At their preview event, Square Enix and People Can Fly gave us a chance to gets hands-on with three of the four characters classes for their upcoming shooter RPG Outriders. Of the three, the Trickster felt the most like a traditional damage-dealer. That isn’t to say the class feels basic, far from it actually. The Trickster has near-complete control over the battlefield with a host of time-altering abilities that demolish everything in his path.
In the lengthy demo, we were only able to see the first three of each classes’ eight distinct skills. That said, just those first three skills were enough to get a solid handle on each class. The Trickster’s suite of abilities kicks off with a bang. His first skill is “Temporal Slicing”, which is a slash attack that basically liquefies his opponent’s skin and lets you see their skeleton. Your follow-up attack makes their body explode in a brutal display of blood and guts. The first time it happened, my jaw hit the floor. If this was the first ability I was getting, I could only imagine what would come next.
The Trickster’s second ability “Slow Trap” pops up a bubble around your character. Everything inside that bubble (including your opponent’s bullets) is slowed to crawl. It’s both an effective escape technique and a great way to thin a combat arena in short order. Slow Trap also combos well with several of the other two characters’ skills. The last skill I was able to play around with definitely the most game-changing. “Hunt The Prey” lets you teleport behind any enemy within range and slow them down for a few seconds. You also gain a shield for a few seconds to keep you safe deep in enemy territory. This is an excellent way to set up a killing field for you and your enemies, especially if you combo it with Slow Trap.
The Trickster is a potent force of destruction in Outriders. His ability to flip a combat arena on its head is exhilarating and comboing his slowdown with your co-op partners is so satisfying. And we’ve only seen a small sample of his toolset. I can only imagine the fireworks People Can Fly has in store for us. If you’re a player who loves to manipulate a battlefield and set up devastating combos, you can’t go wrong with the Trickster.
Outriders is coming to PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X this winter. If you want to get some impressions about the other two classes, check out our articles about the Devastator and the Pyromancer. For general impressions of Outriders, give this a look.
The post Outriders — Altering the Space-Time Continuum With the Trickster by Ricky Frech appeared first on DualShockers.