Outriders test: the interest is elsewhere

People Can Fly can finally fly on its own with a new license, after the bubbling Painkiller and Bulletstorm. The Polish studio is capitalizing on its Epic Games years, perfecting its mastery of the Unreal Engine on Gears of War and Fortnite, to rub shoulders with the loot shooter cooperative with Outriders, in development for nearly five years on behalf of Square Enix. A game in tune with the times, as exciting as it is perfectible and irritating: after the Avengers disappointment, is the Japanese publisher finally holding its benchmark service game?

Outriders test: the interest is elsewhere See the priceRead the conclusionOutriders

Intricate and deep systems
Technically sound
Artistically inspired, sometimes
Very strong content

Universe not very original
Lack of weapon punch
Confusing scenario
Often sketchy level design

Beginnings that question

It all started rather badly. In line with the playable demo, which will have been widely divided, the beginning of the adventure does not bode well for the last People Can Fly. Slow, sluggish, fragmented, bugging to excess, the proposal from the Polish studio only finally reveals its substantial marrow near its endgame, if it hasn't left you on the sidelines before that.

It is indeed possible to finally glimpse the light after several hours of play, chaining tasteless clashes in similarly constructed levels, frustrating difficulty peaks and untimely disconnections, stigmata of a chaotic launch as we unfortunately have the usual with connected games. Diablo III, nine years ago and with all the means in the world, had after all already experienced similar problems. If that excuses nothing, it would be a shame to sulk Outriders for these technical mistakes, even if the first contact with the game is a bit of an obstacle course.

out of identity

First, you have to endure the restless narration of the Square Enix title. All in handheld camera, sometimes abstruse ellipses and myriad twists, betrayals, moments of sacrifice and bravery already seen a thousand times in modern science fiction, the story of Outriders just like its staging end up irreparably tiring. The fault lies with the elusive B-style stakes that take themselves too seriously to interest us, and a deceptively subversive vocabulary that conjures up the teenager we were definitely hoping for in cryostasis, like the hero or heroine that we embody in the adventure. No, a "damn" every two seconds doesn't equate to maturity or depth, and cold-blooded execution of a helpless antagonist is nothing cool or badass.

Then, we take the full force of the generic side of the universe and the gameplay. Outriders is a sci-fi TPS with a cover system, and it necessarily goes up against the paragons of the genre that have been making it rain or shine for at least fifteen years. Less surgical and reactive than the first Gears of War (released in 2006), the cover system is a rickety refuge that the slightest breeze of difficulty will blow away in an instant, especially when half the enemies are rushing at you without thinking . No need to bet on the variety of the level design: the sequences of arenas too similar and narrow to the invisible walls tire quickly, even when a semblance of verticality tries to wake up the player from the middle of the adventure.

No interaction outside of a few explosive barrels, too little exploration; Outriders wants to make you rush into the heap, and it's a shame in view of the aesthetic inspirations which offer some succulent panoramas. It's a bit the whole problem of the universe of Outriders, less inspired, open and creative than the fascinating world of Destiny. The marshes, deserts, mines and forests that we survey for 15 to 20 hours certainly offer some beautiful visual flights, but this alluring trompe-l'oeil is too quickly swept away by the glaring lack of freedom and general interest of the exploration, limited to the minimum portion.

Finally, it is difficult to ignore the chaotic launch of the game. The presence in the Game Pass console version and an effective pre-order campaign seemed to offer sufficient indicators for Square Enix, able to stagger its resources to ensure a clean release. Alas, the untimely disconnections (even in solo), the regular crashes and the impossibility of joining other players - unknown as friends, in crossplatform or not - will have punctuated our first hours of play. And if everything seems to be gradually returning normal thanks to the responsiveness of People Can Fly, difficult to ignore these moments of wandering spent staring blankly in the inert menus of the game.

