And so, 31 years pass with you and your character none the wiser. Surprise, surprise, your player character is one such lucky duck, though a near-fatal injury forces a cohort of yours to put you back in cryosleep in order to save your life. Whoever gets caught up in its path is brutally torn apart, though there is the ~0.003% who survive and are "Altered" by it, granted near immortality and incredible powers. (And anyone who survives is soon exterminated on Maxwell's orders, to prevent further spread of the disease.) Second, a sudden and cataclysmic storm breaks, a mysterious anomaly that spreads across the surface of Enoch faster than they can outrun it. It's not long before the just-landed Outriders face a pair of extinction-level events: First, a deadly black fungus in the nearby forest kills just about everyone who happens to breathe in the spores. RELATED: The Evolution of the Looter-Shooter: A History of Gaming's Latest Sub-Genre Worse still, Enoch has some terrible secrets to reveal that will absolutely mean the end of the human race. The somewhat unsavory nature of the new Outriders is actually both good and bad: Good, because these rough-and-tumble fighters are necessary for the incredibly hostile world humanity has stumbled into, and bad, because we've also brought the worst that humanity had to offer with us to another world. These Outriders have been cobbled together from various mercenary forces who were hired after the Flores' sister ship, the Caravel, exploded, killing almost all 8,000 Outriders on board. But neither the Outriders team themselves nor Enoch is what it appears to be at first blush.
Flores waits in orbit above Enoch while you and your fellow Outriders, commanded by Sergeant Major Charles Maxell and led by Captain Jack Tanner, set up a base camp for the thousands of colonists waiting in cryosleep. ( Spoiler: It does.) At the start of the game, a colony ship named the S.M.
This team was assembled by the Enoch Colonization Authority (E.C.A.) as humanity's vanguard, a forward force that would protect the colonists from launch to arrival, should anything go wrong along the way. Outriders starts out positively enough: Your protagonist, believe it or not, is a member of the Outriders, a group of specialists hired to be the first boots on the ground of the alien planet dubbed Enoch. (If not, last warning here's where your spoilers start.) Yes, the last vestiges of Earth's human civilization have arrived on Enoch, a habitable alien world, but it's not long before the final hope for humankind is brought to the brink of extinction. If you played the demo or have just started in on Outriders, you've probably made your way through the prologue that this synopsis sets up. As mankind bleeds out in the trenches of Enoch, you’ll create your own Outrider and embark on a journey across the hostile planet. Outriders is a 1-3 player co-op RPG shooter set in an original, dark and desperate sci-fi universe. Mankind might be on the backfoot, but it's up to you to push forward. yet now you're stuck on a hostile planet that considers you prey. RELATED: 'Outriders' Review: Come for the Loot, Stay for the Story, and Embrace the Endgameīut before we take a deep dive into the lore of Outriders, here's the official synopsis to refresh your memory and give you a baseline point of reference:Įnoch was meant to be a fresh start.
I'll break it all down for you below, so this is your chance to bow out of this article now, pick up the game, and play its story, side missions, and endgame, because spoilers follow. Not only is there a lot of content to mine and gear to grind for, there's a rather compelling mystery at the heart of the all-out action exploding on the surface of the alien planet Enoch. If you're a fan of original sci-fi RPGs and/or looter-shooters, you'll want to check out the new, highly anticipated title from Square Enix and People Can Fly sooner than later. Outriders is out now for players everywhere.