Today the team behind Outriders, People Can Fly, has shared their second broadcast showing off more gameplay of the anticipated looter-shooter. In addition, the team was also able to answer a few questions that Twinfinite had about the latest broadcast. Let’s get into all of it.
Story Progression
Outriders will begin near human settlements that are trying to survive, but eventually the story will break out of that area and will move to more diverse lands that are deep into the unexplored areas of the planet of Ennoch to try and find the source of the mysterious signal that is driving the plot of the game.
According to the developers, the environment of each region is going to be key to learning a lot about Ennoch’s history, story, lore and the overall development of the human colonies and outposts. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to say much more than that, but stressed that as we penetrate into new areas, things will certainly change.
Most areas will have some kind of hub, and then a free-roam area. Some of the area you explore will eventually be covered by the main story, but there are also areas that you wouldn’t normally traverse unless you took on side-quests. You can take side quests on right away, or go back to them later for scaled rewards.
The broadcast also tackled the question of how many hours it would take to complete Outriders. The presenter estimated that if you plow straight through the main story it would take you about 25-30 hours, but if you take your time to explore and do side quests, it could take about two or three times that.
The presentation showed off a new feature: the game’s mobile hub. Hubs are basically towns, and you’ll come across them from time to time, but you’ll also travel Ennoch in a large truck that can be coverted into a hub.
NPCs will travel with you and will serve as not only important vendors, but characters in the story as well.
In the broadcasts so far we’ve seen a lot of the main character, your outrider, and I asked if the main character is going to mostly stay silent during the story (ala Destiny) or if they will have things to say.
The developers noted that it was common place to not have your character speak in multiplayer games. They mentioned that they didn’t like that and then stressed the importance of having a “personalized character.”
The backstory of the main outrider – and many of the other characters in the game – is that they are all shady mercenary types. The developers noted that “He’s not a very talkative person… [laughs] but still he has his personality, he’s commenting on the world, he’s sarcastic.”
I asked about party play and whether or not players online can hang out in town together. While there isn’t an open world hub in Outriders like you would see in some MMO games, party members can hang out in town together before going out for a mission.
In fact, the developers told Twinfinite that players can combine their hubs to create a big convoy of sorts.
Another feature that was teased was optional Monster Hunts. However, they were not ready to discuss them in detail at this time. I’ll go out on a limb though and assume it involves tracking down and killing some big and/or dangerous monster.
Finally, the broadcast also revealed that they would be working with Inon Zur on composing the game’s score and offered a behind the scenes look at some of his work on Outriders. Definitely check out the broadcast for yourself if you’re interested in taking a look.
The Pyromancer
Although shown off plenty of times now, the Outriders broadcast properly broke down the Pyromancer class.
The Pryomancer is designed to be a mid-range, crowd-control specialist. They have the ability to stop groups of enemies in their tracks in order to set them for a big area of effect (AoE) fire attacks. In addition, they can stun enemies and leave a burning damage over time (DoT) effect with some of their fire-based attacks.
The broadcast highlighted four Pyromancer skills today: