Outriders - Preview, we tried the demo of the People Can Fly shooter

Since its announcement nearly two years ago, Outriders it has shown itself to be a project to keep an eye on, curated by developers who have already given birth to several shooters. In fact, we are talking about People Dog Flight, those who dealt in part with the saga of Gears of War (especially for Gears of War: Judgment), as well as of Painkiller e Bulletstorm. This time, however, the team aims even higher, eager to offer users a game as a service which has the intent to impose itself on the market, between different classes, a large amount of content and a rather intriguing story.

We have already had the opportunity to analyze some time ago what was shown in the many trailers presented, but finally the game has been made - in small doses - available for all users, thanks to a demo that landed on the stores just recently, before the landing of Outriders which will happen on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X / S e Google Stadia on the day of 1 ° April 2021. We worked hard to put our hands on the PC version of this demo, testing the quality of the product about two months after its debut; so let's find out together what we have been able to discover in this short - but intense - test of the game!

Gunfights between RPGs and lethal planets

La Outriders demo presents the narrative bases of the work, through a tutorial - not particularly engaging - which allows you to familiarize yourself with the main mechanics. Currently they are present several technical problems, and this is the phase that actually took us the longest time to complete; moreover, the partial skip of the dialogues unfortunately ends up erasing several sentences following the first of the same character, which "forces" to listen to each word entirely in order to better understand the story of the game. It must be said, however, that the Outriders plot is quite interesting; although it was only possible for us to deepen it for a handful of hours, it quickly convinced us. Let's be clear, since it is a game as a service multiplayer it is normal that this is not designed to offer excellent quality as if it were to be the center of the experience, but for now it seems to be something much more in-depth than a mere pretext for the settings. Furthermore, although it is - slightly - customizable and given a name, the protagonist you use has its own well-defined character, which will be able to offer ever better storytelling ideas with the debut of the complete experience.

Speaking of the gameplay, we have been given a protagonist who has not been able to improve and evolve particularly in these short game sequences, but it seems that all the play mechanics have been carefully gutted. The work is configured as one very action third person shooter, dynamic, but with some tacticity related to the covers and the movement between them. Are present 4 classes, each with other subclasses, to be deepened with an expandable skill tree by leveling up. The simple guns - that they offer surprisingly pleasant feedback - they are then accompanied by numerous selectable skills to use in battle. Each player of the teams (in case you decide to play multiplayer with casual users or with friends, through cross-play) therefore ends up having a well-defined role, although it is possible to fire with the multiple weapons present for KO enemies.

The potential of Outriders

The first missions we tried offered fairly linear paths, where the fulcrum was to exterminate waves of enemies and continue towards our goal, advancing goal after goal in the campaign. However, the RPG component should not be overlooked, which peeps out with the drop of objects by the enemies and at the end of the missions, while it is also possible accumulate experience to level up your character and the game world, which increases in difficulty and offers better rewards in every area. Technically, the work was not solid in all situations, and it must be said that the quality of the models and animations seems much lower than what is shown in the trailers. However, the optimization on the PC is successful, although most of the cutscenes are locked at 30 FPS and can therefore be difficult to admire compared to all the playful sections.

Despite some uncertainty on the technical side, which could be resolved near day one (remember, set for April 1, 2021), we can't wait to get our hands on the full game, which seems increasingly full of potential. It's true, from afar the scent of Destiny can be smelled, but nevertheless the work has resulted in this first test full of flashes of surprising originality, and it also seems ready to be expanded for many years thanks to the post-launch support that People Can Fly will have to deal with. Appointment to the review then, in which we will deepen the complete experience in detail.