The Outriders demo and looter shooters

Looter shooter games are generally multiplayer-focused games with an emphasis on the player gradually accruing gear to make their character stronger, choosing whichever armour and weapons are the strongest or fit their playstyle well. Borderlands, Destiny, and Anthem are the most prominent examples for this style of game, and as someone who has played a decent amount of all those games I've never really been fully hooked on them, the one I had the most fun with being Borderlands 2 and the other games I only ever really played because my friends did at the time.

My biggest gripe with these was always that I only ever found the gameplay just fine, it was never so frustrating that I just didn't want to keep playing but it was never the primary motivator behind me playing the games in the first place; the only clear motivation I can remember was the positive reinforcement of getting new gear or just getting to the end of a campaign. For games that pride themselves in post-game content this doesn't really give the full experience of the game, however I wasn't interested in the full experience since the gameplay just never hooked me.

Enter Outriders.

The demo for Outriders released recently and throughout the prologue the game seems to be setting up as a typical cover shooter as the game teaches you its cover and shooting mechanics, but after this admittedly lengthy preamble you get to choose your class and the game really starts. Each class has the usual different abilities that set them apart but what's more interesting is how each class deals with you regaining health to encourage you to play your class the way it's meant to be played: the close-range classes heal you based on the enemies you kill at close range, the mid-range class heals you for killing enemies you've hit with your abilities, and the long-range class heals a portion of the damage you inflict.

These might seem like quite minor additions to the looter shooter formula as other games give options for health leech weapons, right? Well by having these as passive abilities, the core gameplay for Outriders is far more aggressive than its contemporaries - with two of the four classes encouraging you to get right into the faces of the enemies to stay alive and the other two requiring direct attacks to heal - the game practically begs you to sprint around each combat arena instead of hiding behind cover only to periodically raise your head above the parapet to get off a few shots, which really makes Outriders much more akin to a retro-style FPS than any of its contemporaries.

I went as the trickster, the high mobility close-range class, and it only got better the more I used it. The first skill you unlock is a sword swipe which stops enemies in a radius in front of you dead in their tracks, a pretty fun skill. Then, after leveling up, you get a skill which creates a bubble around you that slows down every enemy in it, allowing you to rush into a group, slow them all down and render them all useless for a short while, also a very useful and fun skill. But it's the third skill you unlock that brings out the trickster's true nature, as it telports you behind an enemy from a great distance away and slows the enemy down for a short time. While this is only one class, it's clear that every skill encourages you to play the class as it's meant to be played, in this case each skill either only works at close range or gets you close to an enemy and both of these conditions essentially force you to get right up in an enemy's face for your skills to have any effect.

Compounding on the solid class system is solid gunplay with each weapon feeling impactful and none of the enemies being severe bullet sponges that aren't fun to play, something that I've not enjoyed in other looter shooters. The weapon type that stood out to me most was the shotgun which, when combined with the aggressive style of play lead to most enemies exploding into a red haze of viscera in one or two shotgun blasts in probably one of the most satisfying shotguns that I've ever had the pleasure of using in these games.

If I had any criticisms about the guns it'd be about the ammo and the hipfire crosshair; the ammo on anything except the assault rifle is severely lacking and I found myself running out consistently. This is tempered somewhat by ammo crates being placed quite abundantly, however there could be an opportunity here to even further add to aggressive play by making enemies drop ammo more frequently, or perhaps having your ammo replenish with your health depending on your class abilities. As for the crosshair, the dot while hipfiring could be improved to give a more clear indication of your weapon spread. I found that aiming was too slow for the way I was playing and the crosshair gets lost in the blur of enemies and blood when not aiming in, making it harder to see where exactly I was shooting. These aren't huge changes but they could make the gunplay that little bit better to perfect it.

All in all, the Outriders demo is the best looter shooter I've played based on gameplay alone, and while only time will tell if the full game expands on this enough for me to thoroughly enjoy, the demo alone encapsulates what I want more of in this genre: a fun gameplay system that could carry a game without the promise of shiny trinkets to keep you coming back. A lot of looter shooters feel like they rely too heavily on the looting aspects to keep the player engaged as the shooting takes a backseat and sure, it can work to keep you invested, but it doesn't have much sticking power and I haven't wanted to revisit Destiny or any of the Borderlands games in over a year now. But Outriders? I have very, very high hopes for Outriders.