I went into Outriders with hope that this game would be the “next big looter shooter” akin to games like Division, and Borderlands, hell even a bit of Destiny thrown in there too. That's just it though, it wants to be all of those combined into one, and while the idea seems great, the execution is mediocre at best.
When I say the game has an Identity crisis, what do I mean? I mean that the game ISN’T a live service game but acts like one. The game has all the makings of one yet this is a complete package. The layout of the game is treated in such a way that it IS in fact meant to be a live service game. Looter shooters are supposed to make you feel good as you progress and only entice you more to get better gear, and be more badass. While they absolutely nail the buildcrafting, they don’t give you more reason to...keep doing it.
For me personally, when I am playing a live service game, I want the WORLD to pull me in, keep me interested and the loot to give me that rush to “get the best gear” I possibly can in order to take out the opposition as quickly as possible. This game delivers on that, but just way too late into the game,“Endgame” is where the game shines, and why I think this game would have been better as an actual live service game, instead of a complete package.
Now before you go and write off what I am trying to say, hear me out.
Gaming has changed DRAMATICALLY over the last 8 or so years. The consumption of games is different than it was not too long ago, I look at loot based games differently now than I did back when I was playing Diablo II and III, Borderlands series, Mass Effect etc. Investing my time has to feel meaningful, and make me want to come back to keep me engaged with a game. While You can argue that Outriders delivers a complete package, I will say this, “If the world is boring and the story subpar and generic, why would I go back?” and that's exactly the problem I have with Outriders. It tries so hard to be more than one type of game, that it's just a few different games blended into one and done in such a poor and mismanaged way, I feel no reason to go back to experience it.
Outriders has a World Tier system, akin to that of Diablo III Nephalem Rifts. You level up and get EXP, you also get EXP for a World Tier level, and as you go up in World Tiers the game will ramp up enemy difficulty by overleveling them by a number, but that's just it. The only “real” reward you get for going up in the Tier system, is higher level gear. Which sounds nice and all, but I can tell you that the “Legendary loot modifier” is a lie. This is where I felt the most cheated from the game, and because there is no proper explanation of how this works, I worked my way through the game, all the sidequest, and extra content to World Tier 15. I didn’t get a single legendary drop from any boss, mob, or chest. The only time I got legendaries in the game was for completing a series of quest, or quest chains. Had I known that the Legendary modifier didn’t actually work. I would have probably stopped around Tier 10 and finished the game, but as someone who loves loot in a LOOTER SHOOTER, I thought “Might as well try and get those legendaries and suffer through the higher tiers”. It never happened.
People can fly want people to grind the endgame and only the endgame, by nerfing the Legendary drop rate from “named or boss” enemies to a staggering number, removing the ability for chest to drop legendaries, and now as of me writing this, they have effectively ruined any reason to do hunts, bounties or any other repeatable quest, for legendaries. They have effectively funneled every player to only do Expeditions to farm out legendaries. This is where they get so much wrong with the LOOT in a looter shooter. Things that made games like Borderlands 2 great, was farming for gear you wanted, and even targeting certain bosses for a specific item, you won't find that here. It’s all in the expeditions.
Speaking of Expeditions let's discuss those. My character is a Devastator, and I get kicked from lobbies. Why do you ask? Because apparently I am useless. I am at the appropriate level for the Expedition, I have a build that works well, but for the random lobbies I join, just not well enough.
Ya see, these Expeditions are timed, the faster you kill things, and finish it the better the loot. It’s great and it's probably the single most exciting reason to play the game, but imagine if you were constantly kicked from the lobbies because you were the “worst” of the 4 classes? That really blows. I don’t blame the people kicking me because they didn’t balance this game. People Can Fly did, and as of writing this they have nerfed all DPS builds basically by 30-50% depending on the skill and class you are. I don’t think nerfs are bad to keep a game alive, especially when the end users break it, I do think it's pretty messed up to ONLY nerf DPS classes, and not buff anything else. Basically gating people from wanting to try other builds or classes because….the game is little over a week old.
While this sounds like a rant I promise you this is a review on the current state of this game. I just wanted to get out the most important aspects of the game that failed so I can get onto the rest of it.
The Story.
Oh boy, the story. So I won’t go into too much detail here as I don’t want to spoil anything. I’ll summarize, You are an Outrider and you are tasked with being the first group to land on the planet Enoch to survey it, and give the go ahead for humanity to make its new home. Things go wrong in about 15 minutes, you’re thrown into a cryo pod after being “infected” with something. You wake up 31 years later, to see just how bad it is when humanity has landed.
While you were sleeping, which they jab at you a few times (as if it were your fault), Humanity was at war with each other. See, there wasn’t enough food or supplies to feed all the souls that landed, but the ECA has to make a choice. “Leave the people in the cryo pods to die because the systems only lasted so long” or “release them and let them fend for themselves on a new planet with nothing and no resources. This causes a war between the ECA and the Insurgents. Your new task is to find a Dr, and he has the last “uplink” to reach the “Flores” and get the rest of the supplies to drop down and save the rest of humanity. Along the way you’ll encounter a lot of murdering, a lot of alien creatures, and a cool alien race (that is probably the best part of the story). This leaves a great plot twist and I won’t say anything about it here because that is literally the ONLY redeeming quality of the story.
The story is as generic as it sounds, albeit the one saving grace being the Alien race.
Voice acting and character interaction is HORRENDOUS, the Main Character sounds so disinterested in everything going on, landing on a new planet, exploring a lot of areas that look like they could just be earth. If the Main Character isn’t interested in the world you’re in why should you be?
Gameplay and controls.
I have heard good things about the game on PC, and I haven’t play it on PC, but I can tell you on Playstation 5 the controls are horrible, aiming is awkward, the aim assist only centers to the chest of an enemy and everything just feel off, or like a third person shooter from 2016. There is no jumping, the cover system is a literal JOKE, and from a studio that worked on a Gears of War title (Judgement) you’d think it would shine.
This game is not a cover shooter, its far beyond that, you’re better off rushing into every fight head on and doing your best to kill the massive mobs before they kill you. While there is nothing wrong with that approach, the controls don’t exactly align with that play style. I was running on the edge of ramps, couldn’t scale up a waist high wall, or get out of a bad situation quickly because I wasn’t able to. Some walls are scalable, some ramps you could drop down off the side to get to cover quickly but it's so inconsistent I stopped relying on logic and just made my way around an entire platform instead of dropping down to safety because it made more sense somehow.
In my conclusion of this review on Outriders. I have to say this. I was excited for a new SciFi looter shooter, something different perhaps? But I was so disappointed by so many things. It's clear that People Can Fly had a vision. One that, with more time and polish could have probably been something amazing, but all we’re left with is a game that wants to be a live service game, and really only wants you to care about the endgame. After hitting Challenge Tier 15 in the endgame you have nothing left to do. If this game had a roadmap of some sort, even with the hope that things would get better, maybe I’d be more excited to see where it goes, but all in all I see another Anthem in terms of longevity here. I don’t see SE giving this game a lot of support after the initial release, which is a shame because the things that work in the game are a solid foundation for a good looter shooter.
There's no better way to enjoy your PS5 than with friends, so here's our picks of the best co-op games on the console.
I own a Switch and have never played co-op on it. I do play Elden Ring , Demons Souls and some other co/op games with my friends on PS5. Baldurs Gate 3 is the next game I’ll play co-op. Can’t do that on a Switch
I was thinking for couch casual immediate fun.. not online coop games that require some adaptation.
Outriders didn't turn a profit throughout 2021 and developer People Can Fly have not received any royalty payments from the game.
