The third-person shooter Outriders was initially scheduled to release this December and then it was pushed back to February. Unfortunately, developer People Can Fly weren’t quite ready to commit to this date and made the tough decision to delay the game until April.
That has been a pretty popular trend during 2020 as Covid and other controversies impacted every industry. Developers are also pretty hesitant to deliver an unfinished game after what happened with CD Projekt Red and their highly anticipated Cyberpunk 2077. They clearly weren’t ready to release the game in its current state, especially on the older consoles.
Now that this delay is official, People Can Fly can spend time fine-tuning gameplay as to make Outriders as perfect as it can be. This is a solid strategy that a lot of other developers could take note of.
It’s not all bad news either. Even though Outriders isn’t coming out until April , a demo is coming down the pipe in February. That’s not too far away considering we’re already in the month of January.
It seems to be a pretty detailed demo too, complete with both single-player and multiplayer portions. Additionally, those that try out the Outriders‘ demo will get to check out the four different classes. They’re showing a lot of potential early on.
These include the Devastator, Pyromancer, Technomancer, and the Trickster. Each approaches combat very differently in Outriders, which gives gameplay a lot of variety and helps players have plenty of options as far as how they want to go about shooting enemies and completing challenges.
The co-op and RPG progression also have shown a lot of great potential for this third-person shooter. You’ll be able to drop in with up to two others, taking out threats on the mysterious planet of Enoch that’s now filled with vile creatures.
As you move throughout the main story filled with twists and turns, you’ll get to upgrade your class and choose skill trees wisely. It’s unfortunate that fans have to wait a couple of more months before checking out the competent shooting mechanics, but at least the systems should be more refined in April.
And hopefully for all developers heading into the new year, they’re able to return to some sort of normalcy. There are a lot of great games targeted for this year, and it would be devastating if they don’t end up coming out on the timeframe that developers are hoping for. But if the quality of games comes into question, delays are better than rushing.