The light at the end of the (long) tunnel

Issues at launch, generic universe, low front TPS gameplay. We have largely sharpened our derogatory superlatives by browsing the first hours of Outriders. But the light has finally come, thanks to its game systems with drawers which reveal - in pain - an unsuspected richness and interest for those who agree to scratch a little. The game offers four different classes, which each offer their specificities and powers. The Technomage is a sniper/healer, the Tellurist an effective short-range tank, the Illusionist a melee specialist and the Pyromage an apostle of magic at medium range. Each has eight different powers (attack, defense, assistance), three of which he can use in combat between two cooldowns. That's it for the basics.

If the principle of the game remains to panpan boom everything that moves with a sniper, a pump, an assault rifle or a spell, each of these classes offers a dense skill tree in which to invest the skill points gleaned with each shot level. What optimize the use of skills rather powerful, fun to use and varied, but also improve its general characteristics. In parallel with the progression of the character, the overall level of difficulty also increases gradually via the “world level”, which can be modified at any time. Against ever more resistant and aggressive enemies, you gain better legendary loot percentages and the possibility of wearing higher level equipment than your own, among other things. That's it for the role play part.

Each victory is therefore an opportunity to pick up precious loot which, like the first hack'n slash that comes along, will equip your character to face the perilous confrontations that lie ahead, or will be sold to the first merchant who passes against some pecune. The interest of Outriders comes from the synergies that it is thus possible to create. Depending on our choices, our desires, the meta or chance, effective and coherent builds are born for the clashes that follow one another, against the alien species as well as the human adversaries who stand before us and each pose different problems. The possibility of redoing one's skill tree, at any time and free of charge, allows everyone to opt for one approach or another without constraint, and therefore to respond in a coherent way to the permanent challenge offered by the game.

The Constable of Saint Droppé

Revealed early enough if you follow the increasing level of difficulty - which is always one step ahead, causing a lot of frustration and questioning - or quite late if you give up to rush the story and reach the endgame, the interest of the game is present from the start. Alone, you quickly understand that optimizing your equipment is crucial to progress smoothly. Between firepower, defense and maximization of powers, the richness of the system is essential as the various loots fall and the possibilities of personalization are discovered. Some attributes of our stuff can be modified for resources, others not, which makes the quest for weapons or equipment adapted to our way of playing interesting and rewarding.

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Attacking often means giving yourself a chance to survive

For our Technomage, the combination of a power that makes our ammo poisoned with a weapon that automatically reloads when an enemy dies has, for example, proven successful, as has boosting the possibilities of the power to freeze the enemies, to avoid being too quickly overwhelmed by the crowd. Alone, it's already pleasant and effective, but with four character classes and the possibility of playing up to three, the possibilities are so numerous that experimenting with builds and cooperative synergies becomes as pleasant as necessary, especially since the large Hundreds of weapon and gear modifiers offer refreshing variety and inventiveness.

Backed by an ingenious healing system (we regain life by doing damage, by using our powers or by killing enemies in close combat, depending on the class chosen), this rich complexity proves fascinating over time, especially in the face of the particularly high challenges that await players once the scenario is completed. The player's objective becomes a bit counter-intuitive: attacking is often the best way to survive, while retreating in a sticky situation is our first instinct. An original approach to the genre that pushes you to rethink your usual patterns of reasoning, but whose purpose remains the same despite everything: to get rid of all forms of life without being overwhelmed by the enemy. The fact of confronting his patiently created system with that of the opponent, who always has more life points or who comes in excess, is the greatest achievement of the People Can Fly title.

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The best defense is attack

Brilliant and motivating, this system nevertheless comes up against the harsh reality: as edgy as the action scenes can be, often long and grueling, the title of People Can Fly suffers from a certain lack of punch. We refer more often to the damage inflicted displayed in large on the screen to judge the effectiveness of a weapon rather than to the feeling of its use. The guns lack sensations, recoil or even a more marked sound design for the feeling of power to be total. The snipe headshots hit a little, which makes their use very pleasant (even if it's not the meta), but the machine guns or even the shotguns left us a little unsatisfied.

