If you liked throwing fireballs and teleporting around like a ninja in Outriders last year, then I have some good news: Developer People Can Fly gives you almost every reason to return with its upcoming expansion, Worldslayer. Imperfect as it was, Outriders pretty much hit all the right notes with me when it was launched, but some of that momentum was lost in the midst of the utterly tragic server problems right out of the gate and a story that pretty much fell flat. With Worldslayer, Outriders seems ready for a comeback, and if what I’ve been playing with it so far is any indication, this 2.0 upgrade to the memorable looter shooter may be just what the doctor ordered.
Worldslayer seems laser-focused on making everything about Outriders bigger. New areas of Enoch have opened up, allowing me to cross a whole new set of biomes and kill some unique monsters in the process. New weapons and armor have been added for some warm, new firefighting freshness. Most exciting of all is that some new playoff progression options have been added for those who want to dive deep into build-crafting and play long after the campaign is finished and dusty.
The new places I visited in my time with Worldslayer included a frosty wilderness with giant snow rhinos along with areas that made me an icicle and a rough swamp where an extremely rude fisherman tried to chop my face off with a knife. Clearly, the extra variety of locations and enemies was welcome, but not as much as the new weapons and armor I found along the way, which are now stronger than ever. Some new toy called Apocalypse Items is now falling with a third mod-slot which helped me take my construction to the next level. I found an ice-themed car rifle that revived my enemies health and scaled with my Anomaly Power as well as a set of armor that froze enemies around me when my health was poor. I would have already considered the Outriders’ build-crafting system to be one of the better ones out there, and with Apocalypse Items, it looks to get even better.
“
As you would expect from any salt-worthy expansion, Outriders: Worldslayer also offers a new story – though I can not say I’m convinced it will be enough to draw me into its confusingly strange world. . Maybe it’s because I’ve played too much Destiny, a sci-fi looting shooter that has long suffered from the same affliction, but the vanilla version of Outriders struggled to tell a story while juggling all the exaggerated space magic. So far, Worldslayer does not seem to be getting any closer to solving that problem with a story centered on The Anomaly expanding to Enoch and a prophecy predicting the end of the world. But as Destiny proved: If you succeed in most of the other things, many people will not mind a forgettable story, so maybe it’s not a deal-breaker.
But the highlight for me is that Worldslayer is introducing not one but two new progression systems that will make your Outrider even more badass. Pax Points, which are earned by advancing through the campaign and unlocking new perks that expand the already incredibly extensive skill trees found in the base game. The trickster, for example, has a new Spectral Spike option that adds a 100% chance of inflicting additional damage when you use skills that scale with one’s Anomaly Power – some of these new additions are no joke!
Once you reach the maximum level, you also unlock Ascension Points, which allow you to master your character’s abilities up to 200 times. It’s similar to Diablo 3’s Paragon system, where step-by-step improvements are achieved for those who really want to squeeze every ounce of force into their construction. I did not even get to see this in action, but stretching the playoffs beyond the base campaign could go a long way to keeping me engaged this time. We’ll see if Worldslayer succeeds in doing just that when it drops later this year.