If you’ve not played Outriders before, the newest expansion, Worldslayer, is the perfect place to start. Not only can you catch up on what you’ve been missing out on, but the release is a wonderfully polished, upgraded, and fleshed-out version of the game, giving you the best possible experience.
Developers People Can Fly have been hard at work patching and improving Outriders, a looter-shooter with uniquely brutal and bloody combat. The game has lodged itself firmly in its own niche, with the intensity of an FPS and the depth of an RPG.
Outriders Worldslayer is absolutely crammed with newness. New story, new enemies, new weapons, new systems, and new endgame content all come together to form one of the most complete and intricate expansions we’ve seen in years. It’s pretty… expansive. For those of you who are already allied to the Outriders cause, Worldslayer can be downloaded as a large slice of DLC goodness, but for those who are new to the game, now would be the perfect opportunity to pick up the bundle and see what it has to offer.
Here are just five reasons why Worldslayer is a great way to start your Outriders adventure, rather than slogging back through some other, lesser looter-shooters.
An all-new standalone campaign
Outriders slams you right in the middle of a dark and twisted sci-fi world, full of brutality and desperation. This has long been the premise, and with Worldslayer, things only get more intense.
As we’ve come to expect from the game, the storytelling in this new campaign is as detailed and rich as the gameplay itself. As a newcomer, you can still delve into the original story, hacking through the front lines of a hostile planet in pursuit of a mysterious signal, finding your feet in the trenches, and traversing multiple biomes in your quest. If you’ve already played, or you just want to see what all the new content has to offer, you can utilise the character boost and jump straight to Level 30, diving headlong into Worldslayer’s campaign.
During the campaign, your character will come face-to-face with a new kind of foe, the most powerful Altered in the Outriders universe, Ereshkigal. As humanity’s last line of defence, Worldslayer pushes you even further on the offensive, combining a reactive and immersive world with brutal gunplay and violent powers.
Defeat new enemies and discover new environments
Ereshkigal is just the start of your problems with the Altered, as more twisted horrors come to light during the extensive Worldslayers endgame. The ancient ruins of Tarya Gratar are your playground, but you’ll be lucky to come out alive.
Your human brethren have turned against you, rising up in a strangely powerful faction that seems to bow to the command of one of the first Altered. This faction, the Insurgents, won’t be the only enemies hell-bent on your destruction, as new creatures crawl from the planet’s surface. The Shadowbeast is just one of these terrifying enemies, a creature capable of interacting with their environment in mysterious ways, drifting in and out of sight.
The Outriders world gets ever-wider with Worldslayer, with the map unfolding to reveal several new locations such as Driftwater and Glacier’s Edge. A great deal of endgame content will focus around the ruins of Tarya Gratar, a detailed new area with boss arenas and side paths to follow. As for what lurks in this cavernous dungeon – the deeper you go, the more you’ll find out…
Flaunt your new Legendary gear
What is a looter-shooter without some serious loot to shoot? Worldslayer introduces a whole host of new items, weapons, and gear to spice up your combat. Each class will benefit from a selection of shiny new Legendary items, with complete five-piece and three-piece Armour Sets to collect and equip. Not only that, but some of the old Outriders Legendary sets are about to get an overhaul, meaning your Outrider will be spoiled for sartorial choice whichever direction you choose to go in.
Each new Legendary Gear piece introduced in Worldslayer – and indeed every weapon in the game – has its own Mod system, so you can continue to beef up your character as you progress. Legendaries have a minimum of two Mods, one dedicated and one randomised, and Apocalypse Tier weapons have three.
People Can Fly hosted a Legendary Weapons Week back in May that revealed one gun per day. Among those revealed were the Legendary Assault Rifle Deathscape and its Stigmatised Mod, which inflicts Toxic and explodes enemies, dealing damage to anything in a 10m radius, and the Legendary Automatic Sniper Rifle Vortex and Slashing Twister Mod, which unleashes a whirling tornado of destruction. Do any other looter-shooters let you fire an actual tornado out of your gun? Thought not.
Keep it classy with a revamped class system
Outriders is all about class. From the moment you start, you’ll be asked to choose your class from Devastator, Pyromancer, Technomancer, and Trickster. Each of these has eight skills and originally had three sub-classes, but Worldslayer throws all that in the air and adds two more subclasses for every class.
This comes via the PAX tree system, which unlocks as you progress through Worldslayer’s story. This branching menu allows you to fine-tune your Outrider through unlocking specific nodes in the tree. These are reached by completing tasks and the main story quests in the world around you, rather than requiring you to grind pointlessly for hours. It also, crucially, allows you to respec for free should you change your mind at any time.
The new classes and branches are:
- Devastator – Wrecker, Tectonic Shifter
- Pyromancer – Gunblazer, Pyromaniac
- Technomancer – Desolator, Overseer
- Trickster – Spectre, Exploiter
Rise up with new Ascension and Apocalypse Tiers
If your goal in every game you play is always to rise to the top, the new Ascension system introduced in Worldslayer might just catch your eye. This provides a framework through which you can further enhance your character, alongside the usual upgrades of gear and skills. You’ll begin collecting points from slain enemies when you reach Level 30, which can be piled into whichever outlet you see fit.
These categories are Anomaly, Brutality, Endurance, or Prowess, and each will grant your Outrider a unique combination of nifty special enhancements. Once again, all of these points are able to be reassigned for free if you want to try a different build or customise your character afresh.
The old system of Challenge Tiers has also been replaced with Apocalypse Tiers, which will come to impact every aspect of the game. In essence, this new system is a way of fine-tuning the difficulty levels of every part of Outriders, introducing a risk-reward ratio for every move. If you’re feeling invincible, you might even try for special Apocalypse Tier loot drops.
With all this fresh excitement and a number of significant upgrades to quality of life aspects of the game, the launch of Worldslayer is the perfect time to pick up Outriders, as a new or returning player. Pick it up now for PC via Steam, the Epic Games Store, or Windows Store.