Square Enix has revealed that in the first month of release, over 3.5 million players have played Outriders. The RPG-first looter-shooter by People Can Fly is set to “become the company’s next major franchise”, the press release revealed.
The wording of “players” instead of “copies sold” is important, as the game launches on day one on Xbox Game Pass for Xbox console owners. So there is a percentage of that 3.5 million that played it through the subscription service instead of buying a copy.
“With over 3.5 million unique players, average playtimes of over 30 hours and extremely high engagement for co-operative play, we and the amazing team at People Can Fly are so excited with this initial success,” said Jon Brooke, Co-Head of Studio at Square Enix External Studios.
It looks like Square Enix is really happy with how this new IP has turned out for them, and willing to keep it going in the future.
Depending on who you ask, Outriders is balls-to-the-walls fun or an experience not worth your time (we landed on the former as we gushed on our review). We can expect to see the developers, now having sorted its launch window woes, can do more with the franchise in the future. Making combat encounters consistently fun for all classes and builds should be something in the cards, we hope.