History VideoGame / Outriders

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Jakub dies to help the Outrider defeat Yagak, only for it to be [[SenselessSacrifice rendered pointless]] since Yagak just gets up and flees after his defeat, free to restart his genocidal plans. The expedition is a complete failure, as not only is there no way to stop the Anomaly, but literally ''the entire planet outside the Valley'' has been rendered a lifeless wasteland. All the Outrider and their few remaining allies can do is buckle down and continue to fight ultimately pointless battles to buy humanity a few more days as the last of the Valley's supplies and manpower slowly depletes. Pretty much the ''only'' positive of the ending is that the man [[GreaterScopeVillain responsible]] for causing Enoch's downfall is killed, and even that's iffy since by the time the Outrider kills him, he's been reduced to a crippled, senile and delusional old man.]]

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:Jakub dies to help the Outrider defeat Yagak, only for it to be [[SenselessSacrifice rendered pointless]] since Yagak just gets up and flees after his defeat, free to restart his genocidal plans. The expedition is a complete failure, as not only is there no way to stop the Anomaly, but literally ''the entire planet outside the Valley'' has been rendered a lifeless wasteland. All the Outrider and their few remaining allies can do is buckle down and continue to fight ultimately pointless battles to buy humanity a few more days as the last of the Valley's supplies and manpower slowly depletes...]]

* AbsurdlyHighLevelCap: [[ZigZaggedTrope Zig-Zagged]]. On the one hand, the level cap of 30 isn't particularly high, and you will likely hit it before you even clear the campaign, even without doing all of the side-content. On the other hand, World Tiers and Challenge Tiers allow you to push the enemy levels higher while allowing you to equip higher-level gear, pushing the game's effective level cap to 50, which will require some serious endgame grinding to achieve.

* LevelScaling: Enemies will always scale with the player, however, the player has a degree fo control over how they scale. World Tiers and Challenge Tiers allow the player to scale enemies to their level, with a modifier that is dependant on that tier they selected. At world Tier 1, enemies will scale to be two levels below the player's level, while at World Tier 15 (the highest World Tier), enemies will be twelve levels ''above'' the player's level, and will drop gear that corresponds to this increase. At Challenge Tier 15, enemies will scale to level 50, and the player will be rewarded with level 50 gear.

* HaveWeMet: [[spoiler: Upon rescuing Jakub from the Hounds in Chapter 1, he doesn't immediately recognise his old friend and asks if he and the protagonist have met before after the latter makes it apparent that they know Jakub. Justified as he hasn't seen them in 31 years and they might be wearing a face-obscuring helmet, the Outrider having been in cryosleep all that time and therefore still looking the same as they did when they first arrived on Enoch. When he finally realises who they are, he's ecstatic about seeing them again after so long.]]

* BoomHeadshot: Not only can heads be reduced to gory smears, there are Challenge tiers for it.

* AGodIAmNot: After the Outrider [[spoiler:kills the Altered cult leader]] in the Divine Intervention subquest, his acolytes immediately start worshiping them instead, to their annoyance. After trying to snap them out of it, the Outrider loses their patience and tells them to "get the fuck out" of there instead.

* FlamethrowerBackfire: The Cremator enemies you encounter in the beginning of Chapter 1 can explode if you hit their flamers' fuel tanks.

On November 16th, 2021, the game received an Update, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJC_zT2Xzkc New Horizons]], which added new Expeditions, a Transmog System, and several quality of life updates (such as a rework to Expeditions that removed the timer). An expansion titled "Worldslayer" was also announced and will release on June 30th, 2022.

On November 16th, 2021, the game received an Update, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJC_zT2Xzkc New Horizons]], which added new Expeditions, a Transmog System, and several quality of life updates (such as a rework to Expeditions that removed the timer). An expansion titled "Worldslayer" was also announced for a 2022 release.

* BreadEggsMilkSquick: One of the loading screen tips reads "Some Altered are able to read minds, most are immortal, and a few urinate sulphuric acid."

** The initial codex unlocks summarize the ApocalypseHow that forced humans to escape Earth and colonize Enoch: tectonic activity destroyed the Earth civilization, and 500000 settlers were put on the colony ship ''Flores'' and sent to Enoch.

* AllForNothing: Channa's dream of [[spoiler: reuniting with the protagonist in a field of flowers turns out to be a vision of a ''picture'' of a field of flowers on a TV screen]].

* AGodAmI: * AGodAmI: As Seth mentions to the protagonist in their second encounter, some of the Altered consider themselves gods, and the Exiles worship them accordingly. The Outrider mocks Seth, telling him he's playing God. Seth immediately [[CurbStompBattle makes quick work]] of him/her, and says, "I am ''not'' playing."

** Lord Seth name-drops [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Moloch]] as this after you defeat Gauss. He claims that Moloch is the most powerful and most evil of the Altered and it's Seth's business to defeat him, while the Protagonist should focus on guiding the ECA. [[spoiler: Subverted in that Moloch stomps Seth and turns out to be the WakeUpCallBoss, but is merely the first major obstacle faced by the Outrider on his journey.]]
** [[spoiler: Monroy, the leader of the ''Caravel'' expedition which arrived on Enoch six years before the ''Flores'']], turns out to be inadvertently responsible for both the Altered and the planet Enoch's current state, but has no role in opposing you in the game itself [[spoiler: being a harmless old man living alone in the wreckage of the ''Caravel'' .]]

