Gadgets
Outriders Review: Fun Co-Op RPG Shooter Gets in Its Own Way
![Outriders Review: Fun Co-Op RPG Shooter Gets in Its Own Way Outriders Review: Fun Co-Op RPG Shooter Gets in Its Own Way](https://i.gadgets360cdn.com/large/outriders_review_1617710581531.jpg)
Outriders is not as bad as Cyberpunk 2077
Playing Outriders for the past few days has felt like a déjà vu of my time reviewing Cyberpunk 2077. But thankfully, the game’s core itself isn’t broken. The fault seems to lie with People Can Fly’s servers, which yes, technically are a part of Outriders since it’s an always-online game. You could argue that the game is broken; after all, there is no offline mode on offer here. The server troubles heavily impacted my game experience — and even my progress. Outriders dropped out during a cutscene following a boss fight, and I discovered that it hadn’t been saved when I returned. I even got the achievement but Outriders believed I never killed the boss. I gave up — and would have likely uninstalled if I wasn’t reviewing the game — though weirdly it fixed itself when I booted up Outriders a day later.
The game’s recurring server troubles have also limited the opportunities I had to play Outriders with friends. While one of us might be able to get into the game, others wouldn’t have the same luck. On other occasions, the drop in feature would throw up a “party failure” error, prohibiting you from teaming up. Or Outriders would freeze guest players in-game after throwing up a “host connection problem”. Sometimes it would fix itself, but then the frozen players might be immediately kicked out. In a couple of cases, a frozen friend who saw no error screens was invisible to the rest of us, and had to log out and log in again. This is all naturally very frustrating, and it made us give up after trying a few times. The best session lasted around two hours before it too went bust.
The situation with Outriders’ servers is bad enough that the game’s official Twitter has been full of just troubleshooting info, with People Can Fly’s support team providing players with all kind of creative ways to get around recurring problems. Some missions require you to drop certain items at a camp, for instance. As for the signing in troubles, gamers are being asked to power down their consoles for several minutes before turning them on again. Playing a game shouldn’t be so much work, but with Outriders, that’s what it is right now. This all reflects a game that has been released before it was truly ready, which is funny because a demo was released back in February, giving People Can Fly over a month to work out kinks during what was essentially a beta period.
And Outriders’ servers aren’t the only thing that’s suffering from beta hangover. Outriders supports cross-platform play across all devices, but the game notes that the feature is currently in beta. At least in this department, Outriders has some sort of defence for its flaws. Cross-play is broken for PC players at the time of writing — but hey, it’s in beta. Those aforementioned bugs that freeze players? That too happened during cross-play. Though there are structural concerns too. Cross-play needs a unique game code that has to be generated every time you log in. There’s no cross-platform ID (like with Rocket League) and the friend system doesn’t work with cross-platform friends either. That said, I’m happy it exists — cross-play ought to be the standard in 2021 — as it allows my friends and I to play Outriders across three different consoles.
The different character classes in Outriders
Photo Credit: Square Enix/People Can Fly
Outriders the game
When the servers aren’t bothering you, in Outriders, you’ll find yourself traversing an alien wasteland, filled with insurgents and giant otherworldly creatures. Played from a third-person perspective, Outriders places you in the role of the titular elite soldier — playable as a man or woman — who is part of the last vestige of humanity. After you land on an alien planet called Enoch, you inadvertently gain supernatural powers thanks to the Anomaly, a massive energy storm, but are mortally wounded in the process. You wake up three decades later from a cryochamber, with Enoch now resembling a hellscape, divided between colonists and rebels, all stuck within the Anomaly. As one of the superpowered “Altered”, you’re tasked to figure out a solution.
Before you set out to fix Enoch, Outriders will have you pick from four character classes: Technomancer, Pyromancer, Trickster, and Devastator. Most of these are typical for a role-playing game: Devastator is the close-range tank with powerful gravity powers, Trickster is akin to a thief or rogue and can teleport and freeze enemies, Pyromancer wields fire from mid-range, and Technomancer is the long-range support and can call in turrets, rockets, and poison. Co-op allows for teams of three — People Can Fly said four led to overcrowding — which means you and your friends will have to pick which class to drop. All of them have three ability slots that allow you to choose what superpowers you wish to wield. The powers come with cool downs, but that’s not all you can do to take the fight to your enemies.
Each character has guns too. There’s room for three in the loadout: two main weapons and a pistol sidearm (with infinite bullets). Outriders is fairly liberal with new weapon drops, which means you’ll constantly be jumping into the inventory menus to switch up your loadout. On top of a base firepower value, weapons have a bunch of different properties: range, accuracy, stability, and rarity. The last of those is especially important as it impacts special abilities. Depending on how rare the weapon is, you can slot in one to three status effects such as leeching health, boosting health with killing shots, and freezing or lighting up enemies. You can also upgrade weapons and craft modifiers with resources you get from the world or dismantling items you don’t need. But the crafting system is quite demanding, which essentially means you’re looking at a grind.
A couple of weapons from Outriders
Photo Credit: Square Enix/People Can Fly
It’s easier switching to new more powerful weapons though sure, they might not have be as special (read rare) as the less powerful ones. Outriders’ quality of loot — weapons or armour — is directly tied to the difficulty. Unlike other games, this isn’t a setting that you pick in the beginning. Outriders has a system called “World Tier” which defines how powerful the enemies are and how rare the weapon drops are. World Tier goes up to level 15 but new levels only unlock as you level up yourself. The idea is that Outriders will stay competitive as you progress through the game. It also means that you can easily switch down to a lower World Tier if you’re stuck, but that does mean your item drops won’t be as nice. This might cyclically force you to remain on that level, so you’ve got to use it wisely.
