https://www.geek.com/games/the-complete-package-an-interview-with-the-developers-of-outriders-1818965/?source

Last week, Square-Enix revealed new gameplay footage and details about the upcoming Outriders. Though functionally a looter shooter, this next-gen title distinguishes itself by being a story-centric experience first and foremost. Ignoring the Games-as-a-Service [GAAS] model seen in similar titles, Outriders promises to give players a complete game at launch. People Can Fly have sunk many years into this project. Based on my hands-on time with it, Outriders has the potential to be a massive next-gen success.

While at the Los Angeles-based event where I played the game, I had the chance to chat with Game Director Bartek Kmita and Lead Writer Joshua Rubin. During our discussion, I asked the two about Outriders’ origins and its focus on story and characters. I also delved into character customization, multiplayer, and how the studio plans to handle potential DLC.

What was the inspiration for Outriders? What made you want to create this type of game?

Kmita: I already had the idea for Outriders when I spoke with Epic about it. I told them and my team about it and they said: “Let’s do this.” There isn’t only one thing that inspired it. It came from the games and movies that already inspire me as well as aspects of my life. That’s how it came together.

Rubin: I think we take from everything we’ve seen growing up. There’s a lot of shared inspiration we all kind of dig into. Since we had the opportunity to create an IP from scratch, which is such a rare experience, we wanted to make something that would stand on its own. We wanted to create something new but also something that would hold a mirror up to humanity and the problem that is being human and try to say some weighty things.

You’ve finally shown the game to people. What do you think about their initial reactions?

Kmita: It was scary but it’s super exciting to show people what we’ve been cooking. It’s good to get feedback. We’ve been working on it for so long and objective feedback helps us know if we need to balance the gameplay since it’s such a big and complex title. Fresh eyes with different perspectives tell us what we may have to change and perhaps push things in a different direction so people can enjoy it more.

Rubin: From a story point of view, it’s amazing — watching people respond to your story and getting to wander through as people are playing. This is something you don’t get to do with a movie. You can’t wander through the audience and watch people respond out loud. That’s so cool. You just never know what people are going to bring to the experience so that’s super fascinating to watch.

Would you actually change anything in the narrative based on feedback?

Rubin: So far the reaction has been pretty positive. There’s nothing that would jump out at me that I’d want to change. We did go back in the last half-year and redid a lot of the beginning. With most games, you start at the beginning, get to the end, then go back to the beginning and think: “Oh, that’s what we were trying to do.” Thanks to Square-Enix, we had the opportunity to rethink a lot of the beginning. Now I get to see it and I think it’s some of the best work we did. I’m really excited.

Kmita: We know there are people who will not like some aspects but we won’t change much if anything. We want the game to be like this. Our hero is not a guy in shiny armor or a tough mercenary who had a lot of problems in his life. We are not creating a game about saving princesses. If someone is looking for that kind of experience… sorry.

We have a lot of “looter shooters” these days (The Division, Destiny, Anthem). How is Outriders going to distinguish itself from titles like these?

Kmita: We’re old enough to take inspiration from the original Diablo. For Outriders, development began before those games you mentioned came to the market. But for inspiration, I would say it’s Diablo, not other shooters. As you get deeper into the game, you’ll see how we add RPG elements (like customization) and meld them with a shooter.

Rubin: I think the balance of magic and guns is unique to this game. They’re very much equal, which is incredibly fun to play. Another major element is that it’s so story-forward. This is not a game like Destiny where you can go any direction at once. We’re telling a very powerful, character-driven linear story with an ending that we want to get to and want to blow your mind away with. Not only are there 90 minutes of cutscenes, but there are also an additional two hours of sidequest cutscenes. It’s a very expansive story and a very story-driven world.

That’s good to hear. With games like Destiny or The Division, it can feel like you’re doing random missions that aren’t connected to anything. That’s not the vibe I’m getting with Outriders. The main character actually speaks and emotes.

Kmita: It was important for us to have a character that has a personality. Playing in multiplayer, everyone will see this character as the main hero. The other players will be in the back. This was very important to us. But we’re not open world. This is a linear game that still gives you sidequests and other activities. You can even replay some previous missions.