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The cover system, which is quickly abandoned in favor of mobility

This is somewhat offset by the elemental abilities sometimes associated with weapons (fire, ice, poison, electricity) and the successful visual effects of powers, but the fact is that melee shooting with a shotgun that is three thousand damage or ranged with a small gun that does fifteen makes almost no difference. Outriders misses the mark on this essential aspect, even as it multiplies its efforts to get us to adhere to its proposal. Dubbed entirely in Spanish, full of tutorials and help of all kinds, customizable at will in its interface, and even decked out with side quests that tell more about the world of the game (if not very advanced in their design ), the title of People Can Fly is more a systems hack'n slash than a punchy and enjoyable shooter. Curious for a studio which, with Painkiller and Bulletstorm, had rather accustomed us to the reverse.

What is endgame?

The end credits do not mark the conclusion of Outriders. The confused scenario opens the door to new confrontations, called Expeditions, which will necessarily have to be carried out when the adventure can end alone. The objective is to overcome intensely difficult levels as quickly as possible in the hope of obtaining the best equipment. Not frivolous on paper, this proposal has the merit of sweeping away the certainties of players who have taken its systems a little too lightly, especially if they have decided to confine themselves to the lowest levels of the world.

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Some confrontations seem impossible. Unless...

Huge bosses that appear in large numbers, improbable (and cool!) sequence in a nightclub, the situations are hardly more varied, but the interest is elsewhere: Outriders requires players to have a perfect synergy of their equipment and, that's better, between the three players involved if they hope to progress in the Expeditions, up to a mysterious final boss that we imagine King of the HP bags. A new currency is introduced, allowing access to many legendary loots to drool over. Capped at 30, the maximum character level (you can create several, to test the different classes) should also evolve, if Square Enix is satisfied with the game's performance and invites People Can Fly to create new content. The publisher is now used, after Avengers, to service games that impose themselves over time: cough:

Beautiful as a truck

Like its gameplay, very rich in its design, but rather wise in its transcription on the screen, the realization of Outriders is ambivalent. The feeling of déjà vu is transcended by some magnificent sets and dantesque special effects, which rely on the mastery of the Unreal Engine by the Polish studio. But Outriders struggles too much to get off the beaten track of sci-fi to fully bring us into its universe, which it nevertheless puts so much energy into making credible. On the technical side, the game is generally very nice if you have a recent machine. With an RTX 2080 Super, Outriders shows no sign of weakness once DLSS is activated (regardless of the mode, among three different ones) and despite some rather annoying collision issues in the middle of fierce combat, scripts that do not trigger or a few simplistic animations, we will not find much to complain about his trussing.

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Light, one of the great successes of Outriders

People Can Fly could have relied on his relatively flawless technique to show his inventiveness, but neither the environments, nor the bestiary, the random bosses and the game situations repeated ad nauseam will manage to make him stand out from the crowd, despite some frankly pleasing flashes. The sequence in the trenches or the Mayan-inspired level are good examples, unfortunately too alone in an ocean of convenience. It will be necessary to be satisfied with the pleasure of always doing more damage, very real for lack of being quite sufficient, and the happiness of colliding with the walls of difficulty of the game - which a full understanding of the mechanics will most often be enough to do fall - between people of good company, which is unfortunately not the only prerogative of the title of Square Enix.

Outriders, l'avis de Clubic

If it will be necessary to adhere to its basic proposal, which favors systems to the detriment of sensations, Outriders remains despite everything a good surprise in a genre that is nevertheless very marked out. Its many layers of complexity - and therefore of interest - are revealed at the cost of multiple disappointments, whether they relate to level design, the universe or the lack of punch of its gameplay. In pain, Outriders still manages to impose its complex and exciting systems during dantesque clashes on maximum difficulty, alongside equally invested playing partners. A less academic level design would probably have sufficed to create absolutely brilliant cooperative situations and synergies, and Outriders misses its main challenge a bit here: lovers of experiments, wikis and exhausting confrontations in will still get their money's worth, thanks in particular to a robust endgame that no longer leaves, unlike the main quest, the right to error in the construction of his character and the choices of his allies for the day.

Outriders

Rich in content, teeming with possibilities and technically successful, Outriders lacks too much inventiveness and variety to completely convince. People Can Fly's title successes come on the back of many pitfalls, which will leave many players on the sidelines.