I Turned Outriders into a Cheesy Sci-Fi Movie Starring Leonardo DiCaprio
Or Karl Urban depending on who you ask.
July 28, 2021
Outriders has been out for nearly a month now and it’s genuinely an early favourite of mine in 2021. It’s highly-customisable RPG elements, like Character Creation, combined with it’s superhero-esc abilities make for a very fun gameplay experience. Even after multiple hours of playtime, I still find myself having a great time.

Outriders does have one weak-point though. The story and writing are pretty bad. Luckily for you, I found the perfect way to enjoy Outriders. Here’s how that came to be.

I went into Outriders via my Xbox Series S and Game Pass for console expecting one of two outcomes.

  1. I play the game on my Series S, like it, and decide to purchase it on my PS5 or PC
  2. I play the game on my Series S, don’t like it, and move on not having lost a whole lot.

My Series S isn’t for playing newer games so this was a fair expectation to have. Well to my surprise, neither of those things happened. No, it was when I was greeted with the character creator that I accidentally stumbled across something that would mould my opinion on Outriders. That’s right, before the game even had a chance to start, it hooked me in. While spending way too much time making my character, I somehow picked the right combination of options and *He* was born. Hollywood mega star, Leonardo Dicaprio.

Outriders Character Creation

I spent the next hour laughing at what I’d created. Not even in-game, I was too busy enjoying my tweet I made about the discovery and seeing people’s reactions. After composing myself, I began my playthrough and soon came to a conclusion. The story of Outriders? It’s incredibly generic. It’s honestly closer to a mediocre Sci-Fi action movie than it is contemporary game narrative. The actual game elements are fantastic but it’s more spectacle than substance.

The Michael Bay Transformers movies of the video game world if you will. It was at that point I realised something though. The stars had aligned for me that day. I now had a character that looks like a famous Hollywood actor… starring in a video game that feels like a Hollywood movie. This serendipitous moment brought a smile to my face and I was ready to begin my journey. My journey in transforming Outriders into the cheesiest, craziest & most cliché Sci-Fi movie blockbuster you’ve ever seen.

Leo in Outriders

The Story of Outriders

Taking place in the 21st century, Earth has passed the point of no return. Ruined by humans. With extinction all but confirmed, the governments of Earth band together to form the Enoch Colonisation Authority (ECA). A group dedicated to sending 500-thousand settlers to the Earth-like exoplanet Enoch.

Leonardo Dicaprio is an Outrider, an elite soldier tasked with scouting the planet before the colonists to ensure it’s safe to land. In typical Sci-Fi fashion, it doesn’t go well. The group discovers a deadly fungus that makes some of the group sick as well as a deadly energy storm dubbed “The Anomaly” that destroys electrical equipment exposed to it. The Outriders try to stop the landing of colonists only to be ignored and dubbed as traitors to the ECA.

A firefight ensues as the colonists are called in and poor Leo is wounded badly, cryogenically frozen for 31 years before waking up to a warzone. After being captured by anti-ECA rebels, Leo is hit by “The Anomaly” a second time, transforming him into an “Altered”. A god-like being with access to strange powers via the energy storm.

Leo Outriders Gun Fight

Those strange powers are the class you choose to play as for that character. There are four classes available. Technomancer, Pyromancer, Trickster & Devastator. Each has their own combat specialisations and unique abilities. I spent a while thinking about this decision.

I wanted to pick the class best suited to the Hollywood blockbuster I was crafting. My mind went to Devastator, the most basic looking of the four and the most fitting for a movie. Then I had an epiphany. If I was going to do this, I needed to embrace the chaos.

Trickster was the only choice to make. Time-manipulation? Gravity manipulation? Teleportation? The Trickster had all this and more. The plan had now evolved. I was no longer Leonardo DiCaprio, Sci-Fi Action hero. Now? Now I’d become Leonardo DiCaprio: Space Assassin. Ready to anime-style teleport behind my enemies and destroy them.

