Hello, dear readers! We are back with another preview that we were fortunate enough to get our hands on early. This time around it is Outriders – Worldslayer. Admittedly, I have never played the original game, which I will now have to rectify when this expansion comes out, but until then, pardon me a bit with my descriptions and my expectations, as I am not the great Ben Branscum, someone who completely tackled this a year or so ago.
Anyway, let’s get to it.
What you should expect in the new expansion
Worldslayer has a focus on simplicity and substance over variety and ‘new’. This means that you shouldn’t expect this ginormous expansion to replace the original game, rather you should expect an extension of the original game with small additions to up the replay value of the experience. Dedicating yourself to your plan and not scrapping it to appease folks is a tough way to go, but this time around it seems like it was worth it. The devs at People Can Fly seemed to be focused on their intentions to move forward and what they have done is made a good game even better by simply focusing on what players enjoyed. The tiers were the driving point to the enjoyment and their improvements in this area were a waterfall into others.
The term ‘Apocolypse’ was a driving new tier system implemented in the game. That doesn’t just mean the expansion, that also means a new tier for the original game. Not too shabby, and a good reason to go back and play the original game over again. Gamers who pushed through the original release of Outriders have a lot to look forward to with Worldslayer. Before we dig into that, let’s talk about those, like me, who didn’t jump into things originally. The Apocalypse tier is also more accessible to new players. This means that if you have friends who have grinded and got good with leveling, the new players can start off close with their higher-level friends by instantly upgrading to level 30. This allows for a smoother transition into Worldslayer, much like what you would find when Bungie resets Destiny, and allows for new players to jump into a close level with their experienced friends. It’s a good way to get new players attached to Outriders. It’s going to sell me into dedicating time to this game, outside of the fun experience below. Anyway, there’s nothing more annoying than having to grind your way to your friends in a game (that sounded bad, but it’s true). I’m glad People Can Fly adopted this quick transport to match new players with old players.
Continuing the fun with the new tier, the Apocalypse tier replaces all tiers in the game according to the preview we were given. You can change back to the World tier if you want, but initially, the new tier will simply take the place of the World tier once you get going. Having a new and more powerful tier to play within is spectacular. With this new tier, you have more access to Apocalypse legendary gear. You have a better chance at better drops. I know that there were some complaints on our crew about that in the original release, but it seems to be rectified in the new expansion (you can watch the video below to see the legendary I found on the way through the boss).
The Apocalypse Tier also ties in with new and old sets of weapons/armor. You also get a third mod spot added to weapons/armor. It’s nice to not have to chuck old favorites out and discard them, rather keeping them and using what makes you happy can be a great thing, especially if you’re old like me and change sucks. Anyway, trashing weapons/armors in video game expansions, or dumbing down good weapons to make them useless is something that Bungie has done through the years with Destiny (as an avid fan of that game, it’s one of the more disappointing aspects). Instead of going that route, People Can Fly just simply improved what they had with the additional mod. That will certainly make some folks happier.
As for other aspects of Worldslayer, the progression system in the game has added more trees. For every class in the game, you get a new tree. How important is that? It makes your old characters replayable and less maxed out. It also gives you a chance to explore other classes and get more bang from the progression process. The developers, as stated in the preview, wanted to give players more branches to play with as well as more points to use (5pts). It just seems that the intentions were to get players more interested in the game or have them replay it, and this is the correct way to go about it. It would have certainly been easy to scrap the first go around and replace it with new classes and a wholly revised progression system but building upon the groundwork seems like the right way to go. Again, sticking and dedicating yourself to what people are familiar with and then improving the old familiar is the right call, at least in my opinion. For a new player like me, it certainly makes me far more interested in Outriders than previously.
Talk is cheap
While I would love to talk you to death about how the game is and what is involved with Worldslayer, let’s cut right to the chase and enjoy some gameplay. I warn you; I suck at this game and my teammates carried me, but damn it was a fun experience.
Enjoy.
More to come
While we were only allowed a taste of the game, we will certainly dig right into the goods when Worldslayer releases. Until then, we’ll keep you in the loop.
