Outriders: Day One Edition for PS5

Outriders review: Thrilling action makes up for a flat sci-fi story Okay, it’s a bit like Destiny. Though in all fairness, it’s a lot more than that too. The cover-based third-person shooter pulls bits and pieces from a number of its contemporaries, while simultaneously resisting some of the biggest pitfalls of those games. By putting distance between itself and modern live service games, People Can Fly aims to separate the baggage from the valuable loot.

Outriders lacks personality and its edges are rougher than an octagon, but the core combat is just plain fun. Deep character customization, plentiful gear perks, and exciting superpowers all make for a slick shooter that should shine after it gets some much-needed maintenance.

Mass Effect lite
Outriders has grand narrative ambitions, though they don’t quite pay off. The dystopian sci-fi story centers around humanity’s attempt to colonize one of the last livable planets in the galaxy, Enoch. Players control a titular Outrider who awakens from a 31-year cryo-sleep, only to discover that the mission has failed and civil war has broken out among the remaining humans. To make matters worse, there’s a mystical aura called the Anomaly hanging around that’s turning people into superpowered “Altereds.”