Rubin: It’s a journey that starts with this f*cked up warzone that people have been trapped in for 30 years fighting over the few scraps that remain. Then it goes way beyond the edge of that into this journey of exploration of the world and the classic journey into the heart of darkness.

A lot of games don’t have anything substantial to say. I’m sure folks will be happy to know there’s more to Outriders than just being a shooter with crazy powers.

Rubin: This is a planet populated with the last refugees from planet Earth. It’s a world where everyone is a refugee and they’re all trying to find a way to survive together and it’s not easy because it’s not easy being human. The hardest thing is trying to see each other as humans. As long as we don’t see each other as human we will always be fighting aliens.

As you said during the presentation, this is not a GAAS title. Was this the mindset from the beginning of development or was it a reaction to all of the GAAS games out the market?

Kmita: We had this story we wanted to tell and we decided [GAAS] wouldn’t work for our game. We wanted to present a complete experience and a complete story. That’s why we’re not doing GAAS. And we don’t like loot boxes so we just said f*ck all that [laughs].

With that said, how do you plan to keep people invested in Outriders long-term if you’re delivering the full experience at launch?

Kmita: When people buy Outriders we want to give them all the endgame content to keep them engaged. If people like the game and want to stay in this world, we will create some additional content. But even now I want people to think of it as a complete product. We are really not thinking about additional content right now. The team wants to focus on developing a lot of content that people can play and replay. We’ll see where it goes.

Let’s talk co-op. One of the problems I have playing co-op games is that it’s difficult to focus on the story when you’re playing with others. Did you do anything to address this?

Kmita: Overall, the story in co-op games is very tricky. Some players will like sharing the experience together. But we are very aware some people will want to skip the cutscenes. Those who miss the cutscenes can go back and experience the story.

Rubin: One of the fun things we do is that when you’re playing with your friends, your character is the main character and your friends are in the background with all of their gear and customization. If they’re playing with you they simultaneously see the same scene with them as the main character and you’re in the background.

Outriders has characters with amazing powers and abilities. How did you balance the different powers so they weren’t too overpowered while still making you feel bad-ass?

Kmita: It was a total nightmare [laughs]. It’s a co-op game you can play online with two or three players. There are different difficulties, skills, items, and skill tree progressions. It’s super hard. That’s why we’re collecting data to see how people play. What we don’t want is bullet sponge enemies that people have to sit and shoot all day. Still, it happens so we’re trying to fix it. Overall, the balance is very complex so we’re working on this. We’re doing a lot of playtests. We’re doing our best to deliver as good a game as possible because we know unbalanced games can destroy the experience.

In the demo there were some enemies like that but it was fine because they at least had a ton of armor on them.

Kmita: They are easy to kill with skills. With guns, it’s not so easy but with skills, you can take them down fast.

What can you tell me about the guns? I noticed some were conventional and some were outlandish.

Kmita: We start with 20th-century weaponry in the beginning but the anomaly changes whatever it touches. It mostly destroys but sometimes it changes things in a good way. There are modifications that can change your playstyle and change your character. We really have a lot of crazy loot, a lot of crazy guns later in the game. It starts with typical guns but the more you progress, the more crazy and twisted weapons become.

What feeling do you want people to walk away with after playing Outriders?

Kmita: It depends on the person. Some will invest more in the story and world so we want them to enjoy this world we’ve created and enjoy the darkness [laughs]. On the other hand, we have fun gameplay that merges different elements in unique ways. After killing enemies we want you to feel powerful and feel that it was fun.

Rubin: Obviously it’s about having a lot of fun playing the game. I also think it’s about creating a world you can get deeply invested in; that there are mysteries in this world that are going to hook you — that you want to keep finding out what happens next. What is that signal out there and what is the anomaly? What the hell happened on this planet and why did it change? Why wasn’t it the planet we thought we were going to? We give you all these mysteries to delve into. And if you play all the way through, you see the resolution of these mysteries. That’s going to be very satisfying but it’s also going to f*ck with your head in ways you can’t imagine.