The developers of Outriders, People Can Fly, have revealed why there is a reliance on cutscenes in the game. Those playing the Outriders demo recently will have experienced lengthy cutscenes between transitions.
The title is one of the newest coming to the looter-shooter genre in the next month. Outriders brings players together in a cooperative third person format, with RPG customization of skills and weapon choice. A large amount of players are in the Outriders demo, but they may have noticed how there seem to be an abundance of cutscenes when moving between areas.
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Creative director Bartek Kmita explains that this mechanic is necessary for transitional moments. It mainly has to do with the fact that when one player travels through, the other allied members needed context. During playtests, those playing the title would become disoriented when they were teleported in these situations. Because of the multiplayer nature of Outriders, People Can Fly were unable to make going into new areas manual.
Since the title does not utilize dedicated servers for cooperative play, there are certain limits. Unlike other genre titles like Destiny 2, players in a group cannot explore different areas of the map at the same time. Each time one travels to a new spot, Outriders has to group them all up again in that location. While the team had other ideas for managing the problem, this solution is the final result and unlikely to change.
With such a noticeable mechanic, it is good to see that the developer is willing to be transparent. Kmita even describes that the team understands it is not the best remedy, but the one they are choosing. With Outriders already a best seller on Steam, fans look be able to get past the prevalent cutscenes . While a different genre, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, utilizes a mechanic for grouping teams together and it is not much of a problem there.
The main problem is that the cutscenes persist even when playing solo. People Can Fly assert that playing alone is completely viable in the game. While this may be true, having to deal with the lengthy cutscenes for every transition could get old fast. It certainly seems like an antiquated solution, and a hard pill to swallow once understanding the reasoning behind it. It is unfortunate that the title does not differentiate between solo and team players for this issue. That said, those trying to reach max level in the demo will likely not have any issue with the transitional cutscenes.
Outriders will release April 1 for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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Source: GameSpot