Outriders_ Worldslayer - Review - Part 2

 Soloing this campaign because Outriders are inherently very hostile to solo play, whether you're playing alone or in a group, most raiders give you the option of either playing from behind cover or the option of a full frontal attack Starting out that they've set up on the battlefield with enemies essentially holding their positions, allowing you to dictate how you want to attack them on horseback doesn't give you the same choice when playing solo as most enemies do They will encounter you, run towards you in a straight line and will knock you out scopes will knock you over, we will knock you over etc. There are snipers who will stay on you and will knock you out of cover once you stick your head out, they will Raining down artillery to flush you out and because there's no one else in your party every single enemy is out for you ed and only on you leads to ridiculous situations like this one in mission 3 where i just get bored out by enemies charging at me th when i spit on me birds falling on me birds falling on the ground enemies who knock me out it's ridiculous I mean look at this clip there is no cover in this environment there is no other strategy to use it's just that and it's no good and it's the if sort If you're playing solo, you'll regularly come across the last two missions I've done with friends, and unsurprisingly things felt significantly better, because yes, more so than any other shooter I've played is Outriders designed to be played in co-op. So if you are interested in this expansion be prepared to either match-make or bring some friends because playing alone is no good. I know some people pick up extensions for the campaigns on their own, and if you're one of those people you might be wondering if this is obviously worth the price tag of 35. The value of a dollar is relative, but when I'm under pressure, would I'll probably say no, like I said, we're talking two to three hours here, it's not a great story, and while the mission design is strong, I don't think it shows you everything you haven't seen or experienced in the base game. The price is more justified by the gear game changes

and the new endgame activity than the campaign, and even then this equation is far from cured. When you reach the end of the World Slayer campaign, you will arrive at the gates of the Taiyo Guitar, the final chapter of the expansion story and the newly added endgame activity, best understood by taking a look at the map, where you'll see a main route to a final boss, as well as a series of optional chambers, each of which focuses loot on a specific armor slot, so if you're hunting down a pair of boots to complement your build, you can do a specific chamber over and over again to essentially target a farm, which is a welcome addition to the game, but yes, the rest of the chambers all grant random loot, and they get harder over time With enemies that level up to three levels higher than your current level, when you get to the last few encounters, the map you see here is static, it's in no way random or procedurally generated, and jed he is the node on the map all r's represent a specific room that doesn't change but the enemies that spawn in those rooms can change when I first saw this map I really thought this was a lot would be more procedural than it actually is like a true roguelike experience, where the main route would be randomized, where different tile sets would rotate in and out, where different bosses would appear, where different modifiers could spice things up after the fact, which is obvious was just wishful thinking because none of those things are a feature of this endgame activity and it really feels like they should be armchairs. Game design is always very dangerous, but I think anyone who plays through it once or twice will immediately imagine how much better it could have been if one of the things I just listed was structured like it's is thai guitar feels more like a really long final mission that you do repeatedly than an endgame activity that adds to the appeal of the game now it's a good mission

Each of the chambers is built from the ground up, so they aren't recycled levels from other parts of the game. They have some unique enemies in them that you won't find in other parts of the game. There are three boss encounters, although disappointingly two of the bosses are essentially the same, which feels a bit too parsimonious given that this is a newly added endgame activity, so I feel like recycling bosses is a bit a lot, but yeah it's an enjoyable run that just gets repetitive very quickly because it doesn't go far enough to randomize the various elements of each run, so how the story is handled during that event adds to the sense of repetition further. This is essentially the final story mission for the expansion, and every time you do a new run, your character spouts out the same explanatory dialogue as if they're seeing it all for the first time, and all of the cutscenes run every time and when you defeating the boss, the credits roll every time Like I said, it feels like one final mission that you have to do repeatedly, rather than a real endgame activity, but it doesn't reduce the number of enemies or their health that much like in the rest of the game. So while you can solo, you're essentially running content geared for a three-man team, but you're not sure why they did that when the rest of the game is built that way that it dynamically scales based on group size. It also exacerbates the problems of solo players I mentioned in the previous section, where the game is often hostile to solo players. I know a lot of people enjoy playing games like this solo, so making this decision to push those players away feels ill-advised on. Also, I think a lot of people have to play alone because it will be difficult to convince two of your friends to spend 35 on expanding a trailblazer Yes, you can of course matchmaking, but it's nice to have this type of content to yours being able to play on their own terms so I don't know why they did that three man scaling

