Outriders is a new sci-fi shooter by Square Enix. The game features matches where three players can play at the same time in online coop mode against hordes of enemies, as well as a campaign that builds up the background story of the game.

The first thing that I noticed is how polished everything looks and feels, from the graphics to voice acting. It's clear that a lot of work went into making Outriders look like a high-quality product. Despite the pixelated visuals reminiscent of older games, nothing in Outriders feels outdated. The graphics are sharp and look great on ultra-wide monitors, and the animations are fluid with no lag that I could see.

The controls were also very intuitive and not like those of other games where you have to press different buttons for walking and aiming (this is a pet peeve of mine). In Outriders, you control your character like you would in a traditional shooter.

The music and sound effects did a great job of immersing the player into the game; whenever an enemy came on screen we'd shout "enemies incoming!" and pump our fists in anticipation. I also liked how when enemies got closer to us they'd say things like "you're mine!" and "get them!".

The game also features great character progression, with experience points that can be given to the player's choice of three characteristics. It has a League of Legends-inspired item system where you can equip different weapons and grenades which are found or bought during missions. We played through the beta on easy difficulty but the enemies still felt tough, partly due to how strong they are and also because of their numbers. Missions were short enough that it didn't feel repetitive yet long enough to give you a sense of progress.

Another thing I liked was the different abilities available for each character, which encouraged us to play with all three characters instead of one in particular. A good example of this is the 'rocket jump' which allows you to fly across the map and some weapons that deal a lot of damage but require precise timing to use.

The only criticism I have is that there were a couple of bugs in the beta where it would start lagging during a mission or even crash my whole computer. Outriders is a new game, so I'm happy to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt and expect this will be fixed in the full game.

Overall, Outriders looks like it's going to be an excellent game that all fans of shooters should check out when it releases. The beta was great fun to play with my friends and we can't wait to get our hands on the full release.