Outriders gameplay
In certain ways, Outriders draws on People Can Fly’s own past work (à la Gears of War) and some of the most popular games of its ilk (Destiny 2 and others). It’s part cover shooter, with an assisted cover system helping from run from over spot to the next. Depending on the character class you pick, you can hang back or sneak up next to enemies. That allows you to bring your powers into play, in addition to picking out weapons that work best for the scenario in front of you. Attack is the best defence on Outriders as there are no health drops; you’ve to kill others to survive and come out on top. But you do have to pick your time. Some enemies are very powerful (read bullet sponges) and Outriders can throw a lot at you at times. It can get overwhelming, which is where the World Tier system helps.
You might be tempted to play hide and shoot but but People Can Fly has a lot of ideas to pull players out of cover. The favourite choice for all combatants is to lob explosives and mortars at players in cover with precision and frequency. What makes it annoying is that players don’t have any access to grenades themselves. Outriders’ message is simple: don’t hide. Add to that a variety of enemies, like in Gears of War. Some pick you out from afar, some load on you from medium range, other heavily-armoured ones nonchalantly walk towards you in the open, and yet others wielding dual axes or curved blades sprint at you full speed. Some may even try to flank you, though they are much more likely to throw a grenade to push you into the open where someone can take an easy shot.
A enemy combatant in Outriders
Photo Credit: Square Enix/People Can Fly
That’s not all. In Outriders, you’ll also face “Altered” enemies who have superpowers just like you do. They might teleport around the battlefield, fire electric bolts at you like Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, or have a lava vortex chase you continuously. Staying out in the open against other Altered individuals usually results in a quick death. If you’re playing with friends, it’s good to flank and rotate roles, which lets one of you absorb damage for a bit while others recuperate. But that’s easier said than done. When Outriders overwhelms you, each of you will have a lot to deal with. Once, with both of my teammates down, I found myself running around the battlefield to distract the enemies in order to make time to revive my friends. It’s a comical bit of game management to say the least.
But it’s not always an option either. Outriders may look like an open world but it essentially functions like a linear corridor shooter — you move from one arena to the next clearing out enemies. If you run too far back after entering a new area, Outriders will throw up a 10-second countdown before the combat resets. And since the arena size varies widely, it limits what you can do. You can’t run away. You can’t stand your ground because they are bullet sponges. You can’t run deeper into the arena because there’s too many of them. And the rate at which you’re losing health outpaces the regeneration, with your superpowers unable to cope/ stuck in cooldown. At times, you might end with your back to an (invisible) wall, wondering if lack of skill is truly the reason behind your loss.
You can counteract some of this by teaming up with others, but co-op can only help so much in Outriders. What I noticed most during our Outriders group sessions is how the play styles change depending on who you have in your squad. While I’m a Pyromancer, my two friends are a Technomancer and Trickster, respectively. A boss mission with a giant spider became more manageable with a close-range player (Trickster), while a vast snowy arena was fertile ground for my long-range friend (Technomancer) to whittle down the numbers from afar. There were times when we wondered if having a tank (Devastator) to absorb damage might have come in handy, which is what People Can Fly wants you to ponder — and why it allows you to create up to six characters.
A Trickster in Outriders
Photo Credit: Square Enix/People Can Fly
Outriders review
When it all comes together, Outriders can be good fun. The gunplay felt a little stilted and laboured to me early on, but I’ve found it to be really satisfying at times, especially when you empty a volcanic-charged cartridge into an enemy’s head — and they plop to the ground. And Outriders keeps you on your toes as you’re constantly balancing various elements: where to find cover, dodging grenades, when to jump back out, who to target first, how to maximise your powers, and working with your squad. Outriders was built with co-op in mind and that’s when it comes alive. It’s nice to have a friend to lean on, and that goes for Outriders too, as they can help revive you. In fact, some of our most intense conversations have come out of debating when it’s a good time to attempt to revive someone.
Yes, we have had our share of frustrations. We were unable to figure out some levels, even though we knew each of us was maximising our abilities. That forced us to drop the World Tier down a couple of pegs. It felt like Outriders was essentially telling us to grind elsewhere before returning to that point. And of course, we have faced all sorts of server issues. Our play sessions haven’t organically come to an end as much as they’ve been brought to a halt on their own. And that’s when we actually got past the start menu. I do hope that People Can Fly can improve on this as soon as possible, because it’s not straightforward to recommend a game in this state. More so if you’re paying full price for it. Outriders keeps getting in its own way right now — but despite the numerous server troubles I’ve faced, I can’t wait to jump back into Outriders with my friends.
Pros:
- Best with friends
- Powers are fun to use
- Keeps you on your toes
- Different classes, different playstyles
- Scalable difficulty
- Variety of weapons
- Universal cross-play
Cons:
- Always online
- No offline mode, not even solo
- Long loading times
- Combat can get overwhelming
- Crafting, missions require grind
- Server troubles at launch
- Game-crashing bugs
- No cross-play ID, friends
Rating (out of 10): 7
Gadgets 360 played Outriders on the Xbox One X. The game is out now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, Stadia, and GeForce Now.
It costs Rs. 2,980 on Epic Games Store, Rs. 2,999 on Steam, and Rs. 3,999 on Microsoft Store and PlayStation Store. Outriders is also available as part of Xbox Game Pass (on consoles-only) that costs Rs. 699 per month.
Gadgets
Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox
![Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox Microsoft Partners With Inworld to Bring AI Game Development Tools to Xbox](https://i.gadgets360cdn.com/large/microsoft_inworld_ai_tools_1699345694777.jpg)
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
Gadgets
BSNL Offers Free 4G SIM Upgrade: Here’s How to Get It
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In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Gadgets
Realme GT 5 Pro Teased to Feature 3,000 Nits Display; More Details Revealed
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Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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