Well, with Outriders and Oddworld, maybe now devs will stop shilling how beneficial it is to them to put their brand new day one games on sub services. I remember how People can fly were raving about how beneficial it was to give their game on gamepass day one, now we can see the common sense reality that the game wasn't profitable.
Now customers can talk about their savings on sub services all they want, but developers need to stop talking to people like their idiots. We DO KNOW 2+2=4
The issues isn’t Outriders launching on gamepass. Outriders simply didn’t retain enough players to be profitable during its launch year. The title wasn’t Xbox One/Series exclusive, it was available on PC and PlayStation 4/5.
While that's true, it's the same thing with Oddworld. But the reality is if game creation is as expensive as the industry "claims" it is, then every avenue of revenue would need to be maximized. So if gamepass takes one revenue stream off the board (just like PS Plus with Oddworld), then that one alone could lead to not being profitable.
Outriders was a GamePass title but still was excellent. Oddworld was on PS+ but let’s be real, it was terrible and would have flopped regardless.
@NecrumOddBoy
It doesn't matter which game any of us think is good or a flop.
It doesn't change the fact both games were given "free". And both suffered for it.
One was given on gamepass, one was given on PS Plus.
One is multiplayer, one is single player.
The end result is both stuff lost profit for being "free".
It's worth noting that the Lorne Lanning did not complain about the game not being profitable. He got buyer's remorse after seeing how many people downloaded the game and thought of the potential lost sales versus their initial sales expectations.
I'm drawing the distinction to point out there are multiple potential downsides to these deals. People keep pushing for the industry to hop aboard the Game Pass model (i.e., Day 1 releases) without care or consideration for the potential ramifications. All they know is that they like Xbox, "free" games, or both.
People who claim GP is the cause have zero understanding of how business works. Your belief is that the developer gave away most of their ability to make revenue on Xbox for nothing. A developer sells that right to Microsoft for an estimate of what they think they will make from disc sales. They still have the ability to sell disc on Xbox. They will still be selling the game after it is no longer on GP. If it takes $100 million to make a game and you sell day one rights for $25 million you might be making a mistake. It depends on the popularity of the game. If it's wildly popular you probably would have made more waiting. If it's average you might just break even. If it does poorly you might have saved your company. People think these companies have the money to pay for development. They usually don't. They usually borrow money like most businesses. You then have interest on top of the original amount. If you get a cash payment upfront from Microsoft that's less you owe for a loan & interest. If they believe it will be a massive hit, they will pay you more. If a game cost $60 million to develop and you get half from them and you have the other half you don't have any debt. When companies go out of business because of one or two bad launches it's because they didn't have money themselves. They borrowed too much. If you go to GP and you had half the money even after a bad launch you have no debt and your company can keep going. GP gives developers an opportunity. It saves them from potential bankruptcy. It allows them to take chances. GP will mean more developers, more developers will survive and more games. If a developer makes a great product, GP allows them to start making a profit much faster because they are already millions ahead of where they should be and in less or no hole at the start of launch.
^
Developers don't sell anything to Microsoft. It is the publishers that fund development, which blows a big hole in your fantasy about GP saving devs from bankruptcy.
I dont think its as simple as “its gamepass’ fault.” Perhaps they made a bad deal on that, but you also cant discount how the game reviewed and played at launch. It was something of a buggy mess when I played it and the endgame content was anemic.
Meanwhile Psychonauts 2 was Double Fine's best-selling game.
And Forza Horizon 5 is the best selling of the franchise.
And the several other devs that say GP has boosted their sales across the board.
But no, it's totally Game Pass and PS+. Never mind that:
- Outriders is an average GaaS with the same brown-grey color palette everyone got sick of by the end of the 360 generation
- Oddworld released in a very buggy state to very meh reviews, sitting currently with a 66 on metacritic.
Sorry for the devs involved but not every game deserves to be profitable just because it releases or just because you want to spin a narrative if it doesn't.
Edit: "Their idiots". Lol - It's *they're* idiots. Perfect spot for a typo.
