People Can Fly and Square Enix Europe's online-only action RPG Outriders may not have completely wowed players when it was first released, but it is by no means a bad game either. Outriders has seen a fairly steady stream of gamers since its launch in April of last year, even though there has been some stiff competition within the online cooperative genre. Its gameplay, customization options, and visuals all received praise, and in a world where games usually ship in a less-than-ready state, Outriders felt complete and finished when it launched.

Outriders may have its fans, but the base game also received some criticism for its story, characters, and lack of innovation on several fronts. Players that have stuck with the game are hoping that Outriders' first expansion pack, Worldslayer, will help to address some of these issues with new endgame content and some additional changes to gameplay. The soon-to-be-released expansion will be bringing a few different features as well as an expanded story, including a new Ascension System.

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The Worldslayer Expansion

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As well as adding new content and story missions for gamers to play through, Worldslayer is looking to expand what's on offer in the base game and rebalance and update lots of different elements. This can always be a bit of a gamble, as sometimes expansions that try to change aspects of the main game can instead push gameplay the other way and create more problems than they fix. But players remain optimistic, and some of the new features that are coming with Worldslayer are definitely intriguing.

Challenge Tiers will be replaced with Apocalypse Tiers which can also be applied to the story campaign, so players can more effectively match their level and make sure the campaign is as enjoyable as it is challenging. In addition to a whole slew of bug fixes, Outriders' gear, combat, and builds have been looked at and should have their own list of improvements and balance redresses. There's also a new story to experience, with additional bosses and a Big Bad to combat as players once again become humanity's last hope for survival and try to save the day.

The Ascension System

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The Worldslayer expansion isn't just bringing fixes and adding a new section of story – it's also looking to expand the endgame and give Outriders players a reason to stick around after the campaign comes to an end. The Trials of Tarya Grata is a new endgame mode that will try to keep gamers busy, but this will work alongside the new Ascension System to offer a more substantial progression system post-campaign as well. The new system adds two hundred Ascension Levels that players can navigate as they earn Ascension Points and level up a selection of stats.

In the same way that players have been upgrading their characters or increasing their World Tier, they can increase their Ascension Level by taking down enemies and completing quests and other activities. There are four different categories that gamers will be able to spend their Ascension Points in to improve their character: Anomaly, Endurance, Brutality, and Prowess. Each category also has five subsections that players can pile points into, like Endurance's Health, Armor, or Elite Damage Mitigation.

The Outriders base game already had good levels of character customization, but Worldslayer looks like it's bringing another layer to the tweaks and specializations that players can add to their playable protagonist. New story content and fixes are important, but extending the endgame and deepening the progression system are things that really help a title's longevity. Hopefully, the changes that Worldslayer brings to the game will be good ones and will help to flesh out the whole Outriders experience.

The Outriders: Worldslayer expansion releases June 30, 2022, for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

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