Originally scheduled to release in 2020, Outriders is finally set to debut on April 1st, 2021, and to tide you over until then, the developers at People Can Fly are releasing a sizable demo.
The demo of the game is available tomorrow to all players and it includes the full prologue as well as the opening to the game, which the developers say takes around three hours to complete. Back in January of 2020, I was able to play a four-hour chunk of the game which I felt captured the couch-co-op spirit through fast, fun, and ability-laden gameplay. It’s unclear how the opening has changed since then but you’ll be able to choose from any of the four classes (Trickster, Pyromancer, Technomancer, and Devastator) and be able to play through it in either solo or co-op mode. What’s more, is that progress from this demo will transfer to the final game so you won’t have to play through the beginning again if you don’t want to.
One of the aspects that the team highlighted is the ability to choose the way you want to fight, whether it’s through the different classes, weapons, and how you approach enemies. Outriders’ Creative Director Bartek Kmita highlights that while playing aggressively is a viable strategy in Outriders, there are other ways to play the game.
“We don’t have a game with one established gameplay. We are trying to convince people in the demo to play aggressively and to play differently but we know that more experienced players will break it. One of the coolest factors of our game is that you can break out of what we initially give you,” says Kmita.
The demo features a complete crossplay experience, so you can play with your friends no matter what system they may have. Crossplay is turned off by default but you can toggle it on in the gameplay options menu. In addition to the main quest, you can explore several side quests in the demo which are also replayable. In Outriders, you can customize the appearance of your player and you can also change it at any camp found in the game. This means that you’re not tied to the character you create at the beginning and it’s a neat feature to have.
Class-based powers are one of the most interesting parts of Outriders and you unlock more the farther you progress in the game. Kmita says that developing class-based powers was a new challenge for the studio but a welcome one.
“It was challenging to deliver classes that on one hand are clear as to what their purpose is but on the other hand have something new to them. There were a lot of things that we had to take into consideration during creation and we are happy with them,” says Kmita.
Each power has a cooldown but the dev team tried to make them as quick as possible. The demo features four out of the eight powers currently revealed for the game and they range from fire blasts and ground spikes to upgraded weapons and time alteration.
People Can Fly took a few minutes to talk about the specific PC experience, starting with the system requirements. The minimum specs include an Intel i5-3470/AMD FC 8350 CPU, AMD Radeon R9 270x/Nvidia GeForce GTX 750TI GPU and 70GB of storage. On the recommended side they highlight an Intel i7 7700 CPU/AMD Ryzen 5 1600, 16GB of Ram, an NVidia Geforce GTX 1060 6GGB/AMD Radeon RX 4480 8GB GPU, and the same 70GB of storage.
On the graphics side, you can turn off the FPS Limit and increase/decrease the field of view as you see fit. Outriders will feature Ultra Wide Screen support, up to 3440×1440, and NVIDIA DLSS, which helps boost frame rates. There’s also a full PC spotlight video on Outriders YouTube channel.
Outriders is coming to PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia on April 1st, 2021. Hopefully, this release date isn’t an April Fool’s joke.