Look at it from a logical perspective.
Do you expect people to pay for a sub service AND buy games at $60/$70 a pop?
Right now, people are buying games at the rate it's always been, but do you expect that to continue in the future as more and more subscribe and more and more games go on these sub service day one?
Wasn't Psychonauts on PS4 too? And, Forza, like Halo, gets bought up a lot in these discussions, but no one wants to bring up the fact that both games are struggling to keep players engaged. Just because no one wants to approve those articles, doesn't make it not true.
As for the "several other devs"? Yeah, People Can Fly was one of those devs, but we see what they're saying now.
@Outside Ask that question again in 5 years. As it stands now - yes. Forza Horizon 5 and Psychonauts 2 prove that. Halo sold second only to COD in release month.
@Silly This is about profit and sales, not extended player engagement. Can't speak for FH5 since all the negative hoopla is about Halo, but Halo is what happens when you have a great foundation then the GaaS reality sets in. 343 squandered their opportunity after all the positive buzz from the tech previews.
FH5 is not the best selling in the franchise. FH4 is. Horizon 5 obtained the best launch sales in the series NOT the best sales overall fyi.
https://4freegame.com/forza...
Psychonauts 2 was available for Playstation so your point here does hold up very well. Get your FACTS straight before you call out people. Lol
FH4 sales numbers haven't been confirmed before (only player count) and FH4 was also day-and-date on game pass. What point are you exactly trying to prove with your link from... one week after FH5's release that confirms it's both the best selling and most played out the gate?
Double Fine was a third-party developer that has released dozens of games across all major platforms over the last 17 years. Their best-selling title is one available on 2/3rds of its released platforms through subscription. I'm not sure what you're trying to prove except that... being on subscription did not have a perceptibly negative impact on their sales...
It's hilarious to see people jump back on the "Services killed a game" train again.
Let's not even take into account how when released, Outriders was extremely buggy with huge online issues.
Also, the game released retail on PS and PC, why wasn't it a retail success based off of the huge market share Sony has?
...not even a week ago Psychonauts 2 was a success story here on N4G. most praised it's success because of the PS4...even though that game also released day and date on Game Pass.
So how can GP and services be blamed when Psychonauts 2 being a success but not Outriders and both being day and date?
Outriders was one of them games I was "unsure about". I had it pre ordered but it was one of them I was unsure about n
Once I found out it was going to release on gamepass day one I cancelled the PS5 pre order.
At the time of release I had one of the many £1 a month or 3 months offers Microsoft like giving out. I gave it a fair shot and I just didn't like it.
So as a customer I'm greatful I got to trial the game instead if taking a risk and splash £60 on the game and regretting it. However, I can see how I I'm part of the problem. Double edge sword I guess.
You're not part of any problem. Deals were made between businesses; you the consumer made the best option for yourself and Outriders failed to stand out - you can't be a problem regarding a game you and many found not worth a purchase.
Another important note that people are forgetting to mention is that Outriders has this certain publisher - Square-Enix - that couldn't for the life of them perceive any western title as a success, nor any of their GaaS titles outside of FFXIV. Marvel's Avengers contributed to a $200m loss. Babylon's Fall at this moment has only 36 people playing on Steam. Between the three, only Outriders still has a playerbase above 1k there.
Xbox has the smallest player base of all platforms, but should lead the way in sales?
Steam Charts -> 1195 current players (132 million monthly active users).
The game is dead on all platforms.
Sadly outriders was just a rubbish game, I tried the beta and felt it copied more of a rushed free 2 play game than anything else. Boring gameplay, run and gun with loot. No end game from what I heard.
How can you expect it to sell if it's half baked.
you dont even know what was paid by ms to have it on GP day 1, so there goes your argument. Maybe it actually made them more money that they otherwise would have. Also the game had a lot of problems on launch, getting a launch right is critical for any new game.
