People Can Fly announced over Twitter yesterday that its anticipated loot shooter Outriders is being pushed back to April 1.
The post makes it clear the team are aware of the significance of the date and promise that it is not a joke. It’s also clear that they are aware of the potential for dissatisfaction among the fans, which is why they also made another announcement to soften the blow.
“We believe that it’s important that players get to experience a new IP like Outriders before release, so that you can decide for yourselves whether the game is something you wish to pre-order, purchase or play,” the team wrote. “For this reason we’re excited to announce that on February 25 2021 we will be publishing a free game demo, giving everyone the chance to play the first few hours of the game with all four classes – in both single player and co-op – along with seamless migration of your character and progress to the full game.”
The team has promised that the additional time will be spent “fine tuning the game and focusing on delivering a fantastic play experience and launch.”
Outriders will be available on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Google Stadia.
Food For Thought
The team at People Can Fly cannot have missed the circumstances surrounding the launch and subsequent fallout from Cyberpunk 2077. The hope is that they have managed to draw the correct conclusions from that event and are taking steps to avoid it. So far, it looks like they are doing the exact opposite of what CD Projekt RED has done. There doesn’t seem to be any effort to hide performance on last gen consoles. And they’re not only talking about giving people a whole month to make a decision, but seem to be rewarding players for trying things out and getting some of those early activities out of the way without tediously repeating them during the full game.
