Console and PC players who planned on enjoying Outriders together must now wait a while longer, as developer People Can Fly disabled crossplay between these platforms for launch due to desynchronization troubles. The co-op shooter launched today, serving as the studio's first major project since its work on Fortnite: Save the World.
Partnering with publisher Square Enix, People Can Fly announced Outriders during E3 2019 as a third-person co-op shooter with RPG elements. Though the reveal and initial details managed to instantly capture the public's attention, the shooter flew under the radar for quite some time. After three delays and a free demo, however, Outriders is now the talk of the town. The free demo on consoles and PC especially won players over with the kinetic gameplay and interesting world-building. Outriders' narrative pulled people in, too, showing that, unlike other shared-world shooters, the story is just as important as the various gameplay systems and mechanics. Unfortunately, the eagerly-anticipated title is already suffering through a fair few growing pains.
A post on the Outriders subreddit from Square Enix makes mention of known issues at launch. One persistent issue People Can Fly to pull crossplay functionality between consoles and PC ahead of the game's release. The team isn't sure when such functionality will go live, but there are developers hard at work on a fix. Square Enix noted that in preparing day one builds, the crew noticed "desynchronization between the PC and console code," which culminates in a "backend mismatch" that boots PC and console players from shared games. "We are treating this issue with the highest priority and we are working on patches that will synchronize all platform code," reads the post in part. In the meantime, PC users via Steam and the Epic Games Store can still play together; similarly, PlayStation and Xbox users should have no problem teaming up.
Outriders launched today and is currently available via Xbox Game Pass. As such, it's shame that not all of its features are ready to go on day one. Setbacks of this nature are now the norm for online-centric experiences, though. But, hopefully, this represents one setback that developers can resolve sometime soon.
The launch of Outriders seems a pretty big start to the rest of the year for Square Enix. As noted by the publisher's Square Enix Presents showcase a few weeks ago, Marvel's Avengers has several major updates on the horizon, Final Fantasy VII Remake will receive a PS5 upgrade and DLC during the summer, and Life is Strange returns with True Colors in September.
Outriders hit PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S platforms today.
Source: Square Enix/Reddit