After a rocky few months, co-op shooter Outriders looks to be finally turning the corner with its latest patch. But although the game has reportedly improved in several ways since launch, its player count has taken a drastic nose dive.
The launch for Outriders was something of a roller coaster. After an initial demo was downloaded two million times, Outriders was Square Enix's most successful launch in the company's history, with over 100,000 concurrent players. That launch also saw massive connectivity issues, however, to the point where the servers were shut down completely during launch week to try and fix the issue. Other severe bugs included inventory wipes that erased hard-earned loot and a reduction of armor resistances that resulted in players being taken out in one hit. Since the game's launch, People Can Fly has been rolling out a series of patches aimed at correcting bugs and taking into account player feedback on issues like loot drop rates.
But although the gameplay of Outriders appears to have improved, a recent report from Forbes shows that People Can Fly has an uphill battle ahead of it to regain player interest. According to the article, when Outriders first launched, it had around 125,000 concurrent players on Steam alone. Most recently, it had only 3,000 concurrent players. People Can Fly now faces a dilemma. Outriders is meant to be a flagship IP, one that will hopefully spawn large expansions or sequels. But as can be seen by the numbers, very few people are playing the current version of the game, which is supposed to have corrected many of the flaws from the initial launch. How does People Can Fly attract back players and get them interested in a game they may have left out of frustration during its initial launch?
Why Outriders Needs New Story Content
People Can Fly has stated repeatedly in its marketing that Outriders is not a live-service game. It was meant to be a self-contained story, with no battle passes or microtransactions, no constant updates of new missions. But that's just the sort of content that might be needed to revitalize interest in the game. One of Outriders' flaws is its repetitive gameplay. There are only a handful of enemy types in Outriders, so at a certain point, a player could feel like they've seen everything the game has to offer, even if they haven't finished the main story. While the game may have improved, it might be hard to motivate a player to return to a game whose only new and exciting feature is that it has fewer bugs.
If People Can Fly wants people to experience the patched version of Outriders, it may need to offer something more substantial than an emote or new weapons. It needs a new enemy type or new story content to give players a new reason to come back and see how the game has improved. Without new content, Outriders may need to resort to something like a drastic sale to lower the financial barrier that might stop players from picking up a game that had negative press for so long. While this goes against People Can Fly's vision for the game, a small story content drop might be necessary to attract back players. Gaining the support of the Twitch community could help as well; games like Among Us have exploded in popularity months after their initial release due to streamers taking an interest in the game. However it happens, Outriders likely has a long road ahead of it if it is truly going to be the flagship IP People Can Fly hoped it would be.
Source: Forbes
Outriders is available on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC, and Google Stadia.