Square Enix have announced Outriders is “on track to become the company’s next major franchise,” after it achieved over 3.5 million unique players.
As stated in the press release, the internal data after a month since the game’s launch has indicated the 3.5 million players have an average play time of over 30 hours, and “extremely high engagement for co-operative play.” Co-Head of Studio at Square Enix External Studios. Jon Brooke explained how excited he and developer People Can Fly are with the initial success.
“Launching a new game IP is never easy and we remain very grateful for the community’s support and feedback – we continue to listen carefully and want to assure everyone that we are committed to improving and enhancing the experience in the coming weeks and months. We also look forward to expanding on OUTRIDERS in the future.”
The road has certainly been difficult for Outriders. After a few delays, the game’s servers were almost unusable at launch thanks to high-demand. Our own reviewer also struggled to play the game on launch. Square Enix and People Can Fly insisted launch issues would be addressed.
Initial reviews from critics on Metacritic have circled around on 70 out of 100; while user reviews are range from 7 to 5 out of 10 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. Again, the latter may due to the server issues on launch. Metacritic also attempted to stem users who had not played a game from reviewing it with a 36 hour delay. On Steam, the game’s review score is Mixed (63% positive)
Nonetheless, the player count at just shy of 110,000 players a few hours after launch on Steam. Marvel’s Avengers, Square Enix’ much beleaguered other foray into a western developed AAA title, saw an all time high of approximately 31,000 concurrent players (just after the game’s launch).
The game’s success could be attributed to it being available on Xbox Game Pass at launch. As players subscribe to the service for numerous reasons, it means more players may be tempted to play it; having access to the full game.
Outriders is available on Windows PC (via the Epic Games Store, and Steam), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Google Stadia. A playable demo is currently available. You can expect our review soon.
