Outriders is an upcoming RPG shooter from Square Enix and People Can Fly, the same developers behind games like Bulletstorm, Gears of War Judgment, and Painkiller. Announced back at E3 2019, we got our first look real look at Outriders earlier this year just ahead of PAX East. Then we were able to go hands-on at the convention itself. To say it impressed is an understatement.
Since then, there have been few new pieces of information about the cross-gen game that will release later this year on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Series X. But most of that info has been shared through the official Outriders Twitter account in short bursts. Today, however, Square and People Can Fly shared the first of what are to be monthly broadcasts centered on Outriders.
While the whole broadcast itself is an action-packed 26 minutes, with the first half or so covering brand-new Pyromancer gameplay from The First City, Enoch’s last bastion of “civilization,” the second half of the video focuses on the Trickster class.
Here’s a shorter 9-minute version of that video centered on the class itself.
The Trickster is one of four classes in Outriders, joining the Pyromancer, the Devastator, and a so-far unannounced class to be revealed at a later, undetermined date.
Generally, Tricksters are built for mobility, for getting into the thick of a battle, disrupting enemies, and quickly getting out. Many of the class’ abilities are focused on shifting space and slowing time, allowing both players and allies to devastate opponents with greater ease or escape entirely, living to fight another day.
The broadcast showed off four of the Trickster’s eight abilities: Temporal Slice, Borrowed Time, Slow Trap, and Hunt the Prey. According to People Can Fly, the other four abilities will be unveiled at a later date.
Temporal Slice sees the Trickster brandish a blazing blue temporal sword that slices through enemies, slowing and paralyzing them. It provides a reasonably large attack arc and supplies a burst of healing. Borrowed Time, on the other hand, actually uses a percentage of the Trickster’s health to create a shield that absorbs damage. It also spawns a diversionary clone that can be used to escape or lure enemies to a certain area.
Slow Trap is precisely what it sounds like: It generates a sizeable slow zone around the player in the form of a blue bubble. Not only are enemies slowed within the zone, but so are bullets, which feasibly makes it an awesome defensive tool. Finally, Hunt the Prey is like an enemy tagging system on steroids in that it allows Tricksters to highlight enemies and teleport to them, slowing the enemy and providing the player a temporary shield.
It was also revealed that abilities can be “hot-swapped” even in combat. However, players will be left vulnerable if they do so during combat, with the demonstration showing that damage can still be taken while in the menu.
Near the end of the broadcast, People Can Fly provided a glimpse at the Trickster’s skill tree. Each class has a sprawling tree like the one shown above, with nodes and branches ending in three different umbrella categories. For the Trickster, these are Master of Space, Harbinger, and Assassin.
Master of Space provides buffs and passive abilities for movement and close-quarters combat, while Harbinger is all about defense, adding buffs to shields and altering the Trickster’s chances of survivability. The Assassin branch focuses on damage.
Skills are acquired by spending class points, and the entire skill tree can be reset at the press of a button. Neatly, nodes from one branch can link into the other, allowing players to create hybrid classes that ultimately link into final abilities in a completely different branch.
Further broadcasts will explore gameplay, lore, and much more. People Can Fly said that moving forward, these broadcasts will be the primary vector by which they will convey important information about Outriders, such as trailers, updates, and other announcements.
Stay tuned to GameSkinny for more on Outriders as we learn it. Oh, and it won’t include microtransactions.
