Outriders is set to release later this year, and if the latest Outriders Broadcast showed anything, it's that it's a game worth keeping tabs on. Thus far, it has hit all the right tabs, announcing no microtransactions, no Denuvo anti-cheat system, revealing it's not a games as a service title, and it has revealed a decent amount of gameplay from the Trickster's abilities and the gunplay to story beats and World Tiers. In short, everything seems really promising that it'll be a great Sci-Fi RPG.
One look at Outriders gives a Mass Effect meets Mad Max vibe, as while Mass Effect was about the grandiose of the galaxy ignoring the threat of elimination, Outriders is about the rugged landscape of a barren planet looking for its salvation. But that's the crux: the similarities between the two go far deeper than aethestics, and it seems that Outriders may be what Mass Effect Andromeda failed to be.
The Sci-Fi RPG Motif: Outriders and Mass Effect Andromeda
Mass Effect Andromeda wasn't a bad game, per se, but it did fail to live up to its expectations as a Mass Effect title. The graphic bugs, the more straightforward story, and the lack of a genuine Mass Effect identity contributed to a ton of shortcomings. However, at its core, it seems to tell the same story that Outriders is looking at.
Leaving the Milky Way to colonize and expand humanity into Andromeda, the plan is to create a colony to facilitate travel to and fro before that quickly goes awry. Instead, the Nexus acts as a central hub as the fight against the Kett begins. And of course, the Pathfinder and friends of Mass Effect Andromeda utilize several abilities to do so.
Much like Andromeda, Outriders begins with the colonization of a important planet called Enoch where they managed to establish The First City. That is, of course, until everything goes awry and the city is hit by an Anomaly storm that later triggers a massive explosion. Outriders players earn abilities as one of four different classes, and then begin their journey to discover the mysterious signal. In short, the set-up of each Sci-Fi RPG is based on the idea of colonization and survival, making them very similar in their roots.
The Innovations of Outriders
Where they begin to differ, though, is in terms of presentation. Already, Outriders has shown a ton of promise and innovation to the standard RPG shooter formula. One example of this is Outriders' World Tiers, much like other games such as Division 2 or Borderlands 3's Mayhem Mode, but tweaking it so that is tied to progression. Players who struggle on one World Tier cannot callously progress to the next, instead having to work, survive, and eventually unlock it.
The classes don't seem to follow a basic RPG niche of "Warrior, Rogue, and Wizard" either, as revealed so far is the Trickster (a time manipulator), Pyromancer (fire manipulator), and Devastator (seismic attacker), and a fourth yet to be revealed. The Trickster is a quick class and arguably the rogue, but this is through the manipulation of time and players can still spec as something like a tank. In short, Mass Effect Andromeda introduced class changes on the fly to facilitate different play styles, and Outriders classes do something similar in comparison to many RPGs and RPG shooters.
Another thing to note is that there is a 4th Outriders class being kept secret, and that's interesting. If it were a simple formula-based class like a Paladin or Cleric-equivalent, why keep it hidden? Instead, it's likely tied to Enoch in some special way, and that's incredibly interesting.
The Caveat: Marketing
Of course, saying that Outriders LOOKS like what Mass Effect Andromeda should have been comes with a major caveat: the marketing. Successful and interesting marketing campaigns do not effectively create a successful and interesting game, and that's true of the industry as a whole. Outriders looks like a lot of things, but until it is received, this is just speculation. However, based on Game Rant's own Outriders preview, the self-evident themes between the two, and the promising innovations and reveals thus far of Outriders, it won't take much to change "Outriders looks like" into "Outriders is what Mass Effect Andromeda should have been."
Outriders releases Q4 2020 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.