the thai guitar seems a bit of an own goal for people who can fly altogether. I think this activity is a bit disappointing. I don't think it's anywhere near the meaningful endgame expansion that I'm sure a lot of people, myself included, were hoping or expecting it would be

adds something called Pax trees, which are entirely new class-based perk trees that sit alongside your existing class-based perk trees, so you max out your base tree and then start unlocking things in that new tree. It's all very powerful, for example I have a perk that increases my weapon damage by 8 percent for every skill I have on cooldown and since I very often have three skills on cooldown that's basically 24 more weapon damage most of the time , these perks are real game changers and each of them can make significant changes to the way you build gear and play your characters, making them anything but phoney. Finally, small changes in stats and most importantly, World Slayer is adding a new gear tier to the game called the Apocalypse Tier. Some epic and legendary gear will now have a small skull icon in its preview peak, and that gear has three mod slots, where before the cap was two, that third slot can't be modded, so you can't counter it swapping another perk, but you can swap the other two a Pocalypse gear is effectively a hard reset for the entire gear game, as having a third mod slot is so absurdly powerful that any gear that doesn't have it all bills instantly that people have been piling up at this point in the trash as they are from yesterday I miss that third mod slot and so the hunt for a new perfect build begins anew. That's great, by the way. Most Gear games rely on regular loot wipes to keep them interesting, and it's okay for our drivers to do what I liked to throw my old build away and start fresh, but I'm sure that some people will be a bit upset about how their previous work is not respected or something I don't know. I think if you think so, then I don't think you should play luda shooters because this is a genre where loot wipes will also happen

You may not know it, but Outriders wasn't a success, at least not commercially. Recent financial reports from People Can Fly have made it clear that the game hasn't yet recovered its development and marketing costs, which always annoys me as this isn't a looter shooter, they don't do microtransactions, they just put out an honest video game and charge once for that, and I respect that a lot, maybe that's why the price of Destroyer of Worlds is on the higher end of the spectrum, $35 is a lot depending on the context, for example it's more than most standalone indie games, but it's less as a destiny expansion but i would say that destiny offers a wider range of experiences than world slayer here 35 is not enough to buy you a single skin in diablo model hell it is hardly enough for a single elder rift run if you want all loot buffing crests active $35 is $15 less than the price of tiny tina's wonderland which just released on ste Nachde f I've been exclusive to Epic for a while, this is a whole new game with a 15 hour campaign and endgame stuff. yada yada point is value is relative and although i would happily pay 35 for this extension because i really support what people can fly here i think a lot of people will come to the conclusion that 35 is too steep, and the asking price is certainly what my friends thought they are actually big fans of outriders and i played world stay with them and they were so cool i liked it probably not worth $35 it hurts that this expansion is not available through Game Pass as the base game was at launch that the service is increasingly feeling

crucial to the success of a co-op focused game and it's a real shame that Square Enix decided not to go down that path of World Slayers, but I suspect they'll probably do more than that at some point, although I do think that Outriders has more potential as a franchise As this expansion shows that the gear play in Outriders was already very good, it's nice that World Slayer expands on that, but I don't think it was necessary when you were taking that great loot and crafting experience and can deliver new gameplay experiences that remix the formula You'd have a whole different conversation about the value of this expansion stuff, like an improved experience for solo players, a roguelike game mode, maybe raids, maybe a seasonal model like Diablo 3 users with ranked -Resets and equipment that will be added more regularly. Not only do I know stuff we've never seen before, if that stuff were here I'd say hey man you should definitely go and pick up Outrider, now it was good but now there's a ton of n ew this makes it better xyz, now is the time to jump in. I can't say that though, because it's ultimately the same experience that the base game offers, and I think if Outriders is going to succeed as a franchise, it needs to take its excellent power as a fantasy gear game and expand the craft in new directions, rather than doubling what it already does well