Colonists who are the last survivors from a ravaged Earth. A mysterious alien planet with secrets that probes didn’t pick up. Evil black goop that turns living beings into monsters. Freak storms that sometimes kill things and other times imbue them with powers, alongside visions of the future. A benevolent female character introduced in voiceover who might be good or evil. A future war between two competing factions with trenches and high-contrast Terminator-style lighting and smoke. Trucks that magically break down right when the plot needs them to, then magically work right when the plot needs them to. A sleep in a cryogenic chamber than then time-skips the narrative forward into a whole new situation.
I’m not just listing played-out sci-fi clichés, I’m listing things that happen in the first hour of Outriders, the long-in-development third person loot shooter from Painkiller and Bulletstorm studio People Can Fly. I love both of those other games. Painkiller mashed classic high speed first-person gameplay into a goofy story about angels, demons, and revenge, and Bulletstorm allowed games to be colorful again…before eventually being poisoned with Duke Nukem.
