People Can Fly’s sci-fi shooter still splits opinion five years on

Outriders launched on April 1, 2021, across PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. People Can Fly developed it; Square Enix published it. Our score: 7.8 of 10.

Trailer, via IGN.

The Trickster, the Pyromancer, and Two More

Outriders is a third-person shooter built on role-playing bones. You create a character and pick one of four classes: the Trickster bends time, the Pyromancer bends fire, the Devastator throws seismic attacks, and the Technomancer drops turrets and devices. Skills run on short cooldowns and stack with each other. A skill tree lets you unlock and upgrade them.

The guns matter too. Shotguns and assault rifles, customized with weapon mods. You can hide behind cover, but health only regenerates if you hurt or kill something. That one rule does more for the pace than any set piece. Passively waiting out a fight never works.

Enoch, the Anomaly, and Shira Gutmann

The setting earns its keep. Earth is past saving, so the Enoch Colonization Authority sends two colony ships, the Caravel and the Flores, each carrying 500,000 colonists. The Caravel blows up during construction. The Flores reaches Enoch in 2159 after an 83-year trip.

The Outriders land first and find the Anomaly, a massive energy storm. They try to warn the ECA to abort. The ECA sends security forces to purge them instead. An engineer named Shira Gutmann puts your wounded Outrider back into cryostasis. You wake 31 years later, in 2190, inside a failed colony.

A Civil War in One Valley

The Anomaly wrecked the colony’s technology and trapped everyone in a single mountain valley. The remnants of the ECA now fight the Insurgents, rebels who want the ECA gone. The Anomaly also changed people who survived it. That is your power, and the game’s excuse for it.

The world level rises as you progress, and higher world levels mean better odds at high-end loot. Hub areas, side missions, and non-playable characters fill the space between fights. Cutscene dialogue trees let you steer a conversation, though they do not change where the story goes. Solo works. So does co-op with two other players.

Release Order Across Platforms

What Holds and What Doesn’t

The combat and the customization carry this game. The story and characters do not. That split is the whole review. Outriders reached over 3.5 million players by May 2021, but Square Enix and People Can Fly have given contradicting statements about whether it met expected revenue, so the commercial picture stays unclear.

The mixed critical reception fits what is on the screen. The shooting, the mods, the four classes, and the loot chase are worth the time. The narrative around them is scaffolding. Play it for the fights, not the plot.

co-op games · game review · looter shooter · Outriders · People Can Fly · Square Enix