Outriders guide: How to earn XP and level up fast

Outriders has officially broken ground as the latest game that has players focus on becoming as powerful as possible, as quickly as possible. Being prepared for Outriders' extensive endgame means reaching Level 30 and equipping yourself with the most powerful gear you can find. To reach the pinnacle of Outriders leveling system in the fastest manner, we've put together a comprehensive guide on how to earn XP and level up in Outriders.

Here's what you need to know about earning XP and leveling up fast in Outriders:

How do I earn XP in Outriders?

Like many games, Outriders rewards players with XP, or experience points, for playing the game. XP eventually accumulates to level players up, allowing you to unlock new powerful abilities for your character and invest Class Points in a three-branched skill tree. In Outriders, there are three primary ways to earn XP:

• Complete campaign missions. The central narrative in Outriders isn't always the most interesting, but it is necessary to unlock new missions, areas, tools, and more. It's also one of the best ways to earn XP, as completing campaign missions gives you tons.
• Complete side quests. Alongside campaign missions, Outriders also features a ton of optional side quests. You don't need to touch these side quests to finish the game and progress to the endgame, but it's a great way of earning new powerful gear and lots of XP.
• Defeat enemies. Of course, every enemy you kill in Outriders grants you a small amount of XP, while Elites and bosses will give you even more. This is the least efficient way of earning XP in Outriders, but since everything you do in Outriders usually means battling some baddies, you'll always be slowly earning it.

Of course, the end goal of earning XP in Outriders is to level up and eventually hit max level (Level 30). Here are some tips and tricks for leveling up quickly, so you're more than ready to conquer Expeditions in Outriders' endgame.

How can I level up fast in Outriders?

If you're looking for the best ways to level up in Outriders, you'll first want to ensure you have all the basics of the game down. For that reason, we've compiled the ultimate beginners' guide to Outriders. This will give you the rundown on individual classes, what you need to know to play the game, and more.

Also, as you level up, you'll unlock new abilities for your selected class, as well as Class Points to invest in the class skill tree. Spend your points wisely, and become familiar with all of the Outriders class abilities and skill trees to get the most out of your 30 levels.

Here are the three ways you can approach Outriders to level up as quickly as possible:

Play through the campaign

The first way to level up quickly is relatively obvious: play through the campaign missions. You'll need to finish the story narrative to access Outriders' endgame anyways, and playing campaign missions is a fantastic way to earn large amounts of XP at once. This also has the added side effect of unlocking new tools and abilities for your camp, such as crafting, stores, and more.

The Outriders campaign can become pretty challenging at times, though, especially if you're playing solo. If lowering the World Tier to a lower difficulty isn't an option (or isn't helping), then there are other ways you can earn lots of XP, level up, and hopefully become even more powerful to conquer the next section of the campaign.

Finish every side quest

Outriders has a surprisingly long main campaign for players to run through, but it also features over 50 different side quests spread out over the game's many areas. Playing these side quests not only offers more insight into the Outriders world (and funnily bad writing) but rewards players with decent amounts of XP and nice rewards. There are four different kinds of side quests in Outriders, including:

• Historian. These side quests are available from nearly the beginning of the game and have players explore small areas to discover relics of Earth. This line of side quests is the first players will find, and likely the last they will finish (the last Historian quest is very nearly at the end of the campaign). Rewards tend to be a little mediocre, but the XP is good. There are ten quests in the Historian line.
• Hunts. Unlocked about a quarter of the way through Outriders, the Hunts line of quests has players enter the lairs of massive mutated beasties and take them down. This offers some of the more interesting battles in Outriders, since these mutated monsters are often unique variants of boss-like creatures players will run into throughout the game, and feature unique abilities to boot. Hunts quests reward good quality armor and lots of XP. There are ten quests in the Hunts line.
• Wanted. Finally, the Wanted line of quests is unlocked at the same time as the Hunts line. These quests have players track down and eliminate specific human targets (presumably for committing crimes or being general nuisances). These targets usually have armies of goons and are quite powerful themselves. Caution is advised on these quests, since they can occasionally be quite difficult. Wanted quests reward good quality weapons and lots of XP. There are ten quests in the Wanted line.
• Regular side quests. Finally, there is an assortment of miscellaneous side quests in Outriders. Most of these quests aren't connected to the main narrative or each other in any way (with the notable exception of the Wanderer quests later in the game), and offer a wide variety of rewards and XP. Regular side quests are all over the place, typically strewn in areas you're already exploring for the campaign. There are over 20 regular side quests scattered around Outriders.

If you explore every area you come to in Outriders' campaign and finish every side quest, you're almost guaranteed to hit Level 30 long before you reach the end of the game. Not only does completing side quests help you level up quickly, but it also has a chance of giving you pretty awesome gear. In fact, completing any of the Historian, Hunts, or Wanted lines (all ten quests in the line) for the first time gives you a guaranteed Legendary.

Because of this, it's often a good idea to return to areas you've already been after you've unlocked new side quests and completing them.

Repeat side quests

If the side quests you have available to you aren't enough to level up to the point you want, or you're having trouble progressing through the Outriders campaign, have no fear! While returning to earlier points in Outriders' campaign means giving up your progress from that point onwards in the story, you can repeat any regular side quests you want at any moment. This means another completion reward and even more XP.

This only applies to regular side quests for the most part. Historian, Hunts, and Wanted quests can also be repeated as many times as you want. However, you have to finish the entire line of quests before you can reset. This means going through all ten side quests, and then deciding to "reset" and start over from the beginning. You won't lose any rewards or XP if you do this, though.

During my playthrough of Outriders, I never had to repeat side quests. I quite easily reached the max level in Outriders several areas before the end of the game, and had suitably powerful gear to help me out. However, everyone's playthrough will be a little bit different, and repeating side quests can still help you earn even more powerful gear than you would normally have.

Outriders is available through Xbox Game Pass, making it one of the first high-profile "AAA" games to launch on the service. Not only is it a groundbreaker in this aspect, but it's also one of the best Xbox Game Pass games for fans of the co-op looter shooter genre.