In recent years, it seems like most loot oriented games have fallen into a similar pattern as they ultimately chased the current market leader, Destiny 2. Bungie's major advantage over its competition to this point is largely time as Destiny 2 really struggled in its first year with issues like end game content. However, with development support from Activision studios over the the first couple of years as well as Bungie's continued hard work at constantly evolving the experience, Destiny 2 has really blossomed into a game that grabs players and refuses to let them go.
Newcomers to this genre are already behind the eight ball due to the amount of content Destiny 2 has available and needed to come out swinging. Unfortunately, many games in this genre like Godfall, Anthem, Marvel's Avengers, and others have big issues with the back half of the game that can't seem to sustain players once they finish the main campaign. While some were able to overcome this issue, many can't produce content or supply fixes to problems fast enough, causing the player base to look elsewhere.
With a very clear pattern having developed in the trail of most looter shooter games, People Can Fly appear to be attempting to use that experience and knowledge to prevent Outriders from falling into a similar trap. In fact, the game is ditching the live service model completely, something that has become synonymous with looter games as it gives the developers time to add or fix things about a game. However, many fans would also potentially point to this model being a crutch for releasing a game sooner than it may be ready as studios use the live service model to continue adding on over time.
With Outriders, People Can Fly are removing a lot of those trappings to deliver a complete day one experience. There are no microtransactions to worry about and without a live service model, the game is launching with everything ready to go at launch. No more waiting for additional content days or weeks after the game goes live.
Better year, the studio has also confirmed that the end game missions called Expeditions do not recycle any content from the main campaign. Instead, these missions unlock once players finish off the game's main campaign missions and feature their own progression systems. Unlike other games, Outriders also comes with 14 expeditions ready to go, a significant number compared to similar activities in comparable games like Raids and Strikes from Destiny 2. Finishing all 14 will then unlock a special 15th expedition called Eye of the Storm, though People Can Fly have been careful to not spoil the significance of this mission.
Expeditions are geared more towards max level players as they offer a higher challenge and a way to test player's class builds and push them further. Instead of focusing on the items with the highest power levels, expeditions will instead push players to further customize these weapons with new abilities.
If those weren't enough, Outriders also features a World Tier system similar to what The Division has been doing. Increasing the World Tier not only increases the overall difficulty of enemies, making them stronger and more durable, but it offers chances at better loot to continue pushing characters further along. Higher tiers also introduce new enemy tactics as well. During a recent hands-on event, bosses utilized more of their abilities while also using them a bit more strategically than they would on a lower tier. These evolving enemies give players a new reason to continue pushing up the game's overall difficulty as familiar encounters become more unique.
At this point, the decision to delay Outriders out of the crowded month of November seems to be a wise one. Set for a February 2, 2021 release, Outriders appears to have avoided a lot of that competition and positioned itself to be a standout title. People Can Fly have clearly looked at the looter landscape and seemingly focused on things that fans liked while avoiding traditional pitfalls. With an extra two-three months of development time to polish and squash bugs, Outriders may just be the game to blaze a new path for future looter games.
Outriders releases February 2, 2021 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S, with a Stadia version in development for later in 2021.