People Can Fly debuts monthly Outriders broadcast to showcase gameplay

In lieu of a big event like E3 or a big digital showcase, People Can Fly is taking a different approach to revealing details off its upcoming game Outriders. The studio announced Thursday that it’ll be launching a monthly broadcast, similar to a State of Play, that showcases new gameplay, story, and more.

In its first episode, which was also released Thursday, host Lucy Hale leads us in to a discussion of the First City, the customizable UI HUD, and the difficulty system.

Players enter the First City for the first time before going on the big adventure but sometime after the prologue that we got to check out at a preview event in February. It’s the first human colony on the planet Enoch, where the game takes place, but was destroyed by the Anomaly, which is the mysterious force at the center of the story. Humans brought down the ship to the ground as a power source after settling, but the Anomaly caused a nuclear meltdown, which not only wiped out a lot of the life in and around the city, but caused it to become a hotbed for hostile activity.

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In this section of the video, we also got a look at a new type of creature. Previously we had only known about other humanoid enemies, so this should help to break up the gameplay. The ones shown off in the video aren’t too difficult to kill on their own, but come at you in swarms.

The next big highlight is a bit on how players can customize the UI by adding or removing panels in the Settings. You can have it cluttered or as minimal as you want.

After that, the video goes into the difficulty system, which we got a glimpse of at the preview event. It’s called World Tiers, and it’ll ramp up the difficulty with you as you play. The better you do, the higher your World Tier will go. Higher tiers will offer tougher enemies with upgraded stats, but will also net you better rewards. During the preview, we got to experience just the first couple of tiers, but according to the video, they go up to World Tier 14!

If you find the World Tier doesn’t suit your gameplay, you can adjust it at any time. It’ll also scale upwards with the number of players you have in your party (up to three).

The final part of the video showcases one of the four classes — the Trickster. Three classes have been revealed, but one remains a mystery.

The big reveal of this first video is the emphasis on customization. You can customize your HUD, your power set, your character, and more. The skill tree on display looks intriciate, for example, and considering there are four classes to choose from, there are bound to be countless combinations available. There’s also the World Tier system, which scales difficulty in a way we haven’t seen in games in many years. This continues to be an intriguing title.

Outriders is set to release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC during Holiday 2020.