Outriders PS5 Demo First Impressions


Oh boy.... We wrapped up an hour stream of Tridrakious playing the demo of Outriders on PS5 and... Well... It's rough around the edges. We're meer weeks away from the game releasing and the demo shows off some pretty bad issues. Voice acting, in game audio, graphical glitches, textures just never materializing and so many more issues... It's amazing the game got a demo. Usually companies try hide any problems before they release a game to maximize sales. So, I guess kudos to Square Enix for feeling comfortable with the final product enough that issues with the demo aren't damning to them.

Outriders comes from People Can Fly, the studio who also did Bulletstorm, and while their current outing features much more story than the previous title, the gameplay is very much in the same vein. Close your eyes; picture what a game would look like if Destiny and Bulletstorm had a baby. Dude bro dialogue mixed with amazingly fine tuned combat. Outside of the bugs and glitches, my biggest issue is with the voice acting, followed closely by the story with ALOT of potential. Just a little too much gas is being given to it within the first hour of gametime for the story to really catch on. It's rushing through so much plot and trying to get get you through action sequence after action sequence, that no one has time to drum up any true connection for the player.

A glaring concern (which could be due to this simply being a demo) for me is what feels like entire sections of cutscenes or scenarios being skipped. One minute I'm practicing my shooting, next minute I'm exploring for a probe, say a couple sentences and then a completely different plot device is being talked about. As if what I was currently doing served no actual purpose for the story and there wasn't any transitions or segways to the next part. Which really is jarring when characters stumble through a line or their actions are out of pace with the dialogue. Someone got stabbed? I'll wait and react to the surprising stabbing in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... "Oh! Why did you do that!?"

Anywho, the gameplay is great. Definitely worth checking the demo out for that. Just keep your expectations in check for the rest of the game. It'll still be on my radar, but the demo has pushed it away from being a day one purchase... wait for reviews. 

No comments:

Post a Comment