Square Enix and People Can Fly have revealed Outriders Worldslayer, a huge expansion for the 3-player co-op shooter that will release on June 30th 2022.
For existing players of Outriders, Worldslayer brings with it plenty to draw them back in. There’s a new Altered enemy to face – Ereshkigal and his Insurgents – who has a new power for you to contend with. Luckily for you, there’s a higher gear level cap, new gear to earn, new difficulty mode and plenty of new end-game content as well.
However, this is a standalone story, so you don’t need to have played the original release and can dive right in. If you have, then fantastic, you can carry your character forward, but if you’re just starting with Worldslayer, you can create a brand new level 30 Outrider, grab some gear and dive straight in. Enemy level scaling will mean that the original game’s content remains relevant as well.
A key part of the continuing progression system is the new PAX tree. This will be separate to the regular class progression and will grant players new sub-classes to further their style of play. Each node in the PAX tree will be like the big nodes in the original class trees.
Alongside PAX is Ascension, a new kind of experience earnt through battle that is intended for the kind of players who love to grind. All XP earnt after level 30 will go to Ascension, which in turn awards Ascension Points. These can then be spent on different character traits: Brutality, Endurance, Prowess or Anamoly.
Speaking of the grind, the original game’s difficulty tiers have been scrapped in favour of new Apocalypse tiers. These go up to level 40 and will affect the amount of XP you earn, the max level of gear you can carry, and the loot that you receive.
It all builds up to the new end-game activity, the Trial of Tarya Gratar. There’s few details of this, but I’m sure all will be revealed in time.
Outriders Worldslayer will be out on 30th June, and can be bought as a digital expansion for existing players, or a bundle with the original game for newcomers. Think of it a bit like the way that each new year of Destiny content is sold to players, or the expansions for a Monster Hunter game.
Outriders had a bumpy ride at its original launch. Square Enix proudly announced that the game reached 3.5 million unique players in its first month of release, though that player count does not relate directly to sales, as it launched into the subscription service Xbox Game Pass. The game also struggled with severe server issues during that time, and they took a month to restore accidentally deleted items back to player inventories. Thankfully those issues were resolved and Square Enix has clearly backed the game in a major way. Worldslayer is a combined development effort by People Can Fly and Square Enix External Studios, and the fact that it’s getting a major expansion like this is great to see.
Source: Outriders
