The new shooter from Square Enix, Outriders, has prided itself on the ability to be played either with co-op or completely solo. While the game scales the difficulty of fights depending on how many people are in a squad, solo players face an extra challenge that doesn’t exist in co-op: the lack of a self-revive ability. Developer People Can Fly says that lack of ability is a calculated design choice.
Although Outriders can be played completely solo, it requires a constant online connection. This has caused the game to have a tumultuous launch, as Outriders suffered from server errors that kept gamers from playing for large parts of opening weekend. On top of that, a common bug caused inventory wipes for some players, while others had issues using the game’s cross-play feature. People Can Fly has been working to sort out these issues, and it appears that the game is on a stable track for now, allowing both solo and co-op players alike to finally enjoy Outriders’ fast-paced gameplay.
Kotaku recently reached out to developer People Can Fly to ask about an Outriders’ feature (or lack thereof) that has greatly annoyed some players: the lack of a self-revive feature for solo players. In co-op, players get a once-per-battle opportunity to revive themselves, on top of the ability for a teammate to revive them. This feature doesn’t exist for solo players in Outriders, which can feel especially punishing as dying resets an arena completely, respawning killed enemies and setting their health back to full. People Can Fly says this is a deliberate design choice. “We like presenting combat arenas as a sort of combat puzzle for players to solve….we want them to stop and consider the fight.”
How Outriders’ Combat Challenges Solo Players
Outriders requires players to consider several factors during combat. Players have the flexibility to swap out class skills, change mods on their weapons, or respec their Outriders character almost whenever they want, allowing them to try new approaches to a fight. If solo players had a self-revive, People Can Fly argues, they would simply push through the fight without thinking about what they could change in their build to manage the fight better. Rethinking a strategy might make the game easier for players in the long run.
And of course, one of the key features of Outriders is the World Tiers, which makes it possible to raise or lower the difficulty of the game at any time. If a particular fight is causing too many headaches for a player, they can simply lower the World Tier to get through the battle, then raise it again to make sure they are getting the best loot in future fights. Solo players might be missing out on a self-revive, but the overall flexibility Outriders gives players in how they play the game more than makes up for it.
Outriders released on April 1st on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Stadia.
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