I loved building up my crew as we ventured further away from the safety of the city and farther into the unknown. I was consistently interested in the world building through sidequests-understanding more about the plight of the survivors on Enoch.
I loved the story, not necessarily as this grand masterpiece of storytelling, but as a great vehicle to deliver the kind of over-the-top-action that Outriders was aiming for. With your newfound anomaly powers, you are a reluctant hero, understanding that your powers allow you to come to the aid of the people who are trapped, threatened, and have none. You awake to a situation not much better than Earth, with not only the planet’s open aggression, but the remnants of humanity fractured and warring over what little resources are available for survival. You are an Outrider, one of the frontline forces sent down to the planet ahead of everyone else and left in cryo for decades after its hostility was discovered. Oh, and it wipes out advanced electronics too, rendering them entirely useless. Of course, things don’t go as planned, the planet shows a previously unforeseen hostility, and a mysterious anomaly grants a select few powers while eliminating everyone else in its path. After Earth is ruined by humans, a scant few survivors take the stars and head for Enoch, a planet that is supposed to be the next bastion of life a place where humanity can restart. Outriders‘ story is a good amount of over-the-top sci-fi end-of-the-Earth action. And yet it still feels challenging, a high risk, high reward game that can feel soul crushing one moment, and have you whooping and hollering with delight the next.
It makes you feel powerful without artificially limiting or taking away that power. It lets you craft the way you want to play.
Outriders is simply and unapologetically Outriders. Outriders isn’t Borderlands, or Gears of War, or any of the other multitude of things it could easily be compared to.