You literally take the only aspect the games had in common (day 1 on a service) and therefore label that thing a failure, while ignoring if the game is actually good, if there was a big enough audience, launch and a pletora of other things.
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That's a shame because outriders is a dam good game. I don't get how a non profitable game is getting DLC in June though?
Personally it was a good game when playing with friends. That was the fun part, though playing it solo wasn’t satisfying
that could easily have been part of the contract. A lot of game publishers make deals with devs to make x amount of dlc whether the game is a success or not
Personally the game was pretty generic, grindy, and repetitive. I agree that's a bit fun if you have friends around to play with though.
“I don't get how a non profitable game is getting DLC in June though?”
Because the game development takes a long time and they probably started the DLC before Outriders was released. Because DLC can be more profitable than big game releases. 1/10 the game at 1/3 the price. Because the developer can be contractually obliged even if the game is a money loser. This is how developers go out of business and why Publishers close studios.
One word. Services. You can spin all you want. Gamers won't buy a game they get on any service. Game after game we see that. It would funny to put here some quotes from this studio talking about the benefits of that... That aged badly.
We've been saying this again and again that some of these little companies are going to get screwed on services. Thinking that a check is going to be enough and views are a win. Don't know how many times we've had to say this. Not all viewed games are going to become a hit like Rocket League. So, they should try to sell their game. If it doesn't work out or does work out, put it in a service later to make even more money.
And the ones groomed into thinking it's great for them paying almost nothing to play a developer's game, can ruin the developer in the future. The developer may not get another deal, another publisher, etc. And because of low sales, could go belly up, get sold. But the groomed act all smug. Not caring what it does to some developers or the industry. Because not all these developers are going to get EA or Capcom checks to put their game on games pass.
It's like they have to see how screwed up it gets before they learn. Like the same people were pushing that paying for online was better than free on PC and PlayStation. Now, we're all screwed if we want to play online because it spread to everyone.
You just can't teach a brick anything.
It boggles the mind how so many people want the industry to follow the lead of a multinational tech behemoth that has been throwing its weight around the console industry for 20 years without winning a single generation to show for it. What could go wrong?
@Apocalypse and RauLe
I agree with the both of you. And the worst part of this whole thing. When everyone wants the industry to follow the "netflix of gaming" gamepass model, it's like they aren't even looking at the problems netflix is facing right now.
But at usual, people are slaves to their vices and will only complain when it's too late to do anything about it. And anyone that was able to see the reality of it will have to suffer....as usual.
@apocalypse
So why wasn't this a huge success on PS or PC?
Especially since, from our understanding, more people own and play on PlayStation than they do sub to GP. Shouldn't this game have sold more on PS and be a hit?
So why wasn't Outriders a financial retail success like Psychonauts 2 was? Both were day and date.
@lodossrage
"When everyone wants the industry to follow the 'netflix of gaming' gamepass model, it's like they aren't even looking at the problems netflix is facing right now."
I didn't want to elongate my post by touching on that, but you are right, and that has been on my mind.
People dismiss the misgivings both Nintendo and PS have expressed about the viability of that model and want them to follow the Plan B of the one company among the big three that has never come out on top in the console market, despite the abundant resources at their disposal. (Subsidizing low prices, promotional offers, and allowed loopholes for a subscription service and spending billions to put content on it was not Plan A. Plan A was the original Xbox One plan, but such a blatant power move didn't go down as smoothly as Game Pass.)
Let's be honest. Any other major console manufacturer would have failed out of the industry doing what Xbox has done. The MS pocketbook allows them much more room for error.
The PlayStation Brahs:
"Episode 21 of The PlayStation BRAHcast, the official podcast of ThePlayStationBrahs.com is live! In this episode James P. goes in-depth in his review for Young Souls, gives his final impressions for Chorus, and confesses his love for Outriders. All of this gaming goodness and so much more!"
Disagree on the score, it deserves better than that.