The Outriders demo turned out to be a major hit. Publisher Square Enix revealed this week that the upcoming cooperative RPG's demo hit 2 million downloads in just one week. In an official dev update, Square Enix gave a recap of the Outriders demo's incredibly successful, albeit a little bumpy, launch last Thursday. After a series of delays due to the pandemic, fans are finally closer than ever to seeing Outriders in full.
Outriders is a third-person shooter mixed with some RPG elements. Players create custom characters and choose from four classes, each with their own special abilities. Some skills include manipulating time, sparking seismic activity, and controlling fire, and the game is set for a multiplatform release on April 1 (including for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S). However, eager players can download a free demo, which includes the game's prologue and opening chapter, and all progress made in the demo will carry over to the full game once purchased.
Square Enix shared the exciting download milestone in a dev update on Reddit, stating, "Since demo launch we've closely watched over 2 million players download and battle their way through the war-torn hellscape of Enoch." After thanking players for their support, the publisher provided a recap of the demo's launch. The Outriders demo server experienced connectivity issues due to the speed at which players downloaded the game. Developer People Can Fly quickly responded by scaling up the servers. Now, Square Enix has assured that the developers changed the backend so that these same issues will not occur when Outriders releases in full. The team is also tracking any other problems and providing players with temporary fixes.
The fact that the Outriders demo hit 2 million downloads in one week isn't entirely surprising. In just a few days, the demo pushed the game's pre-order sales to the top ten on Steam. Outriders became the seventh best-selling game on Steam, and it's not even released yet. Beyond that, the demo has given fans an idea of which platform Outriders will best perform on. Tests conducted on the PS5 and Xbox Series X revealed that Outriders performs better on the Sony console, but overall, the game reportedly looks better on the Microsoft console.
Outriders has done very well so far with only a demo, but there's no telling how the full release will be received by fans. The expectations are high for People can Fly, and players just one month away from finding out if Outriders is really worth the pre-release hype.
Outriders will be available for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, and Google Stadia on April 1, 2001.
Source: Square Enix
