Published by Square Enix and developed by People Can Fly, Outriders is a third-person shooter slash RPG looter that can be played solo or co-op online. It released back in April of this year to a mixed response, largely due to the amount of bugs and balancing issues that plagued an otherwise enjoyable game. After months of relative quiet, the team is back with a new free update New Horizons and a ‘fully-formed’ expansion ‘Worldslayer‘ set to release in 2022. Details were shared in the latest broadcast.
Releasing on Tuesday, November 16th, the New Horizons update is free of charge to those who previously purchased Outriders. It’s intended to fix many of the game’s core issues that sandbagged the game’s launch. It also includes a reworked endgame experience, four new Expedition maps, new Expeditions that won’t be timed, an improved loot drop system, and a new transmog system that will let you superimpose one piece of gear’s appearance onto another.
The endgame experience as it exists today rewarded you for how quickly you could complete an Expedition, and in so doing, players prioritized one style of play only: to maximize damage output. For a game that wanted encouraged its community to experiment with with different builds, its design prioritized a singular course. To that end, Untimed Expeditions will remove the timer so that you can still earn worthwhile rewards without the need to sprint to the finish line. Timed Expeditions are still playable, should you still desire to play this way.
Grinding for legendary gear didn’t feel worthwhile, and shooting for items with specific attributes was even more tiresome due to their randomized nature. The global drop rate for legendary gear has been increased by 100% and an ‘anti-duplication’ system reduces the likelihood of obtaining items that you already own. The final mission ‘The Eye of the Storm’ will now let you pick a legendary item reward upon completion; these selections are randomly pulled from the full loot table. Tiago, a gear vendor, will now have change the option to purchase a mystery legendary item. Drop Pod Resources will also re-roll this selection.
Transmogrification will let you superimpose the appearance of one item onto another. In the case of weapons, the sound they make will also be transposed. Using this feature doesn’t require any in-game resources or paid microtransactions, and the number of attempts is limitless. Appearances of items you collect are immediately recorded in your transmog library on pickup, and this library can be used across multiple characters on single account. Transmogs can also be used between the games four classes. A special symbol will appear on transmogrified gear.
For returning players who may have already completed all the Expeditions in the game, four new ones will be added with the release of A New Horizon: ‘Molten Depths,’ ‘The Marshal’s Complex,’ ‘The Wellspring,’ and ‘City of Nomads.’ These areas are previously unexplored areas of Enoch with a small story to accompany each one, featuring characters and events based around the main campaign.
Since launch, and prior to tomorrow’s update the team has also released updates to improve the overall experience, including:
- The opening cinematic can be skipped quicker.
- Console players have new control settings and customization options.
- Players, gear, and skills have been buffed significantly.
- Fully-functioning crossplay is enabled across all platforms.
- Matchmaking has been tweaked where it’s less likely to find an AFK group.
- Kick protecting will avoid players being kicked from groups before claiming Expedition rewards.
- Multiplayer crashes and disconnection issues have been greatly reduced.
- If you were affected by an inventory wipe at any point, your inventory should now be restored.
- An ‘Appreciation Package’ was distributed to players that you can still claim, including a random legendary weapon, a ‘Frustration’ emote, and an amount of titanium resource based on your character’s level. A second package will be distributed with the A New Horizon update, but must be redeemed by November 30th.
Outriders is now available on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Steam, Stadia, Epic, Windows Store, and Gamepass. Crossplay in enabled for all platforms.
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