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  5. Outriders: Worldslayer Review – Baby takes a step in the right direction

Outriders: Worldslayer Review – Baby takes a step in the right direction



Outriders: Worldslayer Review – Baby takes a step in the right direction
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Outriders: Worldslayer Review – Baby takes a step in the right direction


Table of Contents:

Outriders: Killer of Worlds on PS5

In April 2021, developers People Can Fly unveiled their vision for a looting and shooting game in an admittedly crowded genre, but Outriders was a breath of fresh air that did a lot of good, especially when it came to equipping the player with powerful weapons and supernatural abilities. power fun. Now that the Outriders: Worldslayer expansion is upon us, the same basic pillars remain, for better and worse.

To bring you up to speed with the plot, the base game Outriders was about humanity’s dire need to find a new home after ravaging Earth. After finding a suitable alternative on the planet Enoch, things go south rather quickly when a destructive storm known as the Anomaly leaves nothing but death in its wake. Time passes, but the early settlers remain trapped on the planet, caught between mutated wildlife and insurgent forces who now follow the whims of altered beings who can access the Anomaly and wield dangerous powers.

Outriders: Worldslayer builds on that narrative foundation that wasn’t exactly tied to the base game and takes things up a notch. Without Enoch’s native species, Pax, to negate the Anomaly, the supernatural phenomenon spins out of control. As if this potentially deadly development wasn’t enough, the Insurgents finally have a leader for players to follow in the form of the Altered, Ereshkigal. Once again, it’s up to the players to save the day and save Enoch once again.

While there is undoubtedly some promise when it comes to overall story development, the expansion suffers from the same problems that plagued the original. While the player is the key to getting things done, he never feels like he’s at the center of all the unfolding events, not that he always has to be, it just decreases player engagement and immersion.

Also, the addition of Ereshkigal could have meant more in terms of building a believable villain whose motivations made sense, but outside of a seemingly insatiable need to ruin the world, it smacks of a missed opportunity in Outriders: Worldslayer. For what it’s worth though, additional context and explanations for Pax, Enoch, and Anomaly are welcome. Whether this will continue to be the case for future game content remains to be seen, it would be a waste to see all this potential untapped.

Fortunately, Outriders: Worldslayer maintains the ever-enjoyable stellar gameplay cycle of combat and looting, and has now been enhanced with new additions and tweaks. No new classes are added, but players can turn their attention to Pax’s new skill tree with ascension point mechanics and apocalypse levels.

These additions are great if you’re hoping for more ways to hurt or new powers to harness in battle. With a total of five Pax Points earned from completing story missions, players can potentially unlock some really powerful perks needed to succeed in the higher apocalyptic levels. Whether you’re looking for much stronger weapon damage, defensive mitigation, quick cooldowns, and more, constantly tweaking your build with that extra skill tree adds another strategic layer to the experience.

Ascension Points work in the same way, albeit more generously, allowing players to upgrade 20 passive abilities housed in the broad categories of Brutality, Anomaly, Endurance, and Dexterity. Again, all of this serves to make the player more skillful at dealing damage, more resilient, and use their modified powers more effectively.

With more weapons, armor, and abilities in the Apocalypse levels, there are also more ways to synergize your builds and groups for even more brutal combinations. And yes, there is now a third perk slot for your team to get in on the fun with the new Apocalypse items. There’s just nothing like freezing hordes of enemies with a modded Trickster, boosting the enhanced AoE damage and status effects of Technomancer and Pyromancer, while keeping everyone shielded and shielded with Devastator, and that’s just one of the many combinations you can find. .

Combine the new, more robust loot drops with additional mods, the Pax skill tree, as well as the Ascension Point system, and leveling up in Outriders: Worldslayer instantly feels more rewarding, engaging, and altogether more entertaining for a while. of longer time. compared to the base game.

If the Apocalypse levels look familiar to you, that’s because they’re meant to replace the world levels found in the original campaign, where the higher you are, the harder the opposition, with the promise of better gear and mods. You can even restart the story in these new levels, bringing additional challenges and more powerful and valuable rewards as you progress to level 40, and not relive new Worldslayer content over and over to advance to the next level. .

The expansion allows new players to skip all the old stuff and jump right into Worldslayer content with a higher level, which is a nice touch, but you might miss out on all the mechanics, so make this decision with caution.

As for endgame content, Outriders: Worldslayer adds the Trials of Tarya Gratar dungeon, which is specifically designed for players to play through and find better loot. Split into three acts, each consisting of various minor fights in Troves, areas with multiple rounds of enemies that reward a particular piece of gear, and ending with a boss battle. How players progress towards the end is up to them, with branching paths allowing for some freshness, but it’s the draw of more useful loot that’s likely to keep you going.

That said, the dungeon itself is essentially the same for each run, which might not be the best argument for replaying, but the fights and rewards are worth the time and effort. If you’re already knee-deep in the grind, the endgame content has more for you, but if you’re on the other side of the fence, it won’t do much to sway your opinion.

In essence, Outriders: Worldslayer brings enough improvements to the table when it comes to the actual gameplay of this looter-shooter. This entertaining combat, along with Apocalypse’s new gear, levels, and more, is what really makes the game tick, even if the narrative beats can be hit or miss. There’s definitely room for People Can Fly to explore other parts of the world in future content, but for now we’ll settle for a loot-shooting experience that’s even better than before.

Reviewer: Jake Su | Copy provided by the publisher.

Advantage

drawbacks

Release date
June 28, 2022

developer
people can fly

Editor
Square Enix

Consoles
PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S

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