There just isn't a need for another Anthem. One more Anthem is not what you and your friends desire. Even Bioware and EA would like to move on from Anthem, stop losing money, and forget about it. However, Square Enix believes that it's a good idea to go against the zeitgeist, just as it has so many times in the past. Only a few months after their disastrous experiment with Marvel's Avengers, they propose another live-service game in the hopes that this time it would work.

EDITED on March 5, 2021: Some users objected to our classification of the game as a Live Service title, citing the creators' own admission that the game would not include microtransactions and is completely complete at launch. That is one viewpoint. The trial we played on the PC required us to create a Square Enix account and check in before we could continue; among other things, the game needed constant internet access to save data in the cloud, send micro-updates, and facilitate cooperative matching. Don't you believe that Square Enix servers provided us with a live service? Regarding the developer's (and, therefore, the publisher's) assurance of full content at launch, we believe they are cautiously skeptical about the game's financial potential. It was clearly developed in accordance with the wide definition of the live service idea (free updates, DLC, etc.), but all of it was taken out at a later point in the design process. But don't worry, all of stuff will be included right away if the game "clicks" with the audience.

A game similar to Anthem but without the glitzy flying suits, Outriders was partially influenced by Destiny and Mass Effect: Andromeda. We can declare with confidence that this sci-fi live looter-shooter failed, despite its best efforts to add individuality, based on what we tasted in the free public demo. On paper, it follows all the rules exactly, but that's exactly the issue since the gameplay seems antiquated and the game feels generic. As if it was created in 2008 by a group headed by an accountant who was passionate about the need for internet access, ignored for almost ten years, and then eventually transferred into the contemporary 3D engine when an employee of the firm happened to come across the source code by chance. Though it plays like a worn-out, deformed clone of numerous distinct games, Outriders has a great appearance.

The story brings us to Enoch's orbit, which is the last destination for the lone colony ship that managed to flee the dying Earth. As an elite soldier entrusted with exploring Humanity's new, uncharted habitat, you take on the role of Outrider. A unexpected, inexplicable energy anomaly wipes out your reconnaissance crew after the first landing into the peaceful, scenic valley. Even though you were injured, you made it through the cryosleep.

Even though you slept inside the large landing pod in the center of the comparatively tiny valley, after thirty years, they discovered you like the source code they overlooked. After waking up in a violent dystopia full of faction warfare, your new "friends" decided to have a little fun, leaving you to perish in another anomaly that was rapidly coming from the horizon. Before you could say, "War, war never changes." You made it through that one too, discovering that you now had some very impressive fighting abilities. They rezzed you after you (nearly) died, allowing you to fire fiery bolts now. It is as if, gasp, you have a destiny to fulfill.

Energy anomalies are by definition very faceless enemies, but the colony ship pals you met in the introduction provide a human touch, even if it's polluted with fake angst and dumb caricatures like the Polish guy who keeps saying "Kurwa" whenever anything goes wrong. Naturally, they are now older and all but resigned to their destiny as the leaders of a dying group of survivors engaged in a last-ditch struggle with mutants, or "altered," outside the fence and robbers inside. Now that you've changed, too, and you have the ability to tilt the scales in favor of good because of your enhanced abilities and immortality. Despite being a Polish game, it seems to have practically Texan spiritual origins due to the American Bullshitism creative school that permeates most high-profile shooting games. Square Enix, see, even we can have fun with stereotypes.

The design of Outriders is quite similar to that of Anthem or Destiny. Large quest/vendor hubs and instanced quest zones—which you may do alone or with a group—are the center of everything. After a little loading, you choose a main or side mission, find the exit, and you're there, prepared to kill everything. Outriders seems seamless and devoid of glitches when compared to the catastrophe that was the first Anthem, indicating that Unreal Engine was a better fit for this kind of game. The public demo's content was restricted to the first chapter's few introductory objectives and a few more side missions. We finished everything in three and a half hours, including going through the voluminous lore articles we had discovered along the route.

The biggest issue we had with this early version of the game was how much of the equipment, treasure, and fighting scenes we had already seen. By now, cover-based gunplay, battle spells that change according on the class you choose (there are four starting classes), and the steady stream of improved gear seem a little overwhelming. The game never strives to be even somewhat unique; instead, it chooses to combine elements from other games in an attempt to add something fresh. However, this isn't very valuable, or we can't notice it. We have completed missions that were essentially the same corridor shooter on several maps, requiring us to eliminate waves of enemies in order to get the mini-boss confrontation. Bosses, at least the first ones, are equally unchallenging, and shootouts with non-elite opponents are absurdly simple.

Just one more thing. "World tier selection" is a feature in Outriders that essentially lets you adjust the degree of difficulty of the missions to increase your chances of finding better treasure. We really hope that this isn't a fast route used to "create" the endgame stuff more quickly. It would be far simpler to create multi-phase missions with cunning enemies that need cooperation to defeat rather than scaling up the damage and resistance levels of bosses and mobs, but we are scared that the developers may decide to go that route after shown their lack of creativity so far.

Despite making an effort to include every element that the gaming audience was thought to desire, Square Enix and People Can Fly were only able to produce one massive, wet yawn in the game. When Outriders 1.0 launches in the first week of April, we'll come back for the final evaluation, but our expectations for it essentially (outrode) the wind.