The final Outriders class has finally been revealed, offering a support-leaning team role with turrets and healing abilities on the go. With news and details of Square Enix’s upcoming co-op shooter always inching forward at a trickle, it’s so gratifying to finally get our hands on the until-now mysterious fourth class and see them in action – in addition to catching a few more glimpses of Outriders’ world and gameplay systems.
To get caught up to speed: Outriders is the new co-op-oriented sci-fi looter shooter developed by People Can Fly and published by Square Enix. It presents the Polish studio’s first new IP in nearly a decade, following their 2011 cult-hit FPS Bulletstorm (recently repackaged on the Nintendo Switch, for anyone who might have missed it). Combining aspects of militaristic science fiction and post-apocalyptic urban fantasy, the game takes place on the planet of Enoch, once intended as a utopic home for the human race but now devastated by anomalies, faction wars, and violent opportunists. Players take on the role of a planetary pioneer Outrider and jump into the mad conflict for Enoch’s future.
Three classes have been previously revealed before – Pyromancer, Devastator, and Trickster – and we got to learn their ins and outs during a Screen Rant Outriders preview event earlier this year. Each of the three classes fulfill the recognizable roles of spellcaster, tank, and rogue, respectively, but the game is designed from the ground up to subvert any rigid alignments, with each class fully capable to handle varying responsibilities and play styles. People Can Fly clearly want to give opportunities to lone wolves as well as committed teammates, though playing with two other friends creates unique potentials for tactical combos and strategies that may elude solo players. Now, though, we have the fourth and final class to contend with: the Technomancer, a support/engineer hybrid that plays very well with others.
While our previous demo took us through factories and wastelands, this session provided a few new Outriders vistas, including a gorgeous horizon shot over a lumberyard with massive alien creatures slowly stomping in the distance. There has been, thus far, a focus on war torn environments and bombed-out architecture, so a partially deforested section of woods near a mountainside was a welcome change of pace. There is also a kind of camp/checkpoint feature which seems new in this demo, with breather areas placed along mission routes allowing teams to restart closer to the action upon death and fast travel outside of combat.
As was to be expected, all members of this Outriders squad wanted to spend their time with the newest class. The Technomancer introduces a few useful mechanics that should make them a popular pick on any given team. For one, their passive skill heals fellow teammates and themselves to a percentage of the damage they deal, and higher skill tree options even let them over-heal. They also have a class ability which places a magical anomalous weapon in their hands; holding down the ability button creates a glowing minigun, and pressing it quickly equips a rocket launcher that has the power to interrupt enemy attacks.
During our last preview, we analyzed an interesting feature recognizable on bosses and minibosses: ability callouts. Essentially, enemies with special powers visibly announce them as they build up, offering opportunities to react defensively or offensively. The Technomancer’s Tool of Destruction skill offers a quick interrupt to these powers with the rocket launcher, though both weapons are capable of plenty of damage, even at a distance.
There’s also the mortar-like Pain Launcher, the immediate team-heal Fixing Wave, and turret types which shoot ice or toxic rounds. There’s definitely an apparent lean to pestilent poisonous abilities, which only add to the Technomancer’s extended damage output over time. The Pyromancer and Devastator do still feel like the classes with more burst damage potential, but they are also classes that require more frontline attendance to be most effective.
As a reminder, every class can equip every type of weapon and piece of gear in Outriders, but Technomancers definitely feel like the ideal class for snipers. Their turrets allow them to space out from their enemies, Fixing Wave can heal their frontline regardless of distance, and it just seems perfect for them to be hiding out and sniping enemy mobs popping out of cover. There are a few tricks that can get Technomancers out of close combat – Scrapnel and Cold Snap are great low-cooldown grenade-like AOE abilities for when certain enemies bumrush player cover – but equipping them does mean replacing one of their precious three slots with a “saver” ability.
It feeds into the spacing metagame that seems central to Outriders’ sense of flow. Grenades, special attacks, and aggressive melee-based enemies and monsters make cover and positioning always temporary at best. Technomancers don’t seem quite as mobile as Devastators, whose Gravity Leap ability shoots them high into the air to prep for a ground pound and can also function as a quick teleporter. Devastators want to be front-and-center for each fight to be most effective, whereas Technomancers seemingly function best at the perimeters of battle.
Of course, tweaking character skill trees upon leveling up allows Technomancers (or any other class, really) to mold to alternate and more aggressive playstyles. Carrying over that modifiable approach, weapons in Outriders can also be augmented and crafted via specific hub NPCs, and we got a quick peek at how crafting will work in the game. Players can level up the hundred or so weapons available, increasing base modifiers like critical damage and (in the case of the Technomancer) healing percentage. Weapons can also be equipped with swappable mods, though it was unclear if these will be rare drops or craftable themselves. Some weapons may have alternate variants that can be swapped to, and there is also some method to improve a weapon’s rarity level, though it was greyed out in the demo.
Perhaps inspired somewhat by Destiny 2 in this respect, Outriders certainly wants to offer players that eventual perfect-feeling weapon. Rather than just discard it when a new higher-level shiny appears, the crafting system seems diverse and creative enough that it may end up being worth it to save and polish a favorite gun as the game goes on. With mods offering special abilities with their own packaged cooldowns, expect the rabbit hole of Outriders’ gear crafting to run quite deep.
While some later encounters in our demo are presently under wraps, we did also check out a Wanted quest, which ended up being a diversion to the story quest that sent our team into an intense firefight in search of an elusive target, the Bloody Baron. This quest played out quite similarly to the rest, but it’s entirely optional and played just for extra rewards; interestingly, this is the only “boss” we’ve fought in Outriders so far that didn’t seem to prompt any unique bit of narrative.
There are also Hunter quests in the game, where players will seek out some of the more dangerous anomalous creatures stalking the wilds of Enoch. These monsters were just as brutal as the human mobs in the game, though their erratic movement gave some of the fights a feeling quite similar to that of the space marines facing off against the Xenomorphs in Aliens.
As more layers of Outriders are revealed, it seems like not just another looter shooter. An inventive and customizable philosophy seems to extend to almost every facet of the game, from character builds to gear, and the four classes offer some different approaches and synergies in team combat. If anything, Outriders seems like the type of game players will want to make strict co-op commitments for, and playing with randoms might risk distracting from the excellent and grim narrative we’ve sampled so far. For solo players running as the Technomancer, though, they’ll at least have a few more guns by their side.
Outriders is set for release during the holiday season in 2020.
