New Outriders gameplay shows off world tier challenges and the amazing abilities of the Trickster

Massive danger, a ruined civilisation and a path to power that requires you to get a handle on one of three post-human titans as you run ‘n gun your way to victory against increasingly tougher odds? Outriders sounds exactly like my cup of future-tea. Square Enix and developer People Can Fly promised a deeper dive into the world of Outriders and they delivered just that yesterday with new footage showing off the sci-fi world and its various dangers.

“We are making the game we always wanted to play,” creative director Bartek Kmita said in the video below.

The team at PCF are all gamers and we love shooters. Shooters are in our DNA and we have been making them for decades. At the same time, we also love RPGs. We always wanted to play a deep RPG, with an epic story and the flexibility to create lots of interesting character builds, but we also wanted a skill-based, challenging and intense real-time combat system in our RPG. When the opportunity to create it ourselves came along, it was like a dream come true.

What’s interesting here, is how Outriders is pinching some inspiration from The Division 2 with a system of world tiers that offers an increased challenge for better rewards, only far more detailed and customisable in scope. PCF say that world tiers will be organically tuned for players, giving them a range of options that allow them to walk into the battlefield as a living god who shreds their way through enemies with absolute ease or you can go for what the developers call a “Hell on Enoch” experience. Again, it’s all about risk versus reward.

Higher tiers will see enemy stats increased, with progression into higher world tiers having its own experience points meter that your actions and victories contribute to. The catch here, is that if you die then you will lose some of your world tier progression, necessitating a focus on min-axing your gear and weapons the further you climb up the challenge ladder. Currently, Outriders has a 15 of these World Tiers to experience, and unlocked challenge ranks can be adjusted manually on the fly.

Beyond that, PCF also showed off more footage of the classes, with a highlight video for the Trickster:

The assassin class of Outriders, the Trickster is a guerrilla fighter who can control time. The Trickster’s bread and butter attack is a temporal slice that can leave enemies paralysed and ripe for a takedown that will heal this class when they’re in close proximity to enemy forces. Basically, the Trickster is a technical class that excels in ambushing enemies with exotic time-warping powers and then pouncing on foes who wander into their traps. I think I’ve already found my favourite class in Outriders.

Outriders will be out later this year on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.