers aren’t that cool. This might be because, again, the graphics don’t look that amazing.
Unless a player needs to heal, it can become common to forget Outriders even has magical powers amidst gunfights. The cover shooting works well enough and the guns are fun to use so that’s something.