Cut-scene Instead of Jump, Outriders Devs Explain Unusual Solution

Developers from People Can Fly decided to explain what is the purpose of numerous animated cut-scenes in Outriders, which drew the attention of some players.

IN A NUTSHELL:

Developers from People Can Fly revealed in an interview what is the point of numerous, seemingly unnecessary animated cut-scenes in Outriders;
It's a solution that allows for synchronizzation of gameplay between several players without confusing them.

One of the things that caught the attention of players who decided to check out the recently-released demo of the Polish looter shooter Outriders is the large number of animated scenes that accompany such activities as opening doors and the like. Some people found them pointless, but it turns out that they play an important role in People Can Fly's game - they allow for synchronization of gameplay between players (via Eurogamer).

The thing is, Outriders doesn't use dedicated servers - instead, in co-op mode the game is hosted on players' computers. When team members get too far apart - for example, one of them opens a door to another location - the game has to make sure they stay in one place (otherwise the team would have to be split up). The developers could simply move the others to the right place, but such a solution would be confusing. So animations were added to hide these teleportations and make it easier to see what was happening.

"It started quite pragmatic, because we needed a system that would help us teleport the players and stream some other content to start to load the other arena. (...) Let's say I'm the person who's triggering the travel, so I want to jump to the other side and start a battle on the opposite side. Let's imagine one of my friends is next to the city, to Rift Town. The second one is travelling along the main path towards the enemies there. I cannot just go there and trigger three different areas, because it will not work in a game without dedicated servers.

Second, if I will just trigger that transition, then the two others will be teleported. Then they will see, okay, where are we? Our idea - maybe it doesn't work exactly as we wanted - but the idea was, okay, show all the players what's happening, that we are jumping on the opposite side. So they see, okay! "Same with the doors. Okay, we are entering that area. Our idea was to explain what's going on. Plus, we just need to gather all the players and not separate them in different areas," said Piotr Nowakowski.

The developer admits that it's not an optimal solution, but in his opinion it's better than the alternative, and we must admit that this argument is not without sense - sudden teleportation of players who were too far from the team was used, for example, in Anthem and it was indeed a very confusing solution.

Outriders will debut on April 1 on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X / S. The game's demo is available on all platforms since February 25.