People Can Fly, the developer behind Outriders, has had a lot of success with its looter shooter sci-fi RPG. The game sold very well, and the number of active players has been quite high since launch, despite some technical issues and serious glitches that hindered players' satisfaction. The game redeems itself through great end-game replayability, and it does an exceptional job with its main storyline and side quests, with fully fleshed-out characters to boot.
Outriders does not unveil all its mysteries, though, and it leaves room for expanding its universe. The story ties up most loose ends, and side quests expand on the world-building elements while also creating even more enigmas to solve, like the identity and the extent of the powers of the Wanderer, for example. Still, despite lore being enriched by journals, some things remain to be discovered and other stories were never told. MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD.
The Case For A DLC About The Pax And The Ferals
The Pax and the Ferals are two separate, but not quite, alien races on the planet Enoch, where Outriders'Â narrative unfolds. The Pax are humanoid beings, native to Enoch, who had to endure every sort of abuse (including extermination) at the hands of the captain of the Caravel, Monroy. Peaceful by nature, the Pax meant no harm to the first humans arriving on Enoch, and they even worshipped them as gods.
Due to Monroy's paranoia, greed for power, and narrow-minded overview, he and his men committed unspeakable atrocities on the Pax. They were not accustomed to violence and they did not know how to react so, in order to survive, they did the only thing they could: they turned to the Anomaly, which turned them into the Ferals. The Outrider's storyline evolves from there, but the tales of the Pax and the Ferals don't run the full mile.
A DLC about the Pax and the Ferals could develop their arcs much more, and make these interesting aliens have their background expanded, their origins explained, and hopeful survivors encountered. Enoch is a whole planet, and while Monroy did kill many Pax and the surviving ones turned into Ferals, it seems unlikely that they are fully extinct. They could be hiding somewhere, or they may have different evolutionary traits based on the ecosystem they live in, in other regions of the planet. There is more to tell about these races, and it would be very intriguing to witness it.
More Brand-New Stories And Places To Explore
DLCs about a specific questline, in a new zone and with new characters, sound really good for the game. This allows a macro-narrative that follows a set of elements or characters and how they change over time, affected by the events, and it offers the opportunity to develop even more micro-narratives within the main plot. That's exactly what the original Outriders story achieves, and it was quite prosperous, too.
Exploring new places, discovering more information about Enoch and its creatures, facing new enemies, making new friends, and, of course, getting new loot is a winning combination. There is also the possibility of discovering races never seen before, opening up lots of possibilities in terms of world-building. What if there was yet another civilization on the planet? What if they were looking at the stars as well, wondering if they were alone or not, asking themselves typically human questions? What if the Outriders universe was much bigger than that, and new worlds were to be introduced?
The New Beginning After The End
The game's ending tries to tie things up, and it manages to do so quite smoothly. However, Outriders is ultimately a game about humanity, about survival, about re-building, about learning from past mistakes, and it is about a new home and its dangers. After the Outrider and their group successfully send a signal to the Flores via Zahedi's Uplink, all the resources held in the spaceship are finally launched onto the surface of Enoch.
The ending cleverly blends into the endgame, with Expeditions being about completing dungeon-like encounters to retrieve the contents of one of the pods. These missions also work as a way to interact more with characters that were part of the main quest, and individuals like Shira Guttman, Corrigan, Tiago, and more. The purpose of this is to gather the resources and share them with the factions to get loot as a reward. However, how do these characters intend to use the crops, medicines, and other assets? How is humanity going to change after the events of the main storyline?
There are many questions that fans could be asking, and having People Can Fly work on a DLC based on this would probably answer some. It would be a great way to see what humans will do now that they all have enough to live a good life. Would the war between the Insurgents and the Enoch Colonization Authority stop? Would deserters living in the forest be pardoned for their sin? Would people unite under the same flag, instead of fighting each other up until the human race goes almost extinct once again? Would these people search for other places to live, to avoid the Anomaly? And what about the people following the trail of the Outrider's feats shown at the end?
Hopefully, story DLCs will be coming to Outriders to tell these stories or other tales. For now, though, players can only speculate about what could come next, but it's possible it will be something great.
Outriders is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