Side note: I want to thank People Can Fly who developed Outriders for adding in an option to turn off your helmet in game without losing the armour benefits. This is really an option that needs to be in more games. I’ve just spent an hour making a face. I don’t want to play at a disadvantage for the sake of not having that covered up with a helmet.

Trickster Class Outriders

With his new-found powers, Leo is recruited by some of his surviving ECA comrades and tasked to help them fight off an assault conducted by those rebelling against the ECA over the scarce resources Enoch has to offer. The ECA has a plan to solve this problem though.

One Dr. Zahedi, who somehow still has a working satellite uplink that can connect to The Flores. Zahedi also knows of a faint signal coming from beyond The Anomaly, wanting to track it down to send the signal up to The Flores so the surplus of resources there can be sent down to the surface. Leo decides to accompany Dr. Zahedi, forming a team along the way as they travel across Enoch in hopes of finding their salvation. Across this journey, Outriders makes sure to tick off as many tropes as possible. we have:

 

  • Unique and exotic locations that are visually impressive.
  • Giant alien boss monsters to fight
  • Cool/ likeable characters that die (but with little emotional impact).
  • Two characters who hate each other only for one to sacrifice themselves for the other.
  • An ally who turns on the group because of their ego.
  • A friendly alien who turns out to no be so friendly trying to kill us
  • And most importantly, Sci-Fi’s necessary moral questions about humanity and whether or not we’re the real monsters.
Smoudering Leo Outriders

The dialogue is perhaps the biggest cliché of them all though. From moment one there are endless eye-roll worthy lines uttered by characters. To the point where I think it was deliberate but I can’t entirely be sure. It’s so painfully generic and usually this would be the nail in the coffin for me yet, here I am legitimately recommending this to you as the best way to play Outriders.

I was in stitches the entire time I played this game. Every single cutscene had my laughing and grinning at how dumb and unncanny this is. The cheesy dialogue, the cookie-cutter plot and the fact I was playing as Leonardo Di-God-Damn-Caprio being just the biggest jerk for no reason. It legitimately felt like I was a teenager going to the cinemas with my best friend to watch whatever crappy Sci-Fi movie was being shown. Nostalgia through mediocrity is a weird feeling to have but I couldn’t help but have fun playing Outriders.

I was having so much fun in-fact that I decided that I needed to do literally everything this game threw at me. Every single side-quest needed to be done so I could watch the cutscene and relish in how ridiculous this all was. My personal favourite were the bounty hunter missions where you hunt down wanted individuals.

Fun mini-boss encounters that let you gun down a lot of enemies much like the hunter missions that target Enoch’s wildlife. Unlike the hunter missions though, the bounty hunter missions end with a cutscene that showed Leonardo DiCaprio finishing off the boss. That never got old and I wish there were more of them to do.

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Leo looking confused Outriders

I honestly couldn’t recommend this enough. This is the ultimate way to play Outriders. This took what is by far the weakest element of this game and transformed it into a silly, fun story that’s on par with the amazing gameplay that the title provides. It only enhances the experience too.

I decided to fully dive into the absurdist nature of it all and pick Trickster for my class but it absolutely is not a necessity to do so. Any of the classes will provide the same level of enjoyment as they’re all great to play. It also doesn’t limit your ability to pick your abilities and specialise your character to the way you want it. The only thing this does is enhance the cutscenes.

The rest is entirely up to your creativity and that’s what makes it the best in-my-opinion. Now all we need is an actual Outriders movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. If and when that happens, I’ll be waiting for my royalties.

Conclusion

So there you have it, a showcase in ingenuity to make the most out of the game’s limited story, by enlisting one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

The rest is entirely up to your creativity and that’s what makes it the best in-my-opinion. Now all we need is an actual Outriders movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. If and when that happens, I’ll be waiting for my royalties.

GAMING NEWS & EXCLUSIVE GIVEAWAYS

DELIVERED STRAIGHT TO YOUR INBOX

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