Last week, Square Enix announced Square Enix Presents, a new digital series that will showcase its upcoming games and updates on announced ones. As expected, today's first Square Enix Presents event featured tons of new information about several of the company's projects, including Outriders, which will be released on April 1st.
Apart from a CGI trailer that provides a brief glimpse of the planet of Enoch, developer People Can Fly also released an in-depth 101 trailer for Outriders. Although the demo released by People Can Fly last February already gave fans everything they need to know about Outriders, the 101 trailer aims to present even more information on what players should expect to see in their full journey across Enoch.
The first few minutes of the in-depth preview showed an overview of Outriders' plot and setting. The story begins when the advanced party for the colonists called The Outriders encounters a mysterious energy storm called the anomaly. While most of the units were wiped out, some survived the phenomenon but were left altered with superhuman abilities. The planet's inhabitants were also hyper-transformed, making them a menacing threat to the surviving Outriders.
With the anomaly flowing through their veins, the Outriders were split into four different classes: the Trickster, specializing in close range combat, the Technomancer, a long-range support specialist, the Pyromancer, which is a medium-range class that has control over fire, and the Devastator focused on close-range combat that's built to stand heavy damage. Each of the four classes will provide players with a customizable playstyle that is highly respectable alongside an extensive skill tree.
As far as gameplay is concerned, players should expect an adrenaline-filled shooter experience mixed with heavy RPG elements. Exploration is also encouraged in Outriders, given that the planet of Enoch is filled with vast environments from a snowy mountainous region, dense jungles, and bare deserts. Outriders is also rich with side quests that allowing players to scavenge gear and weapons and armor, which can all be modded to have a huge impact on how the player's skills and abilities play out in combat.
The game's extensive crafting and looting system also plays an important role for players to be in-tune with their gear, especially once they reach the post-campaign content of Outriders called Expeditions. The Expeditions is only reserved for the strongest Outriders, given that its missions would pit players against the deadliest creatures Enoch has to offer.
Outriders releases April 1, 2021, for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.