Outriders requires a constant online connection to work (despite it not having PVP, and there is a looter-shooter of its kind that is entirely playable offline like the Borderlands series). Because of this, you can’t pause the game- the pause screen will see the game world still running in the background.
However, there is one way to pause the game. But it’s only available on PC and for those with a specific range of Nvidia graphics card.
As pointed out by Reddit user Aced-Bread (via PC Gamer), the game can be paused when you press Alt+F2, enabling Nvidia Ansel. Ansel is a photo mode including in some Nvidia-optimised titles, and lets you have free camera control, put in filters and snap screenshots (like the one you see here).
It definitely pauses the game (albeit a few frames after you hit the button macro rather than immediately). The photo mode is pretty robust too, though some in-world UI elements like the red enemy attack radar, grenade explosion timers and AOE rings are not disabled- taking combat screenshots can be tricky, but somewhat possible.
You can check the full list of games with Nvidia Ansel support here (though it seems to be outdated at the time of writing since Outriders isn’t listed). You can see if your PC can enable Ansel from the Nvidia GeForce Experience app (under Settings).
Cannot Enable Nvidia Ansel?
Should you have problems getting Nvidia Ansel to trigger (with prompts like “An error occurred. Please restart the game to use this feature”), there’s one way to fix it.
But first, make sure to go to the Nvidia Overlay (Alt+Z), Settings, Photo Mode/Game Filter and enable it.
Now, if that still doesn’t work, you can do the following:
Go to the Nvidia Control Panel, 3D Settings, highlight the Global Settings Tab, and hit Restore.
Note that it works for us but we can’t guarantee if it’s a proper solution for everyone.