** Tricksters heal by killing enemies at short range. They heal less health than other classes, but generate shield charge in the process.

* HumanPopsicle: The protagonist, after Shira shoves them into a cryo-pod in the prologue. They emerge thirty-one years later, right in the middle of a war.

* HumanResources: [[spoiler:The key ingredient for Dr. Surlock's antidote to the highly lethal fungus is fresh human bone marrow, who's been harvesting it from refugees fleeing the ECA-Insurgent war.]]
* HaveWeMet: [[spoiler: Upon rescuing Jakub from the Hounds in Chapter 1, he doesn't immediately recognise his old friend and asks if he and the protagonist have met before after the latter makes it apparent that they know Jakub. Justified as he hasn't seen them in 31 years, the Outrider having been in cryosleep all that time and therefore still looking the same as they did when they first arrived on Enoch. When he finally realises who they are, he's ecstatic about seeing them again after so long.]]
* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: the trailers show a shot of the protagonist getting skewered with a piece of rebar - this happens in the opening of Chapter 1. But don't worry - [[HealingFactor they immediately get better]] thanks to their newfound space magic powers.

* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler: Lt. [=McCain=], whom you can rescue in a side mission after defeating Gauss, is trapped under some rubble and is rescued by the enemy, whom he thanks by shooting him in the back. He ''immediately'' dies right after this.]]

* {{MagiTek}}: In addition to the Technomancer magically summoning heavy armaments like turrets, mortars and rocket launchers, Trickster and Pyromancer have the ability to enhance the ammo for their weapons with anomaly power, either making it incendiary in case of the Pyromancer or massively increasing damage dealt by the Trickster.

* PlayingWithSyringes: An Altered MadScientist known as the Alchemist was tasked by the ECA with research on the Altered, and supplied with a number of prisoners to experiment on. After the ECA backed out, he kept going with the experiments... [[spoiler: Until Moloch killed him and EscapedFromTheLab.]]
* PlotIrrelevantVillain: None of the major antagonists, including the FinalBoss, that the Outrider faces on their journey have any real connection to the Outrider or their party, or anything to do with the events that led to Enoch's current state and the failure of the ''Flores'' expedition. In fact the closest thing the game has to a BigBad is [[spoiler: Monroy, the man responsible for the planet's current state, who is now a harmless old man with no military resources to speak of, who only blames you for arriving late to his supposed rescue. Too bad that your party just had an extended tour of his atrocities and seeing how much of an unrepentant jerk he is, Channa [[BoomHeadshot has enough.]]]]

Outriders is a 2021 Action RPG Looter Shooter developed by People Can Fly and published by Square Enix.

* RealityEnsues: [[spoiler: After rescuing Jakub from the Hounds, he doesn't immediately recognize his savior as the friend he hasn't seen in three decades who looks exactly the same as the day they last saw each other. Because really, who would?]]

* GuideDangIt: There's a fairly important mechanic that the game never tells you about. Your Average Item Level is an actual stat, and confers a rather potent bonus to your max HP and your Anomaly Power. Many players who were unaware of this may find themselves wondering why they feel so underpowered, only to learn about this mechanic and then realize that they had a highly-underleveled piece of gear massively dragging their Average Item Level down.

* AGodAmI: As Seth mentions to the protagonist in their second encounter, some of the Altered consider themselves gods, and the Exiles worship them accordingly. He even asks why the protagonist ''doesn't'' consider themselves a god with their new abilities.

* AGodAmI: The Outrider mocks Seth, telling him he's playing God. Seth immediately [[CurbStompBattle makes quick work]] of him/her, and says, "I am ''not'' playing."

* BlackAndGreyMorality: The war between the ECA and the Insurgents is sort of this, although it's really more 'dark grey and even darker grey'. Both sides have a horrendous history of atrocities and are run by people who range from 'flawed but well-intentioned' to 'sadistic psychopaths', and it's clear that it would be much better for humanity if they could find some way to put their differences aside rather than grinding their species into extinction through selfishness and mutual loathing, but the ECA is incrementally more sympathetic during the time of the story thanks to having a slightly higher proportion of sane long-term thinkers in its ranks, making it slightly better equipped to get the human race out of its present rut. [[spoiler:The independent enclave the protagonists set up at the end contains defectors and refugees from both sides, but the ECA leadership are presently the only ones it has cordial diplomatic relations with.]]

* BlackAndGreyMorality: The war between the ECA and the Insurgents is sort of this, although it's really more 'dark grey and even darker grey'. Both sides have a horrendous history of atrocities and are run by people who range from 'flawed but well-intentioned' to 'sadistic psychopaths', and it's clear that it would be much better for humanity if they could find some way to put their differences aside rather than grinding their species into extinction through selfishness and mutual loathing, but the ECA is incrementally more sympathetic during the time of the story thanks to having a slightly higher proportion of sane long-term thinkers in its ranks, making it slightly better equipped to get the human race out of its present rut.

* BlackAndGreyMorality: The war between the ECA and the Exiles. The Exiles are clearly the bad guys, ruthlessly killing prisoners of war and considering DeadGuyOnDisplay a common decoration (as you pass hundreds of hanged, impaled and crucified corpses as you're carted out of the Exiles' base in the beginning of Chapter 1), the ECA isn't much better, blatantly ignoring the Hounds gang running contraband and killing people right under their noses (with Shira claiming that the contraband improves the soldiers' morale in the beginning of the mission where you save Jakub).