Last night I gave the Outriders Demo (sci-fi 3rd person shooter/ action rpg) a couple of hours of my time, playing solo. I’m still forming my opinion about the game, but I did want to record my first impressions, thoughts, things that jumped out at me.
Time for a bullet point list.
- Character creation.
- All the faces feel a bit too round/pudgy to me.
- I didn’t see any chiseled jaw line faces, or longer faces. Not a super big deal, just saying.
- There was no obvious rotation in character creation is frustrating. I need to see the back of my character’s head since that’s the view I see most often when playing (again not that big of deal with helmets being so prominent in the game)
- Very few cosmetic character options, the game probably doesn’t need them but I’ve gotten used to more options in games.
- Cinematic cutscenes use a shaky cam direction that makes me sick. I can’t explain how much this sort of cinematography frustrates me.
- Also the FPS drops in the cinematics are wonky.
- The art direction of the opening sequence (very Mass Effect – Esq) appealed to me a lot.
- But the I’m less of a fan of the war-torn post apocalyptic look/style of the first hub and surrounding areas.
- I like the look of the creature we see in the intro, and the humanoid characters all look good in combats.
- Some of the dialog between characters standing next to each other, does not feel right to me. It sometimes feels like they are in different places even through they are standing next to each other.
- The early story dialog really pushes troupe-yness pretty hard. Greedy Corpo, leading to forced isolation of player, leading to anarchy/war between sides caught in bad place.
- Though I do like that my character appears to be badass and gets a grip on things quickly.
- Gameplay feels very The Division like, except with:
- Default Keybinds that make me crazy. I need to be able to hit 1-3 to access weapons directly.
- Thankfully I’ve been able to remap most things to make me happier.
- Characters that feel a bit more floaty; You can feel this most when dropping down off a ledge.
- On Twitter I described it as:
“It’s a sci-fi with ‘powers’ third person shooter. Combat feels in many ways feels like meal made up of The Division as main course, Remnant from the Ashes as a side dish, and with a tiny bit of Mass Effect Andromeda in for spice.”
- Default Keybinds that make me crazy. I need to be able to hit 1-3 to access weapons directly.
- As a Technomancer (long range gadget/support class) some of the combats feel clearly built for co-op play. I’ll see how those same fights go when I play them with a partner.
- Some elements of the game’s visual fx and ui feel a bit more stylized or game-y, compared to the environment art.
- No option to turn off motion blur, or other ‘advanced’ graphics options.
- Looks like a nice character skill/passive progression system, with the ability to respec at any time. All Good.
TLDR: I will play more.
