The Trickster
Outriders Broadcast
The Trickster is the first class to get the spotlight in the Outriders Broadcast. Each month we can expect a different class to get fleshed out more.
The Trickster is the assassin, rogue-like class in Outriders. It’s extremely mobile and can warp through space and time around the map (using the ability Hunt the Prey) to sneak up on enemies and hit them extremely hard.
There are support-like elements as well to the Trickster too; it’s not just all offense. Its melee ability, Temporal Slice, can briefly slow down enemies, making them vulnerable to easy headshots, and it can summon a massive dome known as a Slow Trap that will slow down enemies and their attacks, creating a bullet-time effect that will allow you and allies to easily dodge bullets and pick off anyone caught in the trap.
There are a total of eight powers and you can mix and match any three at a time. That said, you can swap out abilities whenever you want, even in combat, if you wanted to.
What’s especially neat is the Aura of Time skill which grants you a shield and allows you to create a time clone of yourself. You can then rush out into combat and rack up as much kills as you can and then warp back to where you used the skill and left your time clone to eject yourself back to safety when it gets too hairy. This can obviously be used effectively in tandem with Hunt the Prey.
The broadcast explains how there is no healing via potions or items in Outriders and each class has its own healing mechanic.
For the Trickster, up close and personal kills will quickly regenerate your health, and seems to give the Trickster an almost Doom Guy-like style of play as it will constantly need to be racking up kills to keep their health topped off.
There are three skill trees that you can progress through as you level up: Harbinger, Assassin, and Master of Space. I asked whether these were firm subclasses or just signposts of sorts that guide players to what the skills in each path contain and they confirmed it was the latter.
At a glance, it appears to be very similar to Borderlands where you should be able to max out one tree while still having a few points mixed in other things if you want and you can respec if needed.
The broadcast showed a lot of what the Trickster is capable of but I wanted to know what the weaknesses of the Trickster were. I suspected that it would be similar to other assassins in other games where they hit hard, but can’t take damage nearly as well, and they confirmed that to be generally somewhat true but they stressed that it ultimately comes down to your character’s build.
“It depends on how you build your character. That’s the crucial part of the class system. When you start with the game we are giving you the basics; playing this way is the safe way for this class. But the more you play, and the more you [get] familiar with the systems, you will be changing this class through character skill points, items that are dropped, modifications on the items,” said People Can Fly.
They also added that “you will be building your character and your character will have a weakness.” So essentially, you’re going to have lots of build options and whatever you don’t address through your limited character skill points, will end up being the hole in your game.
That’s our summary and interview, but there’s still more smaller details to mine out from the roughly 30-minute broadcast if you want to go digging for even more. So if you’re following Outriders closely, definitely make sure to give it a watch when you have some time.
Outriders is set to release this year on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC. There will be another Outriders Broadcast next month which will likely drop off another similar amount of information.
