Outriders is here, and it’s a hit. After positive buzz from the game’s extensive demo People Can Fly’s loot shooter has hit the ground running, rocketing into Steam’s top ten on launch day. While Outriders is running through the same launch issues that seem to plague all online multiplayer games on day one, it still looks to be publisher Square Enix’s biggest Steam launch ever.
Outriders reached a peak concurrent player count of 111,953 just a couple of hours after launch, as SteamDB shows. Despite the full retail price tag, that’s double the player count that the free demo brought in – that number peaked at 55,351 on February 25. It remains to be seen how much players will want to stick with Outriders in the long term (that’s always the catch for any loot game), but the day one prospects are good.
Less good is the current user review rating for Outriders, which is currently sitting at ‘mixed’. Naturally, a handful of hours really isn’t enough for any deep critiques, and early complaints are focused largely on server issues, which have been preventing players from logging on and sporadically kicking them from games once they’ve gotten in. It’s no surprise for an online game to have trouble at launch, but it’s always disappointing.
Either way, going purely by player count, this is Square Enix’s biggest Steam launch ever. The next-closest appears to be Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, which peaked at 52,485 players when it launched back in 2016. (I’d bring up the Avenger’s comparison, too, but that just seems mean at this point.)
If you’re getting into the game, check out our guides to Outriders classes, Outriders crafting, or Outriders world tiers for a head start – assuming you can log in, anyway.