It was surprisingly easy to get back into Outriders. Though it had been exactly a year since I stopped grinding Expeditions, it only took a second of mental calibration during my Worldslayer demo before I was teleporting around, trapping Perforos in time warps, and dumping mags full of Twisted Rounds into the Altered. Outriders is just as exciting and chaotic as ever in its first major expansion, which seems to offer plenty of incentives to take a trip back to Enoch this June.
Worldslayer has plenty of things you might expect from an expansion pack. A new campaign will take players to yet unseen locations as the anomaly continues to expand, creating new enemy types to face and new bosses to take on. There’s going to be plenty of new armor and weapons to pursue, including gear sets that offer unique bonuses when worn together. The Challenge Tier system has been replaced by Apocalypse Tiers, which increase as you progress up to level 40, and the gear cap increases to level 75. There’s new subclass trees as well. You’ll earn five points throughout the campaign that you can spend to unlock perks across two new trees, which doesn’t seem like much, but People Can Fly assured me that each point spent would have a bigger impact than you might think.
The big surprises in Worldslayer are the things it won’t have. There are no new classes to try out, and none of the classes are receiving new skills either. When I said it was easy to get back into the swing of things, that’s because gameplay and combat hasn’t changed. Character progression comes exclusively through the new subclass trees and a new Ascension skill tree that mirrors Diablo 3’s Paragon Points or Marvel’s Avengers’ Champion System. It’s a nice way to earn incremental progress during endgame, but it’s unlikely to redefine your character. I was hoping to see a major shakeup to build crafting in the expansion, but it looks like gear loadouts will be doing the heavy lifting.
Apocalypse Tiers introduce Apocalypse Gear, which provides a third mod slot, as well as new mods. I didn’t get my hands on any Apocalypse gear during the demo, but it isn’t hard to imagine how powerful three slot weapons will end up being. With so many more levels to progress through the Apocalypse Tiers, Ascension levels to gain, gear sets and Apocalypse Gear to pursue, and whatever Trial of Tarya Gratar is - which People Can Fly wasn’t ready to reveal yet - it’s clear that Outriders’ endgame will be heavily extended in Worldslayer. The base game’s biggest flaw was how underdeveloped the endgame grind was, so I’m hopeful that these new systems, activities, and gear types will hold my attention longer this time.
I could not tell you the name of the villain or any of the major events in the Outriders campaign, despite spending close to 20 hours with it, and I’m not particularly enthusiastic about what I’ve seen in Worldslayer’s campaign so far. What does interest me is the new emphasis on long-term progression and complex gear loadouts. That’s what great looter shooters are all about, and all signs indicate that Outriders is finally getting a worthwhile endgame with this expansion. It’s been a long wait, but I’m excited to find out if Outriders has finally reached its potential.