Outriders, released in 2021, was a chaotic and messy looter-shooter game. And the new DLC expansion, Outriders Worldslayer, offers more in the same gushing and exploding, uh, vein of play.
As with the first game, your customizable character finds him or herself on Enoch, an unpleasant planet that became the last-ditch home to earthlings who fled a dying Earth. But where the first game ended with a glimmer of hope, this one opens with portends of doom.
The mysterious storm-like phenomenon known as the Anomaly is becoming more unstable and could soon wipe out mankind. That deadly storm has the power to completely cripple technology, turn the laws of physics inside out and turn flesh and bone into so much scattered ash. But for a few rare humans, the storm’s lightning strikes actually imbue them with supernatural powers and abilities, making them the Altered.
There are some power-infused Altered who want the devastating Anomaly to prevail and cement their ascendancy into god-like beings. Commander Ereshkigal—a corpse-like woman with the power of ethereal tentacles—is the leader of one such group.
Gamers, on the other hand, play as a supercharged Altered who are fighting on the side of humanity. They custom-build their characters from one of four different classes—Technomancer, Pyromancer, Trickster, and Devastator—each offering unique powers and skill trees.
The Trickster class, for example, has the ability to manipulate time and seemingly teleport around a battlefield. Other classes offer control over gravity, the ability to cause ground-shaking earthquakes, manipulate fire, magically create enemy-blasting turrets, etc.
The goal then is to battle hundreds of creatures and evil humans while trying to find some way to control or at least hold off the Anomaly’s final storm.
An internet connection is required to play for both single player and co-op modes.
Worldslayer’s environments are graphically impressive and immersive—including icy wastelands, swirling blizzards and thunderstorms that all lend a sense of urgency to the play. The gameplay is fluid and fast paced.
And the game gives players a sense of empowered strength as they’re able to control the elements and fight for human survival against evil foes.
But …
All of that raging battle against evil results in massive amounts of gore, dismemberment, decapitation, and impalement. And that’s just from the various deadly weapons on hand. Because of players’ Altered powers, attacking creatures and humans often explode into flying chunks.
We see characters lifted and tortured by superhuman means. We see scores and scores of corpses either hanging or stacked in some areas. (Players must climb up over a huge mound of hundreds of beheaded corpses that are piled at the bottom of a bloody sacrificial pit, for instance.)
Crude dialogue peppers conversations, including references to past sexual activities. And the language can get very coarse at times as well with uses of f- and s-words and exclamations of “h—,” “b–ch” and “a–hole.” God’s name is misused.
Expansions and sequels of popular games often aim to give fans “more of the same.” And that’s precisely the modus operandi of Outriders Worldslayer. Frenetic action, effusive gore and profane dialogue abound.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
