It’s been a week and a half for the loot shooter Outriders, a game with 11 days of missing functionality, problems with the server, and the tumult of the player. The latest wave of problems started Friday afternoon when developer People Can Fly expressed a patch for PC and PlayStation consoles, with an Xbox version coming at a later, indefinite date.
Then, at 6:17 p.m. ET, people can fly said the PlayStation 5 version of the patch would also be coming late. The next morning, that PS5 patch went liveThe patch for Xbox consoles will arrive by noon was livealso, but for a good 24 hours, crossplay only existed between PlayStation 4 and PC players.
That’s a notable departure from how crossplay has worked – or hasn’t – since the launch of OutridersDuring the demo Outriders supported crossplay on all platforms, albeit in beta status. While you could often party without a hitch, juggling players across platforms tended to disconnect and frame rate stutter. Square Enix told Kotaku at that moment Outriders would have a 1.0 release version of [the] crossplay system at launch. “
After Outriders launched, crossplay between PlayStation and Xbox only worked was not functional in between consoles and PC. Of course, when PC players could officially enter the fray this weekend, many console players weren’t. Funny how these things happen.
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Currently crossplay appears to be fully online again. (I am playing Outriders on PS5 and haven’t been able to test it with PC players yet, but I played with a friend on Xbox Series X for several hours last night. We only lost the connection four times.) But other issues remain.
First, there is the matter of inventory wipes. Over the past week and change, players have reported Clear Total Inventory: They logged in, only to find that all their hard-earned weapons and armor had completely disappeared. The patch that went live this weekend claims on “a multiplayer crash that could result in customer inventory being cleared.” And yet, as Luke reported last night, some players still see their supplies disappear in the blink of an eye. (People can fly says, in the case of an inventory, you must “close immediately [your] game ‘and open it again.)
People Can Fly plans a solution in the form of bulk recovery for lost equipment at some point in the future. Unfortunately, the developer has said it would probably only be able to recover gear of an epic (purple) or legendary (yellow) level, sending anything rare (blue) or lower to history’s data bin for good. In addition, some statistics about recovered gear may not be displayed exactly as they were.
And then there are the problems of rebalancingAlthough Outriders is a full player vs environment game – with no public plans for a player vs player mode – People Can Fly has detailed some nerfs. Most notably, the Trickster class received a significant increase in cooldown due to its powerful Twisted Rounds ability. These changes caused a furor, with players taking to social media to describe the choice as “nonsensenonsensedamn nonsensenonsense, ”And other expressions of that nature. (You don’t have to look far to find comments that cross the line. The Outriders team has now been hard at work over the weekend for two weekends in a row. But even if they weren’t, harassment is never warranted.)
As compensation for the misery that players have faced Outriders, the developer also gives a Legendary weapon and some titanium – a premium resource used in the game’s crafting system – to the highest-level character for players who have signed up Outriders Before yesterday. So no, you cannot create six characters and score six Legendary weapons. Don’t get ideas. (People Can Fly has not yet announced a date for this “appreciation gift.”)
It’s a bit of a shame because underneath it all a truly excellent game lives: a powerful shooter with roaring gunfights, a captivating loot chase and some seriously kick-ass powersThe story also grows with you, despite what you may think during the opening moments. Let me put it this way: Outriders is the first game in a long, long time that made me itch to finish the workday so I can start playing. And these issues didn’t seem to get in the way of the game’s success – at least not yet. Outriders is currently the third best-selling game on Steam and the second most popular game on Xbox Game Pass, according to the digital storefronts for both retailers.
The question is of course whether Outriders can maintain momentum despite the extra baggage. Of course, if these issues persist, players will bleed away, frustrated with the game’s arrival, and burned by fixes that don’t actually fix anything. But on the other there is not much else really to play now. And People Can Fly has done the job of yeoman of communicating problems, solutions and timelines to the player base, with at least one update or missive every day since launch. It remains to be seen how long those players will put up with a game that isn’t